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Welcome back to Business English Pod.
Today's episode is the first in a two-part series that follows job applicant William Chow through his first interview at an international bank.
In this show, you'll learn how to deal with some typical first interview questions.
Along the way, you'll also practice some great new vocabulary and useful phrases.
We'll listen as William gets interviewed for a position in the business development department of the main Hong Kong branch of Mercantile International.
Mike Warner, an HR manager, is conducting the interview.
You'll notice that William's answers are well prepared, using careful language, with detailed descriptions of his achievements.
Obviously, it's important to prepare for important interviews, and William certainly has done his homework.
Before we listen to the dialogue, make a note of these questions and then go to our website at wwwbusinessenglishpodcom to check your answers.
4.
How does William describe his personality?
And five, what does William mean by a participatory and situational leadership style?
Mr. Warner, we'll see you now, Mr. Chow.
Let me show you in.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too, Mr. Barnes.
It's William, right?
Just call me Mike.
Have any trouble finding us?
No, thanks.
But the traffic was bad.
Atrocious, isn't it?
You're right on time, though.
That's good.
Have a seat.
OK, well, shall we get started?
All right.
Let's start off with just a general question about your background.
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
Yes.
Since graduating with honours in economics from the University of Hong Kong, That was in 1996.
I've been working for ten years at First United Trust at the Admiralty branch, first as a loan officer and for the past three years as an assistant branch manager.
Okay.
And what are your main responsibilities at First United?
I've been mainly responsible for handling revolving credit for over a hundred local and expat customers and overseeing a portfolio of 400 million in new short and long-term fixed asset loans for individuals and for small businesses.
Uh-huh, that's great.
Maybe you could also tell me something about the way you manage people.
What's your management style?
Um, let's see.
I'd say my management style is participatory and situational.
By that I mean that my style adapts to what each situation requires, but I always place great emphasis on participation from my team.
As for my personal characteristics, I thrive on challenge.
I work well under pressure, and I would describe myself as detail-oriented and proactive.
Interesting.
Those are always good qualities to bring to the job.
You said that your management style was participatory and situational.
Could you give an example of that?
Let's see.
Let me think about that.
Okay.
We were installing a major client CRM system, which was behind schedule.
I had to enlist and integrate the support of my team to ensure the project was finished on time.
I called a meeting with all seven team members, described the project status and asked for recommendations for getting the project back on schedule.
And you know, several excellent ideas were proposed.
The team decided on the best course of action, and the result was that we successfully delivered the project on time.
This is a good example of my participatory leadership style.
I try to use influence rather than authority to lead.
So, how do you think William is doing so far?
Is he going to get the job?
Okay, now let's go through the dialogue together.
After the receptionist shows William into Mike's office, what happens next?
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too, Mr. Barnes.
It's William, right?
Just call me Mike.
Have any trouble finding us?
No, thanks.
But the traffic was bad.
Atrocious, isn't it?
You're right on time, though.
That's good.
Have a seat.
Okay, well, shall we get started?
Mike is trying to make William feel more comfortable by making small talk.
First, he asks William to call him by his first name.
Then, he asks if William had any trouble finding their office.
Have any trouble finding us? is a typical icebreaker, that is, warm-up question for an interview.
Notice that Mike leaves out the auxiliary verb, did.
Instead of saying, Did you have any trouble? he just says, Have any trouble?
Leaving off the auxiliary verb in this way usually occurs in slightly more informal or casual settings.
So this is a further signal from Mike to William to relax.
What are some other small talk questions that Mike could have asked William?
How's the weather out there today?
Did you catch the game last night between Chelsea and Porto?
Fantastic, wasn't it?
Would you like something to drink before we begin?
A glass of water, perhaps?
As the small talk continues, William says that the traffic was bad and Mike responds Yes, atrocious isn't it?
Atrocious means extremely bad.
Now, what's the first question that Mike asks William?
Let's start off with just a general question about your background.
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
As you know, this is a typical kind of first interview question, one that you're almost always going to hear many times during your career.
It's called an open-ended question because there's no structure given by the interviewer.
Presumably, you could talk about almost anything.
Don't fall into the trap, however, of making a long, rambling reply.
To ramble means to talk at great length with no clear point.
Instead, you should be prepared for this question and have a clear structure in mind for your response, especially when you have to interview in English.
First briefly summarize your current responsibilities, work experience and, if relevant, your education, professional certifications and so on.
Next, you should say something about your management style if you're applying for a management position.
Finally, briefly summarize your personal characteristics with strong, vivid language.
But the whole thing should take you under a minute.
Let's listen to William's response to see how he does.
Yes.
Since graduating with honors in economics from the University of Hong Kong that was in 1996 I've been working for 10 years at First United Trust at the Admiralty Branch, first as a loan officer and for the past three years as an assistant branch manager.
So far, so good.
Since graduating from college, William has worked at the same company.
Note how he uses a specific number 10 years to call attention to this achievement, which is certainly a strong point in his application.
Using specific numbers where possible is called quantifying your achievements.
Next, Mike jumps in to guide William's response.
Okay.
And what are your main responsibilities at First United?
I've been mainly responsible for handling revolving credit for over 100 local and expat customers and overseeing a portfolio of 400 million in new short and long-term fixed asset loans.
