节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-02-27
难易度:Medium
关键字:ongoing, blur, in terms of, thoughtful, obligation
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
And we're glad that you could join us, especially if you might be going in for a
job interview soon.
This is day three of our lesson: What Questions Do Employers Want to Hear in an
Interview?
So please open up your magazines.
But first we'd like to review what we've learned the last couple of days.
What did we talk about the first day here, Carolyn?
Well, the first day we learned that before you go into an interview, prior to an
interview,
you need to do a little bit of research because you need to know what you want
to ask your employer.
And it's a little bit like a date.
You need to keep the dialogue balanced.
That's right. It is a little bit like a date, different but kind of similar.
What did we talk about the second day, Nathanael?
Well, the second day we talked about Alan Guinn who is a CEO of a consultancy
that gives advice to businesses.
And he talked about seven different questions that are good to ask in an
interview.
Go back in your magazine and look and see what those were.
And do keep your magazine open because we're going to continue finding out what
the remaining three questions are today.
We have lots more to learn, so let's get started with our first reading of the
day.
(Music).
What Questions Do Employers Want to Hear in an Interview?
8. Are there paid, ongoing learning opportunities offered at my level of job
responsibility?
What obligations do I have if I elect to take advantage of them?
9. What does the company expect in the way of personal and professional growth
for a person hired into this position?
10. Does the company value a difference in work and personal time, or does it
blur the responsibilities between the two?
Think about your goals first.
Don't feel obligated to walk into the interview with a set number of questions,
but these give you an idea of the right questions to ask.
(Music).
Well, those are some very good questions to ask.
And the first one here we have is question number eight.
Are there paid, ongoing learning opportunities offered at my level of job
responsibility?
Now in that sentence we see a key word from our Word Bank: ongoing.
If something is ongoing, that means it is continuing.
Nathanael, how can you use this word "ongoing"?
Well, there's a lot of different examples where you could use this word.
You might say ongoing project, ongoing search, ongoing research, all of these
things could be continuing.
They could be going on even now.
That's very true.
Gabe, how else can you use the word "ongoing"?
Well, I like how Nathanael was so positive.
I was thinking about ongoing problems.
Sometimes within a company or organization or even a friendship, there is an
ongoing problem, something that just seems to not ever be resolved.
Those are ongoing problems.
But back to the positive, of course, some companies offer classes.
Maybe there are ongoing classes that you could take to help improve in your
work.
Right. So here the question is wanting to know about ongoing learning
opportunities, so ways that you can continue your education.
They also ask a second question.
What obligations do I have if I elect to take advantage of them?
Now this is a great sentence with a More Information word "obligations." It
means that you are required to do something.
But Gabe, can you tell us a little bit more about this sentence?
Yeah. What obligations? What are people expecting me to do?
If I do choose to take part in these opportunities, what does the company expect
me to do?
And we use the word "elect" right here.
I said the word "choose." The article says "elect." What obligations do I have
if I elect to take advantage of them?
That kind of means the same thing as the word "choose." Well, what about "take
advantage of"?
What does that mean, Nathanael?
Well, simply, I think that you could say that it basically means to use
something.
It's there, so you take it to use for yourself, for your own benefit or your own
advantage.
All right.
Well, we have a lot more to learn.
Let's go to question number nine.
What does the company expect in the way of personal and professional growth for
a person hired into this position?
I think this is a great question to ask because it kind of shows that you might
be up for a challenge.
It tells your interviewer you might be interested in growing as a person.
You might be up for a challenge.
Well, what else can we find out from this lesson, Carolyn?
Well, question number ten, the last question here:
Does the company value a difference in work and personal time, or does it blur
the responsibilities between the two?
And here we have another key word, the word "blur." And what is "blur,"
Nathanael?
Well, a blur is something that's unclear.
We could also say "blurry." That's an adjective.
It means something is not clear.
You can't see what it is.
Sometimes a common expression that we use is "It's all a blur." I really don't
know what happened.
Maybe I don't remember very well.
Right. So two things blend together, and you can't really tell which one is
which.
And here they're talking about work and personal time.
So if the two of those blur together, then there really isn't much difference
between those two times.
How else might you use the word "blur," Gabe?
Well, I was just thinking.
Sometimes I do blur my roles between my work role and my... the role I have...
or the way that I am in my personal time outside of work.
I am a teacher.
I like defining things.
Sometimes I will research and... and teach different things, of course.
And sometimes I take that attitude or that way of talking into my relationships
with friends, and they're just like:
Gabe, you don't have to explain things for us.
You're not teaching us right now.
Let's just have a normal conversation.
So sometimes I blur the roles between my work and my personal life.
Well, we do have to be careful not to blur things too much.
But now let's take some time to see what Steve and Ken have for us in the
Information Cloud.
Turnover indicates how long employees stay at a company.
If a company has a high turnover rate, that means employees leave soon after
they are hired.
Maybe they leave because there are no growth opportunities or because of
conflict with management.
A high turnover rate might also indicate unsafe or unhealthy work conditions.
A high turnover rate also creates a loss of productivity, expenses with
new-hired training, problems with customer retention and low morale.
Added together, these things can cost the company more than the annual salary of
the employee who left.
So it's in the company's best interest to keep its turnover rate low.
So how low is low?
Well, Forbes magazine says that a turnover rate of 15 percent or lower is
considered normal.
Meaning a company with 100 people can lose 15 employees within a year without
raising any kind of alarm.
Fifteen percent is not unhealthy.
But a turnover rate higher than that might be indicative of deep-seeded problems
within the company.
So in your next job interview, you might want to consider asking about the
company's turnover rate.
That's good advice.
(Chinese).
Thanks for the suggestion, guys.
You can make that question number eleven.
What is the turnover rate at your company?
Well, continuing in this lesson we see that there's a heading that says: Think
about your goals first.
And that's a great piece of advice.
And here's a familiar word in the next sentence:
Don't feel obligated to walk into the interview with a set number of questions,
but these give you an idea of the right questions to ask.
I think that is some very good advice.
That's right.
You don't want to feel burdened to have to remember all of these questions.
There are 10 questions.
If you include the Info Cloud question, there's 11 questions.
Don't feel that you have to remember all of these things and ask the right thing
to sound intelligent.
We all want to sound intelligent, but we have some more advice here that we want
to talk about after the break.
So be sure you come back.
Right now we're going to go and join Michelle in the Language Lab.
We will see you very soon.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.