Essential English Phrases for Job Interviews

The job market has never been so competitive with very few jobs and a lot of excellent candidates. But you can do a lot to make yourself stand out from the crowd and having fluent English is a must.

So what do you need to say in interviews? How can you impress your interviewer and get your dream job?

Read on to find out more about the exact language you need to succeed in job interviews.

1. Your job title, position and industry

'I'm CEO of Gazprom.'
'I'm in the oil industry'/'I'm in oil.' (less formal)
'I'm in banking.'(less formal)
'I work as CEO of Gazprom.'

2. Asking about another person's job or career'

'What do you do?'
'What is your profession?'
'What is your occupation?'
'What line of business are you in?' (less formal)

3. Outlining your responsibilities

There are many verbs of management we can use to describe our responsibilities.

'I'm responsible for a team of 20 people.'
'I'm in charge of marketing.'
'I lead a team of 20.'
'I'm head of marketing.'
'I oversee marketing activities.'
'I manage a team of 20 people.'

4. Career plans

'I plan to move into finance in the next few years.'
'I see myself in a financial role/moving into finance five years from now.'
'I'd like to make a career in finance.'
'I'd like to climb the career ladder/develop my career in the finance industry.'

5. Achievements

'I was/got promoted to the position of CEO five years ago.'
'A highlight of my career was when I helped my company win a fifty million-dollar contract.'

6. Career path

'I've been in Marketing since 2012.'
'I started out as a junior reporter before working my way up the career ladder.'
'I fell into marketing, really'. (It wasn't a plan, it just happened).
'I started out in sales before moving into finance.'

7. Career Transition

'I'm in between jobs at the moment'.
'I took a year out after university.'
'I took a year off after having a baby.'
'For my gap year, I travelled to Latin America.'
(a gap year is a year between leaving school and starting university)
'I'm in the middle of a career change at the moment.'

8. Career change

'I decided to get out of the pharmaceutical industry in 2008.'
'I changed career because I wanted to learn something new.'
'I decided to downshift because I wanted a better work-life balance.'

So what's next? Everyone loves a confident speaker, and the more you practise, the better and more confident you will get. You can try working with a friend or saying these sentences out loud to improve your pronunciation but ideally, find yourself a professional native speaker teacher. If you already have a good grasp of English, just three or four classes could mean the difference between getting that dream job or losing out to other candidates.

For more information on how preparation for job interviews, get in touch with us @ BBLC today.

+7 495 626 0473

Anthony Kent is the owner/director of BBLC and has 22 years of experience teaching business English programmes in Moscow to the biggest Russian and multinational companies.

Anthony's email: director@bblc.ru