Introduction
The interview is over and now you have a stressful wait for an answer. In this episode, Pippa and Phil talk about how to accept a job offer, or ask for feedback if you’re unsuccessful.
Transcript
Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.
Pippa
Hello and welcome to Learning English for Work from BBC Learning English. I’m Pippa.
Phil
And I’m Phil. This is our special series all about getting a job in English. In each episode, we talk about a different step in the job application process and learn some useful vocabulary along the way.
Pippa
Today, the interview’s over and we’ve done all we can. It’s time to talk about accepting a job offer or, if you’re unsuccessful, how to ask for feedback.
Phil
You can find a transcript for this episode to read along on our website: bbclearningenglish.com.
Pippa
So today’s episode is about how to communicate with an employer after the interview is over.
Phil
Yeah and this can sometimes be a really bad part, can’t it because you… maybe the interview didn’t go that well and you’re worrying about, I don’t know, something you said or anything. But until you hear something, you don’t really know. It could be good. It could be bad. And sometimes it takes a lot longer than you think it’s going to take as well.
Pippa
Yeah, so communication after an interview often is by email. So it can be quite slow and you might be really nervous or stressed during the waiting, but you need to keep your communication, calm and professional, I guess, even if you’re feeling really frustrated, you haven’t head back, you can’t kind of show that in your communication. You’ve got to stay polite.
Phil
Yes. Yeah, definitely.
Pippa
In each episode of this series, we’ve been hearing from Amy Evans, who works in recruitment for the BBC World Service. And Amy says the most important thing, as we said, is to keep your communication polite.
Amy Evans
Feel free to, you know, email them and just have a sort of polite, formal email that says, ‘Can I just ask, following up, what the outcome of the interview is’.
Phil
OK, let’s say we’ve got the job. What are the next steps?
Amy Evans
Obviously, if you’re happy to accept then you can just get straight back and say yes, I’m very happy to accept. If you feel you would like to negotiate salary or if you have any questions, you can say that you would like to negotiate the salary or the terms. Ask who the best person to speak to is to negotiate that.
Pippa
Negotiations can be tricky and will depend on your country and context. We actually made an episode all about negotiations in our series Office English, so have a listen to get more on the specifics. But Amy says that the key thing with negotiating a salary is to be clear about what you’re asking for.
Amy Evans
If they’ve offered you one salary and you have another salary in mind, say what the other salary is and your reasoning for it. And then just allow them a bit of time to kind of go away because there’s probably, you know, a few people involved in having to make decisions about salaries or start dates.
Phil
Of course, there’s a possibility that even if the interview went well, that we don’t get the job. This can be tough, but Amy says it’s a good opportunity to try and improve.
Amy Evans
I would always encourage people to ask for feedback. So, if it’s not mentioned when you’re sent a sort of turn down or rejection letter, then absolutely feel free to reply and just say ‘please can I have some feedback on the interview’.
Pippa
And as we’ve have said over and over, make sure you stay polite in your communications, even if you’re disappointed, as the person you’re talking to might have useful feedback that you can use next time.
Amy Evans
Someone would hopefully be able to kind of go through and say these were your strong… your strengths and your strong points. But however, on this occasion, we did not feel as though you answered this bit, you know, with what we were looking for and then that helps you sort of prepare for the next interview.
Phil
I suppose you might find yourself applying for another job in that company in a few months’ time. And you don’t want to have annoyed the person who’s in charge of the interviews.
Pippa
Yeah. And especially at big companies, there’s usually quite a lot of people involved in the decision about who to hire and your salary and start date. So it can take time to decide and it requires lots of people and the person that you’re speaking to might not be the person making the decision. So you’ve got to be polite to them. Just try and speak to the person you’ve been in contact with from the start to get your answers.
Phil
Yeah, and I really like that thing where Amy said that if you don’t get the job, do ask for feedback. It can be so difficult to know why you didn’t get a job or what you’re doing wrong, particularly if you haven’t had many interviews. So that feedback is so… it’s so valuable if you apply for a similar job again in the future.
Pippa
Yeah and sometimes the reason you weren’t hired it might just be beyond your control, but they might be able to give you feedback on your interview performance and then you can use that to improve next time. They might say, ‘Oh, we didn’t think you had enough examples of a certain skill’. So you can then think about do you have more that you could talk about next time.
Phil
Often it might just be because the other person was better. But that can be useful because it means if you see the same job come up again in a few months’ time, you know it’s worth applying because if they like you, but they just chose someone else, that means they’ll probably like you again.
Pippa
OK, that’s it for this episode. Next time, we’ll be talking about your first day in a new job and how to make a good impression.
Phil
Remember, there are more programmes to help you with your English at work on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
Pippa
Bye for now!
Phil
Bye!