Transcript: “Listening Time” Episode 54

Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Conner, 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 going to 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 going to try to do
a weekly episode from here on out. I might not be able to sustain this rhythm forever,
but I'm going to 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 www.patreon.com/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 better so that you can understand native speakers better.
So, make sure to become a Listening Time Member. And if you become a
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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.
Alright, 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 going to give you some helpful
English phrases that you can use in job interviews. 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. Alright, let's get started.
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. Okay? 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 US, 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, for example. 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. And 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.
Okay? 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. Okay? 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 the other person, the other candidate, who was more
interesting, who gave a more interesting answer. Okay?
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 asked 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. When I say the "weight" of something, 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 nonverbal communication. When I say
“nonverbal 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. 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. 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. So, when
talking about your education and the degree that you have, we structure the sentence
like this: 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”, okay, or “I have five years experience working in accounting”,
right? 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”. Okay? So, that's another way you can structure this sentence.
Here's another one. When you talk about wanting to grow in your career, make
sure that you don't say “grow up”. I hear students say this all the time. Okay? 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's becoming an adult. Okay? 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”. Okay? So, you could also just say “grow”, but it's more common to say
“move up”. “I want to move up in my career”.
Another sentence that you can use to talk about growing and to talk about why
you're leaving your current job is this: you can say “there's no more room for growth in
my company”. 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 ten 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”. Okay? 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?”
Okay, 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 to summarize... 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
answers sound very organized. Okay?
Alright, 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.
Okay? 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. Alright, well, thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll
talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

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