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You Are Hired Summary
You Are Hired Summary
To get a good job in today's competitive work environment, you have to be an effective communicator.
Effective communication has many aspects, but the foundation is English grammar. Bad grammar is one
of the main reasons why HR managers reject candidates looking for jobs. An HR manager at a leading
BPO said in an interview, 'Ninety per cent of people who apply for positions where they need to interact
with people, either over the phone or in person, are turned away due to poor communication skills --
mostly grammar related.' If you don't speak and write well, you will not come across as professional in
today's global corporate world, no matter how qualified you are.
Yet, despite knowing the importance of good grammar, many people find the subject just too boring and
tedious. Don't worry, there is a solution! In an easy, practical and logical way, I will help you go from
making the types of mistakes found in Email 1, to speaking and writing with the fluency found in Email 3.
Email 1: An error-ridden email
This is an email that an HR manager in Mumbai received from a prospective candidate. It is full of errors,
and the candidate was not asked to come for the interview because his email was so badly written. Take
a look at the email below [on the following slide]. The mistakes have been corrected and are in bold.
This email no longer contains grammatical errors, but it still doesn't sound professional. Take a look [at
the next slide] at how we can transform this email to be even better.
Email 3: A professional, effective email
This is a professional, effective email. This section will teach you how to write and speak in this manner.
This section does not focus on complicated grammar terms. Instead, common grammatical errors made
by Indian speakers have been targeted. All the examples in this section have been taken from actual
emails, letters and CVs.
Here we present the second part of the series, What is your good name? What is your bad name?
'Indianisms' (Part 1): Grammatical errors and slang:
This is an example of a typical email I receive from people who want to work in my company. Apart from
grammatical errors, this email has slang, as well as 'Indianisms' (all the words are marked in bold).
Indianisms are words and phrases that are commonly used in India, but are not accepted as correct
English elsewhere in the world. Multinationals do not like the use of Indianisms. Also, in most business
environments around the world, slang is considered unacceptable. If you speak and write using
Indianisms, you will sound unprofessional.
Dear Miss Nasha,
I am very much interested in working for you. I came to know of your company two days back. Can you
say me
the concerned person whom I can send my CV to? Please write back to me and I will reply you right
away.
That's it I would like to talk about in this email.
Yours faithfully,
Arjun
See if you use any of the following Indianisms
Common Error 1:
What is your good name?
• Can you have a 'bad' name? Of course not! Then you can't have a 'good' name either!
• The 'good' in the above sentence comes from a direct translation of the Hindi equivalent: 'Aapka
shubh naam kya hai?'
The correct way to ask someone their name is to simply say: What is your name?
Common Error 2:
I want to tell to the concerned person my problem.
• This sentence contains two Indianisms.
First, you can't use 'tell' in this situation,
you must use 'speak'.
• Next, 'concerned person' is not
grammatically acceptable in this context.
This sentence could have been better phrased as
follows: I want to speak to the person in charge
about my problem.
Exercise 13.1
Exercise 13.2
The executive in the following sentences [in the pic alongside] has used many of the Indianisms
mentioned in this chapter, as well as grammatical mistakes explained in previous chapters. Correct the
mistakes. There may be more than one way to rewrite some the sentences. Make sure your answers are
similar to the ones in the answer key.
Solution
Executive: Thank you for calling Bank of Baroda. How may I help you? (When asking a question, a
question word must come first. Thus, 'may' should be first in this case.)
Client: Yes, I am calling to find out why my mutual fund account is doing so poorly.
Executive: Let me pull up your account, sir. What is your name?
Executive: Thank you. There are a few stocks in your mutual fund whose prices dropped a few days ago.
Executive: Can I put you on hold for one moment to check this? (When asking a question, a question
word must come first. Thus, 'Can' should come first.)
Client: Sure.
Executive: Thank you for staying on the line. I found out that these particular auto stocks have dropped
because of the budget that just came out. But we think that they will bounce back in a few days.
Client: I have not been happy with this mutual fund for some time now.
Executive: Why don't you see if there are other mutual funds you would rather invest in?
Client: Fine.
Here we present the third part of the series, Section II: pronunciation, speech and accent:
Rashmi wants to work in a respected multinational company where she can earn a good salary. She is a
smart girl with a degree in commerce, and believes she will be a valuable asset to the organization she
works for. Her English is quite good, so she can't understand why she keeps getting rejected. After ten
interviews an HR manager finally tells her, 'Rashmi, your accent is too hard to follow. You need to work
on neutralizing your accent and improving your pronunciation.' Rashmi feels like crying when she hears
this. She has no idea what the HR manager is talking about. No one has ever told her she should
'neutralize her accent' before.
Has this ever happened to you or to someone you know? Did you feel as confused as Rashmi?
Here we present the fourth part of the series, Section II: I speak to fast and tonelessly:
I received this email [in the pic alongside] from one of my students. Speaking too quickly is a problem many of us
face. For one, we tend to think faster than we speak, so we are always in a hurry to finish our sentences.
Unfortunately, listeners cannot absorb information at the same rate. This is why we must try to slow down our pace
and take deep breaths while we speak.
It may come as a surprise that the pace of your speech is linked to vowel sounds. We can decrease the speed at
which we speak by stretching vowel sounds while speaking. In India, many of us shorten our vowel sounds to such
an extent that not only do we speak too fast, but the actual words start sounding like other, similar words.
