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Improve Your English Skills and Land a New Career

One of the greatest benefits of learning English is being able to obtain the career of your dreams in an English speaking nation.

If you are bilingual, you are much more likely to be compensated for your skills and employers will definitely want to talk with you.  However, interviewing for a job is about much more than being able to have a simple conversation. It is an art.  You must be able to use the language effectively while using demonstrating interview preparedness.

It is important that you participate in an online English course that will help you to effectively act out interview scenarios.   When it comes time for you to find your dream job, you’ll know what to do and not do.  Practicing these skills will help you to stand out in comparison to your peers.

Many people make the bold mistake of rushing their interview preparation.  They wait until the final days before an interview to practice interview strategies.   This usually leads to dissatisfaction and an unfortunate rejection from prospective employers.

Be sure to begin your practice as soon as you learn that you’ve been asked to interview with a company.  You should always practice speaking in English about yourself and your job qualifications.

Main Points to Prepare

  • Your current career
  • Your educational background
  • Any relevant and/or interesting experiences you’ve had that will benefit the company you’ve applied to

It will be very beneficial for you to perform a quick internet search on frequently asked interview questions.  Working with SkypEnglish4U with these questions will simulate the real situation.  We will work on strategies that will help you to ace your interview and discuss your progress.

Other than working on your English skills, you should take the time to learn some interesting information about the company you are interviewing with.  While this may not seem very important, you must keep in mind that your company is looking for a good fit.  They want somebody that cares about their interests and goals.  If you do not meet those standards, it is very likely that the company will overlook your efforts and seek out an individual who knows more about what the company stands for.

Use the internet to your advantage! Go to the company website and read the available information.  Be prepared to tell interviewers how you, specifically, will be able to move the company forward and help them to achieve their goals.  Employers will recognize and appreciate this extra effort on your part and will take this into consideration when deciding who they should make an offer to.

Whatever career path you decide to go down, one fact remains the same: you’ve got to be prepared to speak your very best English and nail those interview questions! Work with your online English teacher to practice interview strategies so that you can prove to future employers that you are ready to help them go to the next level.

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Using English in the World of Information Technology

The world is changing at a very fast pace and the people working behind the scenes in the IT industry all around the world are making this possible.

When I started teaching, I was really surprised at the number of students I had that were software developers, programmers, project managers, etc… all in the bustling IT world.  As time went on, I learned more and more from my students about the industry and what their job responsibilities were.

The beauty of practicing Business English on Skype, is that I don’t have to know everything about YOUR job in order to have a conversation about it.  My responsibility is to get YOU talking about it and strengthen your vocabulary related to your job and general grammar structure.

Why do IT professionals need to know English?

I asked a few of my students to explain why it is important for them…

As a Software Developer you need to know English in order to keep up with cutting edge technologies: English is the “official” language for talks, conferences, summits, blogs, technical articles and documentation.

Nowadays, companies from around the world work together so you also need to know English to attend meetings and understand your colleagues. Finally, if you want to work for the best IT companies you might end up moving abroad to an English speaking country and then…you’d better speak English!   

Alberto Rodríguez de Lema

 

Having good English skills is very helpful for my daily work as an IT professional because most of the IT relevant books are only available in English. In my role as programmer it is also required from most of my customers to write the documentation of the program code in English. Many of my colleagues and customers are located in different countries and the common language for negotiating, chatting, training is also English.

Having English sessions on a regular basis with Jessica helps me a lot to stay fluent and to feel confident for my daily work as an IT professional.

Volker Tontsch

 

Being a software developer means learning something new everyday. Ability to speak English exposes you to the endless source of information and allows you to communicate to and exchange experience with professionals from all over the world.

Pavel Prokopenko

There you have it- The real deal from real life IT dudes.

Marketing Freelancer

Working remote as a freelancer is also gaining popularity.  Most of the time remote workers speak English because their clients can be located anywhere in the world.  On the growth marketing platform for startup mentors called Growthmentor, there are people from all over the world who use English as their main language.

Bustling  (verb) move in an energetic and busy manner
The Real Deal (idiom) The bare truth or facts of a matter.

*practice using these words in the comments section and I will check them and give you feedback*

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Around the World ‘Round Table’ Discussion

Round Table : a number of people gathered together for conference, discussion of some subject, etc., and often seated at a round table.

Round Table discussions are an excellent way for you to get a chance to practice speaking English with someone from another country and at the same time, learn a bit about their culture and everyday life!  You will be exposed to other accents and participate in a ‘real-life’ conversation with someone you have never met before in a comfortable, friendly environment.  The general topics are endless and if possible, we can even arrange for you to speak with someone who also works in your industry.

Sessions

I will serve as the ‘host’ making sure that the conversation keeps flowing and that everyone gets a chance to speak.

Generally we will speak in an order assigned at the beginning of the session. Person 1 gives their answer, 2, then 3 and then it is open for discussion as I see fit.  I will help keep the order by speaking directly to the student when they are to answer.  During the open discussion, participants must be courteous and not interrupt or speak over other people.  At any time, I reserve the right to remove someone from the call.

I will keep running notes of vocabulary, grammar issues and sentence structure in the Skype chat.

Scheduling

This options is only available to SkypEnglish4U clients (join today!) that are ‘pre-approved’ and have the appropriate level of English required to partake in one of these group exercises.

Each SE4U student will get one free 30min AWRT credit and will schedule it with me.  If a student wants to participate in more, they will pay a % out of their existing sessions based on the people participating in the call– If there are 2 students, for 30min, they each will spend 15min of their existing packages.  The maximum amount of students per call is 3.

You will see specific times labeled as ‘Round Table’ on my google calendar and you can select them just as you regularly schedule.  I will be very flexible with these sessions… if you want to do one at a certain time, please let me know and I will try to find another student.

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I need English for work

Knowing English and having the vocabulary learned from a textbook is very important at some work places.  But what about the things that the textbooks don’t teach you?  Have you heard a phrase that totally confuses you and then you lose your train of thought and all of the sudden are totally lost?  Usually when this happens when the person that you are speaking with uses an idiom that you are not familiar with.  Native speakers can even be confused by idioms!  Especially when speaking with people from a different area.

someone’s TRAIN OF THOUGHT

Fig. someone’s pattern of thinking or sequence of ideas; what one was just thinking about.

If native speakers can be confused by these, how can an English learner even start to take on idioms?

TAKE ON

Phrasal verb a:  to begin to perform or deal with  b:  to contend with as an opponent

You MUST surround yourself with everyday English as much as possible. (click on this link, you won’t regret it)

You can follow the steps found in the link above and focus on your industry.  That is the best way to improve your business English and let’s not forget the power of Google!  If you work in a hotel, google ‘hotel idioms’.

Try this quiz and see how you do >

Business English Idioms: Idioms Test

 

I am always available to answer any questions you have about idioms 🙂   Comment on this blog post and I will reply!  

 

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I don’t know where to start for a job interview

Student: I don’t know where to start for a job interview in America because the system I use is only Russian.

Teacher:  Get comfortable with the terms in English so you can easily explain what you do in English.  This is going to require a lot of reading, both about the system itself  (in this case: 1C: Enterprise 8 )  and then general IT interview questions.

Interviews require a lot of research.   You need to know exactly what they are looking for and explain how you fit their needs.  You also need to know about the company and their practices.  In the IT industry the required skill set may be the same, but how the companies operate vary from one to the next.   You need to find out how they operate and make sure that your answers fit with how they do things.