Hello, everyone, and welcome to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
My name is Catherine, and today we have a new lesson in our series about interviewing for a new job.
This is, of course, at the elementary level.
That's right.
So this is part four of our interview series.
Remember, we are taking a look each week at giving you tips and also the proper language for when you have an interview in English.
And on this occasion, we're going to talk about our work experience.
Okay, you remember we talked a little bit about educational experience and educational background.
Well, today is all about your last couple of jobs.
Mm-hmm.
All right, so I think we should just listen to the dialogue for the first time, and we'll be back in a bit with language takeaway.
Right, Rebecca.
Now I see that after graduating from university, your first job was?
For a local paper in York called the York Herald.
Actually, I started with them as an intern.
I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism, and this seemed like a good first step.
Certainly.
And after your internship?
They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.
I ended up staying two years there, actually.
I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.
I really enjoyed it there, and it really helped me build my skills.
Yes, I see.
But you decided to leave them in 2006, right?
Yes, that's right.
My husband and I moved to London, and so I managed to find a position with a national newspaper based in London.
To London Weekly, right?
Yes.
In some ways, it was a step down from my previous job, but it did offer me much better prospects for the future.
All right, we're back, so now we've picked out a couple of key words, and we're going to take a look at those now on language takeaway.
Language takeaway.
So Marco, a lot of people don't start out as a professional with a job.
They have something else first.
What is this?
That's right, a very popular way to begin your work experience.
You become an intern, or you work as an intern.
Okay, so the name of the job we could say is intern.
I'm an intern, or he's an intern at my company.
Exactly.
So usually interns work at a company.
Usually they're not paid, or if they are, it's very, very little pay.
And the purpose of an internship, or to work as an intern, is to gain experience.
That's right, so it's basically like a study opportunity for a job that you know you want.
I could be an intern at a media company, and I could learn all about media, but it's not really a full job.
Exactly, and usually it serves as an opportunity to maybe continue working at that company in a full-time job.
So you become an intern, and the noun or what you are doing is called an internship.
So I'm an intern, but what I have is an internship.
Right.
It's like saying, I have a job.
I have an internship, but I am an intern.
Exactly.
All right, so we've covered those two words.
Now, let's move on to when she's describing her work experience in the York Herald, and she described it as a very good first step.
Okay, so a first step, you think about your foot, your step, your moving, it means the very first thing you do when you're heading in some direction.
Right, and professionally, I guess your first steps are maybe becoming an intern.
Right, or you could say, my first step was working in the mail room at this big movie studio, but later I became a famous movie producer.
Exactly.
That's kind of like the way that you begin your professional life.
And well, then they started talking about the newspapers, and actually Rebecca was offered a position as a junior local news reporter.
Okay, so junior means usually lower ranking or not experienced, someone who is just starting out.
And of course, after junior, we have senior.
So a senior news reporter is someone who's worