From BBC Learning English, this is Learning English for Work and welcome to our special series all about job applications.
I'm Phil. And I'm Pippa.
In this series, we're talking about applying for a new job in English.
Listen to the series so far to learn about every step of the journey.
Today, we're talking about researching and preparing for a job interview and what you can do to get ready.
You can find a transcript for this episode to read along with on our website.
That's bbclearningenglish .com.
So, it's a great feeling to be invited for a job interview, but it can also be really stressful, especially if you're going to have to do the interview in your second language.
But it's also stressful for native speakers, right, Phil?
Oh yes, definitely.
There's always this feeling of pressure that you might say the wrong thing and ruin your chances it's probably very unlikely that that will happen but it can be in the back of your mind as you're getting ready yeah it's an intense situation and people usually aren't used to that kind of situation so i
think everybody gets nervous there's lots of focus on the interview itself but there's lots that you can do to prepare and we're going to be talking about preparing for an interview today do you have any rituals for preparing for an interview bill um i always try to work out what questions they could ask
me and try and come up with like answers that i can have ready in my mind to come up with so i do a lot of practice with that and then the other thing is i just get there really really early but that probably doesn't help with nerves yes it's sitting there for an hour waiting getting more and more stress
but yeah getting there early is a good idea.
Throughout this series we're speaking to Amy Evans who works in recruitment for the BBC World Service about how to approach each stage of a job application and Amy says you should start your preparations by getting as much information as possible about the interview.
It's always helpful to look up who's on the panel so you can have an idea of what they do in the company and just so that you feel familiar with who you're going to be meeting on the day.
I think you can ask about the format of the interview as well and check what sort of interview they're going to be doing, if there's anything that you need to prepare in advance.
It can be reassuring to know a bit more about who you'll be speaking to and what kind of questions might be asked.
And if you can't find out this information, as you said, Phil, you can think about what questions are likely to come up.
Yes, and then you can think ahead of the interview about some examples to speak about and amy says don't just practice on paper or in your head practice speaking either you know if you've got a friend or family member or colleague that could you could practice and role play with or if you don't have that even
just sort of standing in front of a mirror and just practice saying them so that when you come to the interview and you're asked a question even if it's not the exact question you were thinking of if it's something quite similar in your head you're going to know with confidence that you can answer that and you
can go yep i've got an example for that and you can sort of go into it with ease and not having to panic too much in the situation now phil i'm often quite worried about practicing too much for an interview or sounding like a robot like i've memorized an answer what do you think about that well yeah
that is important it's a tricky balance you need to sound natural i think You want to practice enough so that you feel confident knowing your skills and experience to talk about in the interview.
You don't want to sort of practice so much that you almost fill your head with too many examples so that you get a bit confused on the day.
And you want to as much as possible kind of try and come across as sort of relaxed and confident rather than giving quite sort of rigid over rehearsed answers.
Okay so practice is important but you shouldn't write a script.
Yeah and perhaps a good tip here is to talk about the examples so that you're confident and then you can pick the right example in the interview and then it should sound more natural.
Yeah so I guess don't practice a full answer with exact sentences but practice talking about time that you did something and then you'll be ready to kind of fit that to whatever question they ask.
Yeah and you can bring notes to an interview but just don't read off them like a script.
Yeah I guess the most important thing is to feel comfortable and confident and that could also just mean researching the journey and the logistics.
I sometimes actually go to the place just to test that I know the way and I'm not going to get confused on the day.
It's a little bit like you're turning up early.
I like to kind of practice to make sure that I'm not stressed about the journey as well as the interview.
Okay, that's it for this episode.
Remember, you can find more programmes to improve your business English on our website, like Office English, where we talk about using English in everyday situations at work.
Next time, it's interview time, and we'll talk about the best way to talk about yourself and your experience.
See you then. Bye. Bye.
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