Leave Russia and find a job abroad: we are preparing for an interview in English

Many learn English in order to go to work abroad. Knowing the language at the level of the upper-intermediate and owning the basics of business correspondence and negotiation is, of course, good. Only work abroad does not begin with this. Before you get into a foreign company, you need to have an interview, and just to him, our compatriots, even being good specialists, are not ready. Why? Because none of the interview does not go on the thumb, the personnel officer or the immediate superior probably will ask additional questions, which are unrealistic to predict. But you can still make a plan to prepare for an interview, and learn useful expressions that show that you are really fluent in English and are ready to work in an international team.

The process of looking for a job abroad is no different from the Russian one: you are looking for vacancies, sending out a resume and get test assignments and an invitation for an interview. If you are lucky and your name is for an interview in a company that you like, then do not be lazy to go to the company's website and read about the history of its creation and mission . This information will help you on two fronts at once: first, you will be able to complete the story about yourself with a phrase that you share your views and support the company's mission and would be happy to make your contribution to its development. Secondly, if you don’t say it at the very beginning, then you will have an almost ready answer to the question “Why do you want to work with us?”, And you don’t have to invent anything on the go to disguise “you have an interesting job and pay well ".

Having dealt with the history and mission of the company, you can begin to prepare a story about yourself .

Foreign companies and here are no different from Russian: first, you will be asked to tell about yourself, then briefly tell about the company and start asking questions on the merits. Here are three important tips for your presentation:
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- A story about yourself should not take more than 60-90 seconds;
- you should not tell your biography: the employer is not interested to know about your hobbies. You can start with education, but abroad, interviews often begin with a story about work experience in general, and not what university you graduated 10 years ago;
- focus on career achievements and strengths.

And one bonus tip: do not start the story about yourself with “My name is Pasha, I'm from Russia” ! Your name is already known to all, as well as your nationality, because the personnel officer saw your resume. Anyway, this start will have a negative impact on the overall impression.

The story about yourself should be succinct and catchy. And, of course, the fewer mistakes there are, the better. Write a story and check it, for example, on the Grammarly service. And even a simple Word will be able to catch some (but not all!) Grammar and speech errors. Pay close attention to the verb forms: in the story about yourself you will obviously use the Past Simple, Present Perfect and Present Perfect Continuous times. Take a look at an example:

“I've been working for social research for nearly 10 years. In my most recent position, we have been declining for families with lower incomes. We’ve been successful ... ”

“I've spent the last 6 years at Chicago. I’ve been on the budget ”.

Past Simple is mainly used to describe iconic achievements that happened during work in other companies ( “We successfully implemented our software in 7 companies” ). If you are asked about education, then this time is useful here: “I graduated in IT from Moscow State University” .

With the help of Present Perfect and Present Perfect Continuous, tell us about your experience: you became an expert in something (as in the examples), worked in the field for so many years ( “I have worked for this field”). " ). If you hesitate to use these times, it’s better to avoid them altogether and build a story in Past Simple, for example: “I worked on that.”

Remember that you can not read a piece of paper. Learning your answer by heart is not an option either - what if you get so excited that you forget everything? Ideally, you need to practice with a friend or teacher. Your task is to sound as natural as possible, and not to speak with memorized phrases. Practice intonation, follow your gestures - in many countries they are interpreted differently.

Important : Usually before starting the interview you will have to support small talk . You may, for example, be asked if it was easy for you to get to the office, and how long it took. They can comment on the weather or ask about your weekend. During the training process, practice answering simple questions like “Did you have any trouble finding the office?”, “Did you do anything interesting over the weekend?” , Etc. Do not forget at the end to ask “and you?” / ”What about you?” To keep the conversation going.

After telling about yourself and getting acquainted with a vacancy, you may be asked many other questions, whether related to your professional skills or not. To answer questions directly about skills and responsibilities, we recommend that you study the tutorial related to your profession. For example, English for International Tourism or English for Nursing . Such textbooks contain a lot of terms that you know in Russian, but you may not yet know English. Well, the rest of the questions may be very different. Consider some of them.

Why did you leave your last job?

