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Business EnglishIntermediate

English for the Job Interview

Eleven lessons on what interviewers are really asking, how to answer in two minutes, and what to say when you did not understand the question

English for the Job Interview

About this course

A course for people who are good at their job and now have to prove it in a language that is not their own. It does not hand you model answers to learn by heart, and it does not promise you an offer: an interview is a conversation between two sides, and half of it is never in your hands. What it does give you is the English you need so that your experience arrives on the other side of the table more or less intact.

Most of the course is about subtext. Tell me about yourself is not a request for your biography. What is your greatest weakness is not an invitation to confess. Why are you leaving is a question about where you are going, not about who upset you. Every standard question is taken apart: what is really being asked, what a weak answer sounds like, what a strong one sounds like, and the exact words you can use. There is a full lesson on how to talk about results without bragging and without shrinking, one on never apologising for your English, and one on money.

Ten of the eleven lessons contain a complete interview dialogue you can listen to and read. After each module there is a short test, and a final test at the end. Level B1 to B2.

Course curriculum

  1. Getting ready

    The two-minute answer about yourself, the verbs that carry experience, and the homework you do before the call.

    • 1.Two minutes about yourself14 min
    • 2.Duties, results, and the difference between I and we16 min
    • 3.Your own professional vocabulary, and homework on the company13 min

  2. The standard questions and what is behind them

    Why are you leaving, why us, strengths, weaknesses, five years, and the shape of an answer to a behavioural question.

    • 1.Why are you leaving, and why us15 min
    • 2.Strengths, weaknesses and where you see yourself14 min
    • 3.Behavioural questions: situation, task, actions, result17 min

  3. The hard moments

    Gaps, dismissals, skills you do not have, never apologising for your English, and the first time somebody asks what you earn.

    • 1.Gaps, leaving badly, and skills you do not have15 min
    • 2.Never apologise for your English, and what to do when you did not understand16 min
    • 3.Money: expectations, ranges and going first14 min

  4. Your questions, and the finish

    What to ask at the end, what to leave until later, and every message that comes after the interview — thanks, rejection, offer and a polite no.

    • 1.The questions you ask, and the questions that wait15 min
    • 2.After the interview: thanks, rejection, offer and a polite no18 min