Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 54 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I'm in a really busy period of my life again because I'm actually gonna move this week again.
I know that you probably remember from some episodes ago that I moved last year, less than a year ago, but now I'm moving again.
And so, of course, everything is pretty hectic right now.
In English, the word hectic just means chaotic or disorganized.
So everything is hectic right now, but I'm trying to record some episodes in advance so that I can release them and still stay on schedule and keep on working.
And I have some other good news.
I'm planning on starting to do weekly episodes again.
Recently I've just been doing bi-weekly episodes.
This means one episode every two weeks.
That's what I've been doing recently, but I'm gonna try to do a weekly episode from here on out.
I might not be able to sustain this rhythm forever, but I'm gonna try to switch back to weekly episodes.
So I hope that it will be useful for you all to have a new episode every week.
And hopefully you guys appreciate that and you guys want more listening time episodes.
So hopefully after this episode, the next one will be released in one week.
So I'm happy about that.
Of course, this means that I need to do more work.
I need to record more.
But I think that I can do it.
And so I'm sure that'll be good news for most of you.
And remember that you can become a Listening Time member, super member or family member at patreoncom slash listeningtime.
The link is below this episode in the episode description.
If you need my specialized training on improving your listening and also on improving your pronunciation, this membership will be very helpful for you.
So if you can understand me but you still can't understand other native speakers, then I know that my training will be extremely helpful for you and will help you understand the sound system of English.
That Thank you.
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So if you become a Listening Time family member, you get access to my advanced episodes, and this is what's going to help you reach an advanced listening level.
Okay, so make sure to join today.
All right, so in today's episode, I'm going to talk about job interviews.
This is a topic that has been widely requested.
When I say that it's been widely requested, this just means that many people have requested this topic.
So it's been widely requested.
A lot of you want to hear a podcast episode about job interviews, so I decided to do one.
This isn't my field of expertise, but I thought that it would still be useful for you to hear me talk about job interviews and give a few tips from my perspective.
And at the end of the episode, I'll also give you some helpful phrases that you can use during job interviews.
So make sure to listen to the very end, because I'm Remember that you have the transcript for this episode below this episode in the episode description.
So click on that link if you need it.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so first of all, let me talk about my experience with job interviews.
So I haven't had many interviews in my life.
I've had a few in the US and a few in Mexico.
The ones that I did in the US were for part-time jobs.
So I was just looking for jobs that I could do while I was studying in high school or in college.
And I think I just had one interview for a full-time job.
But I wasn't that interested in the job and I didn't really prepare much for that interview.
So that wasn't a big disappointment when I didn't get that job.
But I think I did pretty well on the interviews that I did for part-time jobs.
But like I said, I haven't done many interviews.
And in Mexico, I did a few interviews for teaching jobs in different schools.
And so I did that when I first came to Mexico.
But in the last six years or so, maybe five and a half years...
I haven't had any job interviews, so it's been a long time since I've done one.
However, I often help students prepare for job interviews that they have to do in English.
So I have a lot of experience preparing students at least with the English element of their job interviews.
So let me just give a few tips that I have about job interviews.
Remember that I'm not an expert.
If you really want intense interview training, then you should probably go to an expert.
But I can give a few of my thoughts as an English teacher, some tips that might help you out.
So the first one is to have good structure with your answers.
OK, this is very important in my opinion.
So when I train students for their job interviews, the number one problem that I see is that their answers are hard to follow and they're disorganized.
So when I say that something is hard to follow, this just means that I have trouble understanding the logic or the structure of it.
So their answers are often hard to follow.
And this is because they don't have good structure.
They don't organize their answers in a logical way.
In the US.
We write a lot of essays in school, and these essays have a very logical structure to them.
If you don't know what an essay is, this is a paper that you write in school, usually about a certain topic.
That has maybe five paragraphs or maybe a lot more than that, but this is an essay.
So I wrote a lot of essays in school.
And like I said, these essays have a very logical structure that we're supposed to follow.
This structure can also be applied to interviews and it can really help to organize your answers.
So I wrote a lot of essays in school.
And in an essay you're supposed to have an introduction paragraph, a few body paragraphs with your main points and a concluding paragraph that summarizes your main points.
So this is the structure of an essay, essays that we write in the U.S.