Vowel sounds also add flavour and excitement to our voices. By stretching them and adding emotion to them, we can
become more persuasive and effective speakers.
So, what we see is that in the word 'mat', the 'tah' sound does not need the 'a' sound to finish the word. It
is strong and can complete the word on its own.
The 'da' sound on the other hand, needs the 'a' sound's help to finish the word 'mad'. So, the 'a' sound
becomes even longer.
Because of this, the word 'mat' will always be shorter in length than the word 'mad'.
Rules to remember:
! When vowel sounds come before strong consonant sounds, they are shorter. When vowel sounds come
before weak consonant sounds, they are longer.
It is very important that you stretch your vowel sounds when required and make sure the words you say
are of a proper length. For instance, let's take the two words we used earlier -- 'mat' versus 'mad'.
As it is, the 'tah' and 'da' sounds are very similar -- they have identical tongue placements. If you are
speaking to someone over the phone, it is possible that they may not be able to differentiate between
your 'tah' and 'da' sounds. But they will be able to tell what you are saying by the length of the vowel
sounds in the words.
That's right! Human beings actually programme themselves to recognize words based on the length of
the word.
If we fail to stretch our vowel sounds when required, we end up being misunderstood, especially when
talking to a larger global audience.
Practice exercise
Practise saying the following words [in the image alongside] out loud row by row. First say the short word,
and then say the long one. For the long word, make sure that you stretch the vowel sound so that the
word sounds longer than the corresponding short word.
What is intonation?
Intonation is the tone and pitch of your
voice.
• Tone -- the 'music' in your voice.
The manner in which you speak.
• Pitch -- the degree of highness and
lowness of your voice (the volume).
Changing your pitch is not a very effective
way to communicate. Changing the tone is
what will make your speech more interesting.
Why intonate?
• It breaks communication barriers.
• It allows people to trust you more easily.
• It allows others to feel comfortable when you speak.
• It helps you to hold the attention of the person you are speaking to.
! No matter whom you are speaking to -- your employer, a business associate, your wife, husband,
girlfriend or boyfriend, even your children -- you will be far more effective if you modulate the tone of your
voice.
How do I intonate?
Vowel sounds add to the emotion, or intonation in our voices. Good communicators know how and when
to stretch or emphasize certain vowel sounds to get their meaning across.
Practice exercise
Let us pretend someone has asked you to do something, which you just cannot do.
• First, say 'I can't do it' out loud in a nice, friendly tone.
• Then, say 'I can't do it' out loud in an angry, frustrated tone.
Many of you will have emphasized on the word 'can't' while changing your tone. Do the exercise again,
and this time pay attention to the fact that when you changed your tone, the consonant sounds in the
word 'can't' -- the 'kah', 'na' and 'tah' sounds -- pretty much stay the same.
The reason the word 'can't' sounded friendly the first time and angry the second was really due to the way
in which you altered the vowel sound 'a'.
In this section, you will learn how to use communication as a powerful tool to build relationships with co-
workers, superiors, clients and customers.
In business, your ability to make people like
and trust you is as important as being smart
and hardworking. This section will help you
improve your personality and become more
successful at the workplace and in your
personal life.
Take a look at the floowoing dialogue [alongside].Sonia is speaking to her friend Anu.
What went wrong? Why did Sonia stop talking about her problem all of a sudden?
Well, for one, she saw Anu glance at her watch and sensed her disinterest. Also, Anu didn't ask her any
follow-up questions; she just kept saying 'oh really'. Sonia suspected that Anu was getting bored, so she
quickly ended the conversation. This fear was confirmed when Anu abruptly asked if Sonia wanted to go
to a movie.
Think back to times when you were speaking to someone and it seemed like they were not paying
attention. How did it make you feel?
Today, business is more about relationships than products. With intense competition, there will always
be companies carrying similar products and people possessing similar skill sets. Each one of us needs to
find ways to differentiate ourselves from the competition.
One easy way is to listen and build unique relationships with others. Extraordinary listening is a powerful
tool to win in a competitive environment. Take a look at the example given below [alongside]:
The woman in the first store did nothing wrong. She may even have been a good listener. But the woman
in the second store was an extraordinary listener. Extraordinary listeners make us feel they are more
concerned about us than themselves. They make us feel important and appreciated. Extraordinary
listeners tend to have have more friends and are more popular.
The easiest way to get people to like you, to get more business, and to build better relationships, is to
become an extraordinary listener.
Here we present the sixth part of the series: Getting to the point
In this chapter we will address another important aspect of effective communication -- speaking and presenting
information concisely, i.e., getting to the point quickly! This skill is an especially crucial one in today's hectic world,
where everyone is constantly running out of time. No one has the time or patience to listen to endless, unnecessary
rambling. Particularly in
business, we are increasingly expected to state our thoughts quickly and crisply -- as the old saying goes, 'time is
money'.
In your own experience, have you ever come across people who talk on and on? Doesn't it always seem like it takes
them ten times longer than necessary to say what they mean? People like this are called ramblers -- they are
annoying and, quite frankly, can be a waste of time. When you are presenting an idea, a statement or answering a
question, it is crucial that you are concise and to the point. Similarly, it is essential to focus on your voice quality and
body language. Whether you are speaking to one person or giving a presentation to a group, learning these skills will
set you apart from the crowd and help you in your professional life.
Step I: The introduction