Again, William is careful to quantify his achievements.
He is handling revolving credit for over 100 local and expat customers.
Expat is short for expatriate.
This refers to someone who lives and works outside their own country.
Well then, what is revolving credit?
This is a line of credit usually used for operating purposes, changing each month depending on the customer's current cash flow needs.
Credit cards operate on the revolving credit principle.
Notice the verb-noun collocation.
William handles revolving credit.
Studying and using collocations can help make your English sound more natural and more fluent.
What other bank product is William responsible for?
He is overseeing a portfolio of 400 million Hong Kong dollars.
That's another good collocation, to oversee a portfolio.
A portfolio is a group of financial assets.
An asset is anything that is worth money.
The portfolio consists of short and long-term fixed asset loans.
A fixed asset refers to an asset or property that cannot be easily turned into cash, such as a building, a factory, industrial machinery and so on.
So, a fixed asset loan is money that is lent to buy a fixed asset.
The key is that the loan is secured or guaranteed by the fixed asset that you are buying.
If you cannot pay the loan, they take your fixed asset.
What phrase did William use to describe his responsibilities?
He said I'm mainly responsible for.
What are some other ways you can use to describe your responsibilities?
My main duties include overseeing closing the accounts at the end of the month and assisting in budgetary planning.
I'm mainly in charge of coordinating the efforts of the marketing and sales departments to ensure a successful product release.
In addition to my financial responsibilities, I take care of organizing regular interdepartmental review meetings.
So far, William has talked about his work history and his current responsibilities.
What's next?
Mike steps in again.
What's your management style?
Um, let's see.
I'd say my management style is participatory and situational.
By that I mean that my style adapts to what each situation requires, but I always place great emphasis on participation from my team.
Participatory and situational are good vocabulary words.
Both of them are buzzwords, that is, popular terms in management today.
William makes it pretty clear what he means by them, doesn't he?
He says.
By that I mean and I always place great emphasis on Explaining your terms is very important in an interview.
It helps you control the impression your words have.
Let's practice some more ways to clarify your terms.
In my management philosophy, I'm a risk taker.
What I mean by that is that I am willing to try new things and think in new ways.
I definitely think it's good to create a team of people who are self-starters.
What I'm saying is that, as a manager, you should welcome people who are motivated, who have ideas and who work well independently.
Next, William describes some of his personal characteristics.
The last major point we said you should cover when you're asked an open-ended question about your background.
As for my personal characteristics, I thrive on challenge.
I work well under pressure, and I would describe myself as detail-oriented and proactive.
These are some more buzzwords that should go directly into your vocabulary notebook.
For complete definitions of their meanings, you can refer to the review exercises in the study notes, which you'll find by going to the Business English Pod website.
Next, Mike asked William to give a specific example of his management style.
How does William respond?
Let's see.
Let me think about that.
Okay.
We were installing a major client CRM system, which was behind schedule.
Notice how William says let's see, let me think about that, to give himself some time to think about an answer.
Giving yourself time to think is important in an interview where you have to speak off the cuff that is, without a script and think on your feet.
That is very quickly.
What are some more types of phrases that you can use to buy yourself some time?
That's a good question.
Just bear with me for a second.
Great question.
Give me a second to think about that.
Alright.
Uh-huh.
So you're asking about a time when I had to deal with conflict.
Is that right?
Interesting question.
Well, let me see.
In the example William chooses to give of his participatory management style, he discusses a time when he was installing a major CRM system.
What does CRM stand for?
Customer Relationship Management.
This refers to all aspects of interaction a company has with a customer, whether sales or service-related.
A CRM system usually involves special methods, software and usually the Internet to help manage customer relationships in an organized way.
Williams says that the project was behind schedule.
How does he say he dealt with that problem?
He had to enlist and integrate the support of his team.
Enlist literally means to recruit into the army.
But here, it describes engaging the help of his team.
To integrate means to bring together several things and blend them into one.
This is a very strong verb that emphasizes William's participatory management style.
Finally, listen again to how William finishes up his story.
This is a good example of my participatory leadership style.
I try to use influence rather than authority to lead.
Summarizing your response to an interview question gives a strong impression of structure and orderliness of thought.
This is an excellent technique to practice.
What are some other ways to summarize your ideas?
In a nutshell, I think this story really illustrates my strong ability to prioritize tasks.
In one word, taking the initiative has led me to success again and again in my career, as I think this story illustrates.
To sum up, much more important than how you deal with easy jobs and harmony is how you manage challenges and conflict.
My experience demonstrates a proven track record in coping with challenges and resolving conflict.
Make sure to take note of the many good collocations here.
Illustrates my ability taking the initiative managing conflict demonstrates a proven track record resolving conflict.
Great.
That's just about all for today's episode.
You've practiced how to respond to a common type of interview question.
You've learned some useful phrases for defining your terms, giving yourself time to think and summarizing your experience.
In addition, you've covered a lot of great vocabulary for describing your personal characteristics.
Be sure to visit our website at wwwbusinessenglishpodcom to take a look at the learner's notes for this and other episodes.
We'll see you again for the second episode in this two-part series on first interviews.
In part two you'll learn more useful language and practice dealing with other types of common questions.
In the meantime, stay well and take care.
Thanks for listening.
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