Hello and welcome to Learning English for Work from BBC Learning English.
I'm Pippa. And I'm Phil.
This is our special series all about getting a job in English.
In each episode, we talk about a different step in the job application process and learn some useful vocabulary along the way.
Today, the interview's over and we've done all we can.
It's time to talk about accepting a job offer or, if you're unsuccessful, how to ask for feedback.
You can find a transcript for this episode to read along on our website, bbclearningenglish .com.
So, today's episode is about how to communicate with an employer after the interview is over.
Yeah, and this can sometimes be a really bad part, can't it?
Because maybe the interview didn't go that well and you're worrying about, I don't know, something you said or anything.
but until you hear something you don't really know it could be good it could be bad and sometimes it takes a lot longer than you think it's going to take as well.
Yeah so communication after an interview often is by email so it can be quite slow and you might be really nervous or stressed during the waiting but you need to keep your communication calm and professional I guess even if you're feeling really frustrated you haven't heard back you can't kind of show
that in your communication you've got to stay polite yes yeah definitely in each episode of this series we've been hearing from amy evans who works in recruitment for the bbc world service and amy says the most important thing as we said is to keep your communication polite feel free to you know email
them and just have a sort of polite formal email that says can i just ask and following up what the outcome of the interview is okay let's say we've got the job what are the next steps obviously if you're happy to accept then you can just get straight back and say yes i'm very happy to accept if you
feel you would like to negotiate salary or if you have any questions you can say that you would like to negotiate the salary or the terms ask who the best person to speak to is to negotiate that.
Negotiations can be tricky and will depend on your country and context.
We actually made an episode all about negotiations in our series Office English, so have a listen to get more on the specifics.
But Amy says that the key thing with negotiating a salary is to be clear about what you're asking for.
If they've offered you one salary and you have another salary in mind, say what the other salary is and your reasoning for it and then just allow them a bit of time to kind of go away because there's probably you know a few people involved in having to make decisions about salaries or start dates.
Of course there's a possibility that even if the interview went well that we don't get the job.
This can be tough but Amy says it's a good opportunity to try and improve.
I would always encourage people to ask for feedback so if it's not mentioned when you're sent a sort of turn down or rejection letter then absolutely feel free to reply and just say please can I have some feedback on the interview and as we've said over and over make sure you stay polite in your communications
even if you're disappointed as the person that you're talking to might have useful feedback that you can use next time someone would hopefully be able to kind of go through and say these were your strong your strengths and your strong points but however on this occasion we just didn't feel as though
you answered this bit you know with what we were looking for and then that helps you sort of prepare for the next interview.
I suppose you might find yourself applying for another job in that company in a few months time and you don't want to have annoyed the person who's in charge of the interviews.
Yeah and especially at big companies there's usually quite a lot of people involved in the decision about who to hire and your salary and start date.
So it can take time to decide and it requires lots of people.
And the person that you're speaking to might not be the person making the decision.
So you've got to be polite to them.
Just try and speak to the person you've been in contact with from the start to get your answers.
Yeah, I really like that thing where Amy said that if you don't get the job, do ask for feedback.
It can be so difficult to know why you didn't get a job or what you're doing wrong, particularly if you haven't had many interviews.
So that feedback is so valuable if you apply for a similar job again in the future.
Yeah, and sometimes the reason that you weren't hired, it might just be beyond your control, but they might be able to give you feedback on your interview performance.
And then you can use that to improve next time.
They might say, oh, we didn't think you had enough examples of a certain skill.
So you can then think about, do you have more that you could talk about next time?
often it might just be because the other person was better but that can be useful because it means if you see the same job come up again in a few months time you know it's worth applying because if they like you but they just chose someone else that means they'll probably like you again.
Okay that's it for this episode next time we'll be talking about your first day in a new job and how to make a good impression.
Remember there are more programmes to help you with your English at work on our website bbclearningenglish .com.
Bye for now. Bye. Thanks for listening to Learning English for Work.
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