Interviews

To many of us, it’s one of the most nerve-wracking tasks we’ll ever have to undertake. Let’s be honest, there’s nothing joyful about a job hunt. Yet you keep pounding the pavement and plugging away because it’s a numbers game. If you want to increase the odds of obtaining your dream job, one thing is certain: you must master the interview process. We’ll jump into job interviews with both feet on today’s episode of FYI.

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Transcript

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to many of us it's one of the most nerve-wracking tasks we'll ever have to undertake let's be honest there's nothing joyful about a job hunt yet you keep pounding the pavement and plugging away because it's a numbers game if you want to increase the odds of obtaining your dream job one thing is certain you must master the interview process we'll jump into job interviews with both feet on today's episode of f y i welcome to for your info english you got it[Music][Applause][Music][Applause][Music][Music] hello hello hello everybody and welcome to this another exciting episode of fyi for your english and we are in the second season of the show i can't believe it second season that's good you guys invited me back for a second season and based on the feedback i've been receiving you guys are really enjoying this season thus far thus far soon after my feet astaura it's a good one to learn all right well let's uh let's get started right away vamos de cabeza as i said we're gonna jump in with both feet which is something i said in the intro we're gonna jump in with both feet or you could say we're going to dive in which means we're not going to hesitate we're going to go right into it so let's take a look at our intro many of you have caught me again with my alliteration yeah double triple quadruple alliteration when will it end where will it end nobody knows all right well i said to many of us it's one of the most nerve-wracking tasks now this is a good word to know nerve wracking now something that is nerve wracking makes you very very nervous obviously now let's also look at the pronunciation of that nervous edo muchos alumnus it's nervous nervous so if something is nerve wracking which is an interesting one because you can write it with a w a silent w or without that w i usually write it without it but hey just so you know if you see it out there nerve wracking something that causes a lot of stress or anxiety anxiety vamos a pronunciation ancient is anxiety so something that's nerve-wracking is estresante and i think everybody will agree nobody likes to go on job interviews and if you do wow you are very unique most of the people i've worked with throughout the years are not big fans of this whole process and well i understand it as somebody who has gone on many job interviews in my day well uh i can give you a little bit of experience from all different fields remember fields are campos or officios another way to say official as well is craft a craft as un offio if you learn a craft all right well let's take a look then nerve wracking tasks so we all agree it's nerve wracking and it's something that well unless you work for yourself it's something that we will all have to undertake have you heard this word before to undertake this is emprender right to commit to doing something and it's interesting because when we have a verb like this if you notice the word undertake has the word taken it so if we look at it how would we conjugate it let's see if you guys can figure it out every day i undertake a lot of different things yesterday i undertook you got it and lately i've undertaken so basically it conjugates the same way as the verb take then i said let's be honest there's another one that my students often mispronounce it's not honest it's honest ah think about when you go to the doctor or the dentist and they say open your mouth say ah well that's the sound honest let's be honest there's nothing joyful now i know many of you who listen to this podcast know the word joyful from our christmas episode remember joy to the world well joyful is happy con so there's nothing joyful about a job hunt and i think we all agree now if you disagree please let me know i want to know what you love so much about looking for a job another way we say it is as i just said a job hunt but uh it doesn't matter if you like it or not it's part of life unless you are an entrepreneur and you work for yourself well you need to go on job interviews so i said yet you keep pounding the pavement now to pound the pavement is exactly what it sounds like to pound the pavement it's right we talk about that a lot when we talk about looking for a job in new york or landing a job so looking for a job as buscar and to land a job or to find a job is encontrado we're going to look at all that vocabulary a little bit later on so write that one down it's a good expression to pound the pavement and to plug away there's that alliteration again plug away and to plug away is to keep working hard right we were plugging away all morning esports would be the word in spanish so to pound the pavement and plug away there's that alliteration because it's a numbers game have you heard this before this is an expression we use in english to say that it's all about probability la probably it's a numbers game let me explain it for you it's pretty simple let's say the more job interviews you go on well the higher the possibility of you landing a job right well that's the idea behind it's a numbers game i used to apply that same philosophy when i was trying to pick up girls ligar mechikas i said well if i talk to 20 girls maybe one will want to go home with me yeah[Laughter] those were the good old days the good old days we say in aquelin but uh it's true in life it's a numbers game if you want to increase your chances then what you have to do as i said if you want to increase your chances or your odds is another word i gave you uh in the intro odds o d d s and that means la probably the expression what are the odds so of course if you want to increase your odds of doing anything well the more you do the more chance you'll have of being successful right that's what they say that's the age-old rule so if you want to increase the odds of obtaining or getting your dream job i used obtaining because i wanted it to work with odds but you can say getting obtaining or as we said before landing your dream job then i said one thing is certain