As in Russia, it is better not to start the answer to this question abroad by swearing and expressing discontent towards your last boss. Basically, the personnel officer is interested to know whether you yourself left or fired you. If you are cut, this is also worth mentioning, because you left the company not at will. In order to gently move away from this question and translate the topic, you can end your answer with the words that you lacked everything that you lacked in your previous job, in the company you want to find, for example:

“I want to find a company with more opportunities. My previous company. I want to work. "

And other examples:

“For our children. I want to find my job closer to my new home. My previous job was too far away to commute. ”

“I was laid off / made redundant, because the company relocated / downsized / needed to cut costs."

“I resigned from my previous position, because ...”

What are your strengths?

Here the choice is huge. It is better to choose those strengths and qualities that will be useful directly to your position. Here are some examples:

“I consider myself to be a team-player. I find it’s easier to achieve something. ”

“I'm ambitious. Motivates me to work hard. I am looking for ways to improve myself and grow. ”(Interesting fact: in the Russian language the word“ ambitious ”has a negative connotation, an ambitious person is“ vain and is capricious. ”And in English, the word ambitious means more“ purposeful, ”and you can and should use it to describe yourself).

“I believe my detail trait. This trait has helped me tremendously in this field of work. ”

“My strongest trait is in customer service. "Make sure they are more satisfied."

“To do things and make them happen. I'm proactive. When I think about things, I do them. I would like to see your own actions. ”

In other words, you need to make 3-5 sentences with a description of your best qualities, but not just to list them, but to give a small example. Also remember that this answer can be used for other questions: “Why do you think?”, ““ Makes it a good fit for our company? ” .

You can search for the right words, for example, here and here , and if you need synonyms, then it is better to search for them not in a simple dictionary, but in a thesaurus, for example, on thesaurus.com website.

What is your current role?

Or “What are your key responsibilities in your current role?”. Here you need to talk about basic duties, and you can do this with the following expressions:

I'm responsible for
I ensure that
I deal with
I'm in charge of

Tell me about ...

This is a series of questions that foreign personnel officers like to ask and which are important to answer well. In such cases, your partner wants to see how you coped with a particular situation, how you showed yourself, and what skills you used. It would also be nice to give the personnel officer specific examples with numbers: the number of clients, clear periods, growth percentages, etc. It is impossible to predict what kind of question you will be asked. It all depends on the scope and on the specific personnel officer. Read and listen to examples of answers to various questions in this series can be here .

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

This also includes questions like “What are your career goals?”, “What are your first 3–4 months here?”, “What would your first 30 days look like in this job?” . Here the personnel officer wants to understand whether you are able to set short-term and long-term goals, whether you are able to solve problems on the way to these goals, and generally understand your priorities. Here are some examples of answers to these questions:

“Where I can use it.” I want to take care of the situation. ”

“My goal is to always perform at an exceptional level. But I’m going to make it a step up for this goal. ”

“My short term goal is to get into a management position. It has been a great deal of success. Recently, I’m willing to become a sales manager. ”

»I want to become a valued employee of a company. I want to make this goal. I don’t want a special career, that I can be proud of. "

“I would like to become a director or higher. I would like to be hard. ”

“In five years, I want to be a senior analyst. I want my expertise to experience a company in a positive way. ”

“Although I really enjoy a mechanical engineer, I want to eventually become a manager. I see myself in management. ”

Do you have any questions for me?

A great question from the personnel officer, who will help you to stand in his place and ask all your questions and even tricky questions.

For example:

This company?

What is the typical day for this position?

I was offered the job?

Your company offers its employees? ( important : if you do not have citizenship of the country in which you apply for a job, be sure to check all bureaucratic points. What documents should I do?)

Who would I report to? Who would I be working closely with?

When will I get an answer? How soon can I start?

What were you looking for?

When the personnel officer asks you this question, he already knows exactly how much they will offer you. With the help of such questions you can check how well you are oriented in your field and how you evaluate your qualifications. Do not be afraid to name exactly the amount you want to receive. If it is difficult for you to decide on a fork of prices, look at how much on average the specialists of your level in the labor market receive. Abroad, the GlassDoor site will help you.

Remember that the interview is not as scary as it seems. Carefully prepare a story about yourself - the first impression is always the strongest. Show off your strengths and be sure to practice talking about yourself before you go for an interview. Good luck!

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