And you can apply a similar structure to your interview answers.
So the way that you can do this is to first restate the question, right?
You restate the question that the interviewer asks you in different words, and then you go over your main points and then you restate the question again.
So, for example, if the question is, what are your biggest strengths?
My answer could be, my biggest strengths are... You see how I restated the question?
Or I could say, my three greatest strengths are... And then I can list one, two, and three...
And then give my evidence for each one.
Right.
You want to make sure that you say each main point and then you give evidence and examples of each one to prove that you have each of those strengths.
And then at the end of your final point, then you restate the question again.
You say, and so these are my three greatest strengths.
You see that you had an introductory sentence where you restated the question.
And then you had a few main points.
And then you restated the question at the end to summarize your answer.
So this is a very logical structure.
It's very easy to follow.
And if you use this structure, your answers are going to sound organized.
Even if you don't have the best answer in the world, you'll have a very clear answer.
And this is going to help you and it's going to make you look better in the eyes of the interviewer.
OK, so it sounds much better when you have a logical order, a logical structure to your answers.
So this is my first piece of advice.
My next piece of advice is to try to stand out.
When I say stand out, what I'm saying is you try to make yourself look different or special when compared to the other candidates who are applying for this same position.
OK, another problem that I see a lot when I'm training my students is they give boring answers, as they're giving their answer to my interview question.
I kind of lose interest as they're talking.
There's nothing special about what they're saying.
And it sounds like an answer that anyone could give.
And so this is not good, because if you don't stand out, if your answer is a little bit boring, then the interviewer probably isn't going to remember you.
The interviewer is going to remember you, the other person, the other candidate, who was more interesting, who gave a more interesting answer.
So I'm not saying that you have to be the most interesting person in the world when you're talking, but what I am saying is that you want to distinguish yourself.
What I mean by this is that you want to give some information or talk in a way that makes the person remember you as an individual.
So, for example, they often ask the question, what separates you from other candidates?
And a lot of times when I ask my students this question, they give me an answer that sounds like something any of the candidates could say.
They talk about their experience in the field, for example, or they talk about how much they like this field of work.
And that's something that any candidate could say.
That's not something that distinguishes you from the other people, right?
You want to highlight things that are different about you, things that are unique to you.
When I say highlight something, I'm saying that you emphasize it.
You really try to draw someone's attention to it.
So I think that it's important to highlight your achievements.
Highlight what you've done.
Highlight what you've accomplished in your career or in your life.
And don't be afraid to show off a little bit.
In English, when we say show off...
We mean that you talk about your skills or your accomplishments or things like that, so that other people can see how well you've done.
So don't be afraid to show off a little bit.
Not too much, but just a little bit.
You want to show the interviewer what you've done.
You want to show the good things that you've achieved.
So one of my students has been preparing for interviews recently and he's achieved a lot of success in his career and he's done a lot of interesting things and he's solved some difficult problems in his work and so I can see that he's done a lot of good stuff.
But when he gives his answers he doesn't really highlight these achievements so they don't really stand out.
I don't really feel the weight of his achievements.
I'm talking about the importance of something.
I don't really get the importance of his achievements because he doesn't really highlight them.
He just talks about them in a normal way, just telling a normal story, and he doesn't really emphasize how well he did on one task or one project or something like that.
So my second piece of advice for you is to try to stand out, show your achievements, show how you're unique and help the interviewer remember who you are.
He'll remember, oh, that's the guy that solved this really difficult issue in his last job.
Or that's the guy who has this really interesting experience that the other candidates don't have.
Right, help him remember who you are.
Make sure to stand out, okay.
My third piece of advice is about non-verbal communication.
When i say non-verbal communication, i'm talking about the way that you communicate besides speaking okay so, for example, your body language.
This is really important When you're interviewing, especially with an American interviewer.
It's really important to smile and be friendly.
Okay, this is really important in our culture.
In settings where you're talking to someone who you just met or you're interviewing, it's really important to look friendly and to make the other person feel like you're being friendly to them okay.
So this is something that you can practice with in preparing for your interviews.
Practice smiling and having a body language that shows that you're comfortable and that you're engaged, and don't look too rigid and stiff.
In English, when we say rigid or stiff, this just means that your body is not moving at all and it's very tight and it looks like you're very tense, or So you don't want to look like that.
You want to look like you're comfortable.
You want to look like you're happy to be there.
You want to look like you're interested in what the interviewer is saying.
So all of these things are very important, right?
We really value these things when we're talking to people.
We want to feel that good energy, that good vibe from the other person.
Okay, so that's really important.
And also your tone of voice.
Okay, so how you speak, you don't want to speak with a monotone voice.
A monotone voice is where you don't go high or low with your voice, you just speak in the same exact tone and there's no music to your words.
So we don't want to speak like that.
You want to go up and down and up and down when you're speaking and you want to speak naturally and not like you're reading a script.
And that's another really important point.
Don't read your answers.
I know that many people do interviews remotely nowadays where you just connect via video call.
And so some interview candidates might think that they can just pull up a document on their screen and read their answers that they've prepared.
But let me tell you that it's extremely obvious when someone is reading their answer, okay?
Especially if you're doing it in a language that isn't your own language.
So if you're interviewing in English and you try to read your answer, I can tell within five seconds that you're reading okay.
I've had this happen with students where they don't realize that I can instantly identify that they're reading an answer to me.
But it's really obvious, it's distracting, and it doesn't feel real.
So do not read your answers.
Try to memorize the main points of your answer and then recall that information and talk naturally about it.
Do not read your answers.
Okay, so lastly, I want to give you some useful phrases that you can use during your interviews.
These are phrases that come up a lot.
In English, when I say come up, in this context, I mean that it appears.
So these phrases appear a lot in answers, so it's important to learn how to say them correctly.
So here's the first one.
You can say I earned my degree in, and then you say the subject, and then you say from, and then you say the name of the university.
So for example, I earned my degree in English and writing from Southern Oregon University.
Okay.
So that's how you talk about your education.
Obviously, you can specify what type of degree it is, a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, etc.
So, when talking about your experience in a certain field, this is how you can structure that sentence.
So you can say, I have, and then the number, and then years experience, and then an ing verb.
For example, I have three years experience working in education.
Or I have five years experience working in accounting.
Do you see that structure?
Or if you don't have a verb at the end, if you just want to use a noun, it would be like this.
I have three years experience in the accounting field.
OK, so that's another way you can structure this sentence.
Here's another one.
When you talk about wanting to to grow in your career, make sure that you don't say grow up.
I hear students say this all the time.
OK, if you're talking about growing in your career, we do not use the phrasal verb grow up.
Grow up is only used to talk about a child becoming an adult.
OK, so in this context of your career, we use the phrasal verb move up.
So we would say this.
I want to move up in my career.
OK, so you could also just say grow, but it's more common to say move up.
I want to move up in my career.
You can say there's no more room for growth in my company.
OK.
This just means that you can't move up anymore in your company.
And that's why you're looking for a new job.
You can say there's no more room for growth here or in this company.
Okay.
And the next one when you're talking about where you see yourself in five years or in 10 years.
This is the structure that you can use.
In five years, I see myself.
And then you use an ing verb.
So for example, in five years, I see myself managing a team of people.
Or in 10 years, I see myself taking on new responsibilities.
OK, so that's a structure you can use when they ask you the question where do you see yourself in five years or 10 years?
OK, here's one more phrase.
So when you're rephrasing the question at the end of your answer, like I talked about before, at the end you want to restate the question.
When you do that, this is the phrase you can use.
We say, so that's why blah, blah, blah.
So if the question is, why do you want to work for our company?
You would give your answer.
And then at the end of your answer, you would use this phrase.
So that's why I want to work for this company.
Does that make sense?
This is how we restate the question at the end of our answer.
This is really important because it signals to the interviewer that you're done with your answer, that you're finished okay.
It really helps the interview move forward and it helps your answer sound very organized, okay?
All right, we'll stop there for today.
I hope this episode was interesting for you and useful for you.
Remember to become a Listening Time member.
You can click on the link in the description below this episode and you'll get my specialized training, my seminars, my training videos.
You'll get my advanced podcast episodes if you become a Listening Time family member.
And of course, you get bonus episodes every month.
And also remember that you have the transcript available also in the episode description.
Just click on that if you need it.
And remember that I'm going to start doing weekly podcast episodes now.
So the next episode should be just one week from this episode.
So very exciting.
All right.
Well, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time.