now careful with the pronunciation here no certain it's certain certain or you can say certain americanos we have that glottal thing there that's certain certain you must master the interview process and that's something i tell people all the time you don't you know you can learn jobs you can you know get better you can learn the ropes you know aprender but uh you you've got to be there there's no way around it if you want to get in the door or as we say if you want to get your foot in the door well you've got to be good at interviewing there's no way around it no forma we need to master it and master that's a great word that you're all familiar with we master something well what happens when we master something lo dominamos so you get a master's degree aha that makes sense uh and then i said we'll jump into job interviews with both feet the expression we looked at before on today's episode of fyi so why i want to know why why is the job interview or the job hunt such a nerve-wracking process why is it that some people compare this process with going to the dentist or having teeth pulled look at the sac or maybe a root canal do you know this word yeah it's a word in in english we usually say uh when something is unpleasant we compare it to a root canal una endodontia hey well if you ask me i'd really have to think about it do you want to go on a job interview right now or would you prefer a root canal and then my next question would be well how much laughing gas is the doctor gonna give me uh because if it's if he's gonna you know give me good painkillers that's a very logical word in english a painkiller mata dolores uh ana jesico then i think i'll go with the root canal no no i'm just joking but seriously what what why why are we so nervous why you know and i i'm asking myself the same way i'm asking you and and i thought about this long and hard to think about something long and hard as pensa muchisimo and i think it's because we're being judged we're being judged and the chances are that they might reject us and nobody likes rejection right do you like to be rejected or turned down right to to turn somebody down it's no nobody does nobody likes being judged and then nobody likes being rejected after they've been judged so i understand why even if you're the best employee for the job you're a perfect fit you have to convince them in an interview and you might be the greatest engineer in the world but if you don't know how to interview well you're not going to get a good job or a good position so that's how important this interview process is and today we're going to look at all different things from common questions to what an interview is and what the purpose is in fact let's start there with the purpose there's another word that people often mispronounce purpose or purpose writes purpose purpose well according to linkedin this is an interesting one too my students always say linkedin but no in english it's linked in and to link somebody to connect somebody you know it's an introduction right it makes sense you're linking people and uh so linkedin not linkedin please please it my ears bleed when i hear linkedin so what is the purpose of a job interview well according to segun according to linkedin number one was to clarify real job needs clarification i think that's good so that everybody is on the same page and they know what the requirements los requisitos are for this job so later if you get hired and say well we told you we were looking for somebody who mastered excel or whatever uh in fact we call uh excel because excel is obviously a registered trademark we call these spreadsheets spreadsheets in english um so to clarify real job needs make sense okay let's look at number two to demonstrate to the candidate that the assessment is professional so they have to show them too because remember that's something i always tried to remember on a job interview i'm not the only one being interviewed here i'm interviewing them i'm seeing if this job is right for me or if this position is right for me so i always feel that too it takes some of the stress off when you're thinking well i've got some questions too and i don't know if i want this job yet it gives you a little more confidence right and that word we looked at candidate candidate is somebody who is applying for a job we can call them a candidate excuse me a candidate or an applicant because an applicant you guessed it applies for a job so and the word assessment they write that the assessment is professional is evaluation i think we looked at that in a previous episode the verb is to assess or evaluate and the noun is an assessment or an evaluation and third thirdly that the company has extremely high hiring standards so that the company doesn't just hire anybody who comes in off the street but they have standards too so i think that's pretty clear it's a pretty clear purpose so when did it start when did we start doing job interviews or calling them job interviews well i think we've gotta go way back[Music] here we are back in 1921 1921 and this is the year that the job interview was officially born really you mean we haven't been interviewing people uh since before 1921 i mean what were we doing back then well we're getting to it let's start with why 1921 is such an influential year and considered the year the job interview was born and that's because a guy you might recognize his name it might ring a bell kitha o suena thomas alva edison oh yeah that guy the phonograph the light bulb yeah edison we've got to do an episode on thomas edison quite an interesting character well did you know aside from inventing all those other things i just mentioned he also was the inventor of the job interview well what he did was he created a written test it's written right so he created a written test to evaluate these candidates and their knowledge and yeah he had the idea say well you know i don't just want to hire anybody i i want to you know hire the right people i want to hire smart people i want to hire people that you know have something in common with me that are willing to learn these puestos so he came up with uh a test a written test and they started to evaluate all the different workers so you're telling me that they didn't do that before well let's go back let's go back a little bit further then humans uh before uh we got jobs and we started farming and doing all that stuff we were hunter gatherers okay to hunt this cathode and to gather and well when we were