Introduction
Most people get nervous about job interviews. How do you make sure you sound natural? In this episode, Pippa and Phil talk about job interviews and how to structure your answers.
Transcript
Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.
Pippa
From BBC Learning English, this is Learning English for Work, our podcast to help you with your business English. I’m Pippa.
Phil
And I’m Phil. In this special series, we’re talking you through the process of getting a new job in English. And today, we’re talking about a big step, the job interview.
Pippa
Remember, you can find a transcript for this episode at bbclearningenglish.com.
So, today’s episode is all about job interviews.
Phil
Yes, we’ve had so many questions about job interviews and they’re something lots of people find difficult, even native speakers of English. So, we are going to break down the interview into two episodes. Today we’re focusing on how to talk about yourself in an interview. And Pippa, how do you find talking about yourself?
Pippa
I find it quite difficult. I think it’s really hard to talk about your strengths and to always kind of talk positively about yourself. It doesn’t come naturally to me. What about you, Phil?
Phil
Yeah, I used to find this really difficult. I think as I’ve done more interviews, I’ve got better at just preparing things that I can use to talk about myself.
As ever, we have our job applications expert, Amy Evans, to help us. Amy works in recruitment for the BBC World Service, and Amy says that while it’s normal to not like talking about your strengths, it is an important part of job interviews.
Amy Evans
Don’t be afraid to highlight your strengths and make sure the panel know why you think you’re suitable for that job.
Pippa
We talked in the previous episode about preparing for an interview and having lots of examples ready to talk about, but it can be difficult to know how to talk about these naturally in an interview.
Phil
Yes, but Amy has a technique to help.
Amy Evans
A good method for, sort of, answers is the STAR method which is situation, task, action and result.
Pippa
Amy recommends the STAR method, which is a common business template for giving examples. It’s kind of a structure for your answers. S, T, A, R. So situation, task, action, result.
Amy Evans
When you’re thinking of your answers and thinking of specific examples, you can think of what the situation was, what the task was that you were asked to do, what you did, what was your action, what was your part in that situation and then what the result was. So that’s a good way of formatting and having concise and clear answers.
Phil
OK, so maybe let’s try an example of a STAR answer.
Pippa
OK, so let’s imagine that I was asked to talk about how I deal with a problem at work in an interview. So this is a fictional job interview.
Phil
OK, so first we’ve got S, haven’t we? So that’s situation. What situation could you talk about?
Pippa
Right so, let’s imagine that I work in an office and I’m responsible for ordering the office supplies. So there’s a problem with the order and the delivery didn’t come through in time. And now the office needs more pens. That’s my situation.
Phil
So that’s the S from star. Situation. Next, we’ve got the T, which is task. What would be your task in this situation?
Pippa
So, in this situation, the task is that I needed to make sure that the office had the right supplies, so I needed to sort out this problem.
Phil
OK, and so we’ve got S and T. So next is A in STAR and that A is for action. So what action would you take?
Pippa
So, in this example, I could say that I called another supplier to get the pens for the week for the office and then I contacted the original company to make sure that the usual order would come as soon as possible and to sort out any problems with delivery. So that is my action.
Phil
OK, so we’ve had situation, task and action. The last letter of STAR is R and that’s for result. So what happened, and why does that make you a really good candidate for this job?
Pippa
Yep, so here I might say that my actions meant that the office had the supplies that they needed, they had enough pens. And I was able to negotiate a better delivery system with the main supplier. So I could then say it showed that I had quick thinking and good problem-solving skills. So always bring the answer back to what it shows about me and that’s the result.
Phil
Well I’d definitely give you the job, Pippa.
Pippa
Oh, thanks, Phil. And of course, if you were in a job interview you need to use a real example. I talked about an imagined example there, but you need to think of a real thing that happened to you and then apply the STAR method. So situation, task, action, result.
Phil
OK, let’s hear what other advice Amy has got.
Amy Evans
Make sure your answers, you’re bringing all the points back to the question that they’ve asked. So try not to kind of go off on tangents. And if you need a recap of what the question is, you know, don’t be afraid to say ‘sorry, can you repeat the question’ to make sure that you’re kind of keeping on track.
Pippa
So, remember the interview is not just a chat, it’s about knowing whether you’re right for the job. So you need to make sure you’re answering the question and talking about relevant things.
Phil
Yeah. So, as we were saying earlier that job interviews can make you quite nervous, and of course the interview panel will expect you to be a bit nervous, but do you think there’s things that we can do that will make us less nervous when we get into that interview room?
Pippa
Well, I think it’s practising that structure to your answers, so that even if they ask a question that you weren’t expecting you have some examples and you’ve thought about the structure of how you will talk about them.
Phil
Yeah, and that STAR structure is really useful ‘cause you’ll often find that different languages might organise ideas in different ways, but it’s a really common way in English that we sort things out. That you kind of start with the situation and you follow through those different steps.
I always find that when I’ve thought of a few examples like this from things that I’ve done in jobs, it’s like I’ve had a bit of practice and it’s much easier for me to come up with something. If I get asked in the interview about something that I hadn’t prepared, I can usually remember something. And then I could put it into that structure and give an answer for the interview.
Pippa
So that’s it for this episode. Next time, we’ll be talking more about job interviews and how to show your interest in the company.
Phil
In the meantime, if you want more tips for talking about your strengths, we have an episode with some helpful phrases and examples from our series Office English. And you can find the link in the notes for this programme.
Pippa
Bye for now.
Phil
Bye.