Interview Skills 4 - Talking About Work Experience

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we have a new lesson in our series about interviewing for

a new job.

This is of course at the elementary level.

That's right.

So this is part four of our interview series.

Remember we are taking a look each week at giving you tips and also the proper language

for when you have an interview in English.

And on this occasion we're going to talk about our work experience.

Okay, you remember we talked a little bit about educational experience and educational

background.

Well today is all about your last couple of jobs.

Alright, so I think we should just listen to the dialogue for the first time and we'll

be back in a bit with language takeaway.

Right Rebecca, now I see that after graduating from university your first job was...

For a local paper in York called the York Herald.

Actually I started with them as an intern.

I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism and this seemed like a good

first step.

Certainly.

And after your internship?

They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.

I ended up staying two years there actually.

I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.

I really enjoyed it there and it really helped me build my skills.

Yes I see, but you decided to leave them in 2006, right?

Yes that's right.

My husband and I moved to London and so I managed to find a position with a national

newspaper based in London.

The London Weekly, right?

Yes.

In some ways it was a step down from my previous job but it did offer me much better prospects

for the future.

Alright we're back so now we've picked out a couple of key words and we're going to take

a look at those now on Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

So Marco, a lot of people don't start out as a professional with a job.

They have something else first.

What is this?

That's right.

A very popular way to begin your work experience, you become an intern or you work as an intern.

Okay so the name of the job we could say is intern.

I'm an intern or he's an intern at my company.

Exactly.

So usually interns work at a company.

Usually they're not paid or if they are it's a very, very little pay and the purpose of

an internship or to work as an intern is to gain experience.

That's right.

So it's basically like a study opportunity for a job that you know you want.

I could be an intern at a media company and I could learn all about media but it's not

really a full job.

Exactly.

So it's really it serves as an opportunity to maybe continue working at that company

in a full time job.

So you become an intern and the noun or what you are doing is called an internship.

So I'm an intern but what I have is an internship.

It's like saying I have a job.

I have an internship but I am an intern.

Exactly.

Alright so we've covered those two words.

Now let's move on to when she's describing her work experience in the York Herald and

she described it as a very good first step.

Okay so a first step you think about your foot, your step, your moving.

It means the very first thing you do when you're heading in some direction.

Right and professionally I guess your first steps are maybe becoming an intern.

Right or you could say my first step was working in the mail room at this big movie studio

but later I became a famous movie producer.

Exactly so that's kind of like the way that you begin your professional life.

And well then they started talking about the newspapers and actually Rebecca was offered

a position as a junior local news reporter.

Okay so junior means usually lower ranking or not experienced.

Someone who is just starting out and of course after junior we have senior.

So a senior news reporter is someone who's worked for many many years as a reporter.

Usually I guess a junior news reporter would make less money than a senior news reporter.

Exactly you could also say junior executive or senior executive.

Junior manager.

These are ways of describing length of experience.

And in this case she's junior but what kind of job does she have?

Well she is a news reporter for local issues.

Okay so she's a local news reporter.

Now what exactly does that mean if you're a local news reporter or for local issues?

Well if I live in Chicago and I'm a local news reporter I only write or report the news

about Chicago.

It's a way of describing the things in my area.

So it's the opposite of our next phrase national news reporter.

Okay so if you are a national news reporter or a national manager of maybe a company then

that means that you oversee things in the whole country.

That's right so local is my city or my county but in the case of national we're talking

about the whole country.

Nation national.

So national is an adjective.

But we could even go further than this.

What if I am a reporter and I talk about foreign countries?

I talk about France and South Africa and even Iceland.

Then I guess you would be an international news reporter.

Exactly.

And I guess also at the executive level you can have an international marketing manager

right?

That's right.

International marketing manager, national marketing manager.

These are very important ways to divide work to say he is the international manager, he

is the national manager.

This tells you the kind of the size of this person's job.

Exactly.

Okay so now more or less you know how these jobs can be divided junior, senior, national,

local, etc.

So I think we should go back to the dialogue.

Let's listen to this dialogue again and we'll be back in a bit.

Alright Rebecca, now I see that after graduating from university your first job was...

For a local paper in York called the York Herald.

Actually I started with them as an intern.

I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism and this seemed like a good

first step.

Certainly.

And after your internship?

They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.

I ended up staying two years there actually.

I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.

I really enjoyed it there and it really helped me build my skills.

Yes I see.

But you decided to leave them in 2006, right?

Yes that's right.

My husband and I moved to London and so I managed to find a position with a national

newspaper based in London.

The London Weekly, right?

Yes.

In some ways it was a step down from my previous job but it did offer me much better prospects

for the future.

Alright so now let's start with a couple of phrases and phrasal verbs on Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

Okay in today's dialogue we heard a lot of really wonderful phrases Marco.

Some of them are ways of making your experiences sound better, more professional even.

For example this first one, sorry Rebecca is talking about her first job in York and

she says I was in charge of the sports news section.

So that phrase, I was in charge of or to be in charge of, what does this describe?

This describes responsibility.

Basically she's saying I was responsible for or I had to manage the sports news section.

She's taking credit for this job that was important.

Okay so this is a key phrase because this is the typical phrase that you use to describe

your responsibilities or to describe what you did in your previous job position or your

previous job.

So I could ask you when you were in marketing, what were you in charge of?

Right and then you say well I was in charge of and then you explain your responsibilities

or what you did.

I was in charge of our national accounts or I was in charge of the local news.

Exactly so this is a very simple phrase, just remember it.

I was in charge of and then you can start explaining what were your responsibilities,

what you did in your previous job.

Alright moving on now towards the end of that paragraph, Rebecca says that well being in

charge of the sports news section was really fun and it really helped her build my skills.

It really helped me build my skills.

So to build your skills or in this case I build my skills means that I have some skills

but maybe they're not really developed.

Maybe I just finished college, I want more experience.

Well in that time during my first job I build my skills.

I become better at writing or having interviews, things like that.

Exactly so when you build your skills you kind of improve your abilities or you gain

more experience.

Another interesting phrase coming up here when Rebecca talked about moving to London

with her husband she said I managed to find a position with a national newspaper.

Okay so I managed to or you could say to manage to do something.

This is a really interesting phrase because it's another way of saying to be able to

or to succeed at something.

Okay so don't confuse it with manager or to manage people.

That is also correct, obviously it exists but to manage to do something is to as you

said to be able to do something.

Right so for example I was running really late yesterday and I had a ticket for a train

at five o'clock.

I thought I would miss the train but I managed to get to the train on time.

That means I was able to get on the train on time.

Obviously so you managed to find a job, I managed to get to the train on time, I was

able to.

Alright and towards the end Rebecca talked about her job at the London Weekly and she

described it as a step down from my previous job.

Okay is this a good thing or a bad thing Marco?

To be a step down in something is a bad thing.

It's to reduce in level or to decrease.

Okay so basically she's saying listen I had this really great job in York and I took a

new job in London and the new job it wasn't as good in many ways because maybe she had

less responsibility or maybe it paid less.

So this is a way of saying it wasn't as good as my last job.

Okay so her new job was a step down from her previous job.

You could say I think his new girlfriend's a bit of a step down if you know what I mean.

So usually you're comparing right?

You're making a comparison between something from the past to now.

Exactly.

Okay so a step down.

Why don't we go back and listen to the dialogue for the very last time and we'll be back to

talk to you in a bit.

Right Rebecca now I see that after graduating from university your first job was...

For a local paper in York called the York Herald.

Actually I started with them as an intern.

I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism and this seemed like a good

first step.

Certainly.

And after your internship?

They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.

I ended up staying two years there actually.

I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.

I really enjoyed it there and it really helped me build my skills.

Yes I see but you decided to leave them in 2006 right?

Yes that's right.

My husband and I moved to London and so I managed to find a position with a national

newspaper based in London.

The London Weekly right?

Yes.

In some ways it was a step down from my previous job but it did offer me much better prospects

for the future.

Alright so talking about internships and interns it seems that usually it's not very exciting

to become an intern because it ends up that the office people just make you make coffee

or copies and stuff like that.

You're not really gaining much work experience.

That is the reputation in the United States for internships.

So basically when you agree to do an internship, sometimes you have to apply to do an internship.

It's a very long process.

You end up like you say making coffee for people or photocopying reports and this is

really boring work.

Right.

I think that is the reputation that many places have like you say in the United States but

also I don't know I guess it does seem in a way the only opportunity in order to be

able to get into an industry or a company.

Maybe it's a really good company like I don't know like Procter and Gamble.

And how else are you going to be able to get in there with no job experience?

Well that's right and a lot of people know that an internship doesn't really give you

work experience but they still think that it gives you some edge or some advantage when

you're looking for jobs later because if I write down on my resume, we were talking earlier

about resumes, if I write down on my resume that I was an intern at Procter and Gamble,

wow that's really impressive.

Right, it looks good.

Alright so this is an interesting topic.

Let us know if you were ever an intern.

Maybe you started out as an internship or maybe you're doing one now.

Was it better than we say?

Did you do anything else other than making coffee?

We really hope so and we look forward to hearing about your experiences.

Alright we'll see everyone at EnglishPod.com and until next time.

Bye.

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