in this stage when humans were in this stage you didn't really you know go to a job interview you know why because you did the job your dad did and your grandfather before him and your great-grandfather before him you were born into your job in fact that's why many people in spain their last name is thapatero for example i'm sure their great-great-great great great-great-great-great-grandfather was a you know a shoemaker who knows who knows um so you were born into your job so that's why people didn't go on job interviews you know uh if your father was a blacksmith well that's you would be the next blacksmith in the family and he would pass on these traditions to he or she would pass on these traditions to their children and they would take over the family business so that's all great but then there were never any job openings right i think you say in spanish there were never any job openings if you just passed the job down to your son well occasionally a job opening would come up and when would that be well think about it what happened if that blacksmith or that locksmith ferrajero didn't have a son or a daughter to teach them that trade of fifio the word we looked at before what if there was no air no no digo air como aide exactamente i mean you know somebody who comes after you somebody who inherits your money your home and in this case your trade your profession and so uh what happened when they didn't have kids because not everybody um had kids right or or let's say you had a kid but the kid was a complete knucklehead knucklehead hey hey i'm sorry some kids are knuckleheads that's the way it works well then they didn't want that family business to die down because for them it was more than a business it was a trade it was their livelihood this is a very good word to look at lively livelyhood wow i didn't know that one see guys as i always say you're not the only ones learning every week on this podcast um so yeah they uh they had apprenticeships then in this case if there was a position if this blacksmith for example didn't have a child well no problem they decided well we'll find somebody who is willing and able willing and able and well what they did is they would take them on and they would give them an apprenticeship so if you're an apprentice you're learning aprendita aprendith i think you say aprendit an apprenticeship is what they study but there was just one problem over here with these apprenticeships they are what we would call these days slavery servitude indentured servants because many of these apprentices wouldn't get any money they would just learn the craft and that's about it maybe a little bit of food or something like that so it was it still wasn't where it needed to be so what happened what took us from here where we are with apprenticeships and passing down jobs from generation to generation well what took us into this place where we needed to find other people outside of our family to fill these positions these job openings these vacancies will enter the industrial revolution that's right it was the industrial revolution and this is when they started opening up factories all over the united states also in london as well and all over england well many countries the industrial revolution hit in many countries some countries harder than others so factories were popping up all over the you know the united states uh factory is fabrica i think you can figure that out because i know some people say es una faktoria right i think i've heard that maybe it's latin american spanish but it's one of those words that's pretty easy to figure out so yeah factories were popping up all over the united states and what did they need they needed people to work in these factories and of course unless you have a 155 brothers then you're going to have to look elsewhere so then job openings were everywhere i mean all you had to do was show up present and you could get a job you know uh in fact they would pick people if you've seen this in movies you would show up at the factory door or at the back door of the factory and the foreman or you know whoever was in charge would say okay you you and you come on you're working today day laborers and uh yeah that was okay but that wasn't okay for edison no edison said i don't want to just choose anybody anybody who just shows up at our door here i mean there are some knuckleheads out there there are a lot of knuckleheads out there so i think we should you know put people to the test here and of course you could imagine thomas edison and him and his factories and these other factories i mean they were seeing hundreds and hundreds of people a day looking for work and so they could be a little bit more selective especially when they filled all these positions and so um what happened was edison he said you know what i'm a genius you know and and he knew he knew he was a genius you know he might i don't know if he was modest or not but uh or humble um but let's be honest the guy was a genius and he was frustrated he was frustrated that a lot of the college students the students who were graduating from college remember colleges universidad well they were always looking for a job but these guys lacked knowledge they he he just felt like they weren't sharp agudos and you know he was like really these guys are i don't know if these guys are gonna do a good job or not so he created a test to filter out those guys those guys that he thought maybe you know let's not waste our time here you know so he created this test and it was a test for prospective employees remember employee is the worker an employer is the person who pays you the person who signs your paycheck do nomina and this was a a series of questions it was a form unformulated with a series of questions but it wasn't just questions related to that job in question it was questions that were based on general knowledge some of the the the questions had to do with the the position that they were applying for or the company or you know things related to that field but then there were other questions that had to do with geography and literature what he wanted to see was that he wasn't just hiring two strong hands but that the person could think too guess what it caught on it caught on and the rest is history and now you wouldn't think of starting a job without a job interview or some jobs i know they do like six or seven interviews depending on of course on the position usually for lower positions on the totem pole they usually won two interviews things like that you know there's no right or wrong way but the way it usually works is the higher the position the more interviews you have to go on and as we said before the interviewer is the person who asks the questions and the interviewee is the person who answers the questions and we're going to talk about that later too because you shouldn't just be answering questions in a job interview you should be asking questions as well if i had to think about how many job interviews i've been on i would say it's in the hundreds guys remember i studied acting interpretation so when you're an actor you do a lot of odd jobs trabajos qualciera so i worked in sales i worked in restaurants i worked outdoors i mean i did a little bit of everything they're called odd jobs the word odds well i'll tell you what it has a third meaning too odd is also impares so odd numbers are one three five seven oop and it's got a fourth meaning odd tambien are you serious alberto this word has four meanings but how am i gonna know which one they're talking about pay attention as i tell my students context is everything if you're paying attention you'll know what the word is even if you don't know the word because of the context so always pay attention not just in job interviews but in all kinds of conversations so as we said before there's no right or wrong way to do an interview there's no you know written rule that says three interviews and you get the job or the inter the interview has to be very structured or or as we know too a lot of companies now are doing more unstructured uh more conversational interviews and you know what you're going to see a little bit of everything out there and that's why it's really important to be prepared for any kind of interview and interviewer because at least from my experience i have come across some interesting people along my way i'm gonna give you some tips unos consejos in the second part the bonus part of the show which is exclusively for patrons and if you guys are interested in receiving bonus audio every week along with pdfs with the vocabulary you'll also be able to join me every week to review these episodes in a weekly class we have monthly master classes contests and so many reasons to be a part of our curious online community over at patreon if you guys want more information you can check it out at patreon.com slash alberto alonso and you can find out about all the different levels and this way you can join our community and get access to all this bonus content that comes out every week in fact on social media a lot of times people say hey alberto i would love to get the vocabulary you know because in these podcasts in in a typical week we'll look at over 300 words and idioms guys so there's a lot of stuff to get down so that's why i've created these materials as an aid unai yuda to go along with the podcast if you want more information about the bonus audio the pdfs the classes with me and much much more find out on patreon.com alberto alonso take a look and of course let me know if you have any questions and speaking of patrons i think it's a perfect time to give a shout out to all my patrons now i can't mention all of you but i will mention some of you my super duper students roberto jose maria mila deside alex fatricio edgar and lolly and don't forget about my interstellar students diego carmen pilar and diana thank you so much guys this show would not be possible without you so if you guys enjoy this show and you're not patrons say thanks to my patrons they are the producers and i've got to say patrons keep up the good work i've seen all of you making progress every week in our classes more information available at patreon.com all right so we've been talking about interviews and you know what it takes to do an interview and where it came from the history and all that but uh how do you get an interview because you gotta get the interview first i always tell people you don't get the job first you get the interview step by step firstly it depends maybe there's a recruiter or a a head hunter as we call them or maybe you just see a job offer in a local paper and what do you do well you've got to apply for that job as we said you see that there's an opening or a vacancy and you apply for that job how do you apply for a job you have to send your resume the british say your cv but americans say resume you also have to put in a cover letter that you've got to include right a cover letter i think you say carta representation so remember you don't just wake up one morning say i got an interview tomorrow you gotta get the interview first so you gotta you gotta keep your eyes peeled if you're looking for a job and there are other ways to do it too as many of you know there are job fairs that happen sometimes different companies come to recruit people uh recruit is evident also networking networking as well you know these are all things that you can do to get your foot in the door once you send out your resume and your cover letter and make sure you don't have any typos erratas and make sure everything looks good in english i have to tell you i have seen some really big screw-ups uh on uh resumes so make sure guys you know it's worth it to have somebody take a look at it even if you have to pay because remember this is your business card before you have a job right your resume once they call you that's that's what you're hoping for now you're hoping they call you and then the next thing is they set up an interview with you and then well you're almost there then you only have four or five more interviews to go and uh wow oh man it sounds overwhelming and as i said before it is overwhelming i don't know anybody who loves looking for a job i know people who love the hunt no la catha but the job hunt specifically because if you're looking for a job it means a you're not happy in your current job b you're currently unemployed and albaro so you're usually in a desperate situation or a difficult situation when you're looking for a job i know what you're going through i've been on many job interviews and that's why in the bonus part of today's show we're going to take a look at some tips i'm going to give you some of my favorite tips things that have helped me we're also going to take a look at some of the most common interview questions so you can be prepared for them that and of course we're going to laugh and learn so much more in the bonus part of today's[Music][Applause][Music] fy you