welcome to the effortless English show
with the world's number one english
teacher AJ Hoge where AJ's more than 40
million students worldwide finally learn
without the boring textbooks classrooms
and grammar drills here's AJ with a
quick piece to help you learn to speak
hi I'm AJ hope the author of effortless
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English club.com job interviews in
job interviews are difficult anyway in
any language even in your own language a
job interview can be very difficult can
how do you prepare how can you get ready
how can you give good answers i'm going
to continue doing shows on this topic
because it's an important topic and as
an English Learner there's a good chance
now or in the future you will want a job
using English often you can get more
money or get a better position if you
speak English well but for those
positions you often will need to
interview in English which is a little
let's talk about a specific question
let's talk about of question is very
common i'm going to do some shows on
common interview questions and give you
ideas for answering them powerfully so
today's question job interview
tell me about yourself this is a very
common interview question now usually
this question is right at the beginning
of an interview sometimes they'll do it
face-to-face interview but it's going to
be right at the beginning usually the
challenge with this question is it so
general but what should you talk about
I mean should you say well you know like
I'm really active and I like to exercise
a lot and physical fitness is important
to me and i was born in march and I'm 48
years old and married and but is that
no no no you don't want to do that
so what's a good answer well how should
you answer this it's so general and
that's the the danger of this question
because if you're not ready for it when
they ask you a question like this you
might just start kinda nervously talking
right uh and you might start saying a
lot of stuff that is not necessary
that's not useful and possibly you might
say stuff that's even damaging that will
hurt your interview and that's one
reason some job interviewers like these
kinds of questions some of them will use
these very big general questions to try
to get you talking a lot and they're
looking for bad things they're looking
for you to say something that you
normally might hide because you're
nervous because the question so general
they just get you're talking above a
little and then you might reveal show
something that you normally would not
because the interviewers know the
interviewers the people doing the
interviewing they know that all of the
the others they know you're trying to
hide the bad stuff the weaknesses they
know you're drawing to sound great and
show only your speak fantastic strength
so they know everybody's bullshitting we
say it's using its over bullshitting
kind of means lying right that means
faking is a better way to say it so they
know that everybody's doing that so
their job is to try to find the truth
okay it's a little game that is played
in interviews your part of the game is
to just show all the super positive
make yourself sound fantastic you're
selling yourself but the interviewer
their part of the game to their part is
to try to dig in and find the real truth
find your true strength find your true
weaknesses find out if you really are
indeed great for the job or are you just
pretending so this is the little game
and they've got a lot of little tricks
to try to find out the truth and one of
the tricks is this very very very
tell me about yourself there are two
ways to answer this question and in any
very general question actually but one
thing you can do with the general
what are you like things like that
they're super general right one thing
you can do is you can ask for more
information you can ask questions
this also gives you a chance to to think
it gives you a few extra seconds to get
your brain moving it so you could say
well what specifically would you like to
see that that gives you a little time
first of all to think and get ready but
it also guarantees that you won't answer
in some weird way that they're not
right so you you ask them to be more
specific you get a more specific
question more specific questions are
usually easier to answer that's one
thing you can do and you can do that
with any very general question is vague
where you're not quite where the
question seems so huge and big and vague
in general you can always ask for more
details you can always say well what
specifically would you like to know
that's a good little sentence to to
learn it's a good question to learn you
can use it a lot in job interviews to
get more clarity to be more clear about
so what specifically would you like to
that's the important word specifically
would you like to know this will help
you a lot with the big questions okay
now back to the that one question
tell me about yourself what are they
looking for that they don't they're not
looking for you anything about your
personal life don't talk about your
personal life don't talk about your
family don't talk about your religion
don't talk about your hobbies and talk
about your general beliefs not of that
stuff a really safe and solid answer for
that question is just to review your job
that's all tell me about yourself
well you know I'm my most recent job was
as a in english teacher at a place
called I IC which you can see on my
resume and so number 1 i'm just giving
my job history right I'm basically just
repeating my resume in many ways I talk
about my most recent job if I was
currently working somewhere i would talk
about the current job so number one you
just talk about what was your position
where were you working next thing talk
about what did you learn at that job
what did you do with the job and what
important okay so what did you do I was
an English teacher there i taught
english speaking classes mostly to
intermediate students really simple what
I did but here's the important part this
is what makes the answer powerful next
talk about what you learned at that job
and what you accomplished now you'll get
into this more later in the interview
this is a general question so you give a
general answer you don't need lots of
details and examples for this question
because it's so general so you just say
I taught speaking English and you know
there I learned how to be a more
energetic and entertaining teacher
because thats cool they needed more
students and my manager one of the
teachers to keep and to bring in more
and more and more students to help the
school so he wanted the teachers to be
entertaining to be fun to be interesting
and so I learned how to be much more
entertaining and fun from that challenge
at that job that's it that's all I got
tell me about yourself simple so you
don't need to go on and on and on
talk about your work history talk about
your most recent job and again where
what did you do there what were the main
things you did and then the important
part that makes your answer better and
what did you learn their what important
skills skills did you learn there now
when you're giving that answer what you
learned the skills you learned be sure
that it fits the job you're trying to
get ok so if I was trying to get a job
where and I knew they they wanted a
high-energy teacher they wanted someone
entertaining they wanted someone who
of students well that would be my answer
but if I was applying for a job that
wanted different skills then I would
focus on different skills in my answer
so you've got again you always have to
do your research for the jobs you're
trying to get you got to find out what
are they looking for what do they want
and then you fit your answers to what
they're looking for anyone that's a very
tell me about yourself question just
where were you what did you do what did
you learn what useful skills that will
help you with this job you're trying to
get so that's it now as I said just to
repeat one more time the very very very
very general big questions like that you
can also ask for more specifics right
well would you specifically like to know
what specifically would you like to know
in fact really in in job interview
questions you can kind of use that trick
at any time to if you're not sure like
let's say they say what's your greatest
weakness and your mind just stops oh you
use that same question ask them a
question back well what specifically
you can always use that it's a useful
question you can use it with almost
every interview question we call this
buying time you're buying yourself time
it means your brain stops for a second
hook and you need a little time to get
so how do you do that well there is one
easy way is you ask a question back and
just ask for more specific information
what specifically would you like to know
and who knows they might just repeat the
question again well just tell me about
your greatest weakness but it gives you
it sounds fine it's a it's a nice
question you can ask makes you sound
but you get a few more seconds to think
so that's another little extra secret
now as I said in the past show you have
to have the general mindset in job
interviews of contributing right you
gotta sell the interviewer on you for
making a sales presentation so what you
have to do is to convince them that you
will contribute to their company their
department right you're going to add
something you're going to add value to
them it's not about you don't it's not
about oh I'm so great i'm so great i'm
so great that's not really the attitude
the attitude is I can help you
I can help you i will be useful for your
company i will be useful for you i'm
going to help you i'm going to solve
problems for you i'm going to contribute
that's the attitude that's the very
general attitude you want to have with
every single job interview and every
single answer to every single question
and I finally you are part of the
we're very special group where
international group of independent
learners that means you are the boss of
I'm the father of the effortless English
family but you're the boss of your own
learning and that's great but we're not
all alone because we have a code and how
we treat each other and this is so
important and the main one the main part
of our code is we show each other we
care we show each other we care so so so
important so I care about you and thank
you for caring about me and for caring
about all of the other effortless
we're all independent learners but we're
also all here to support and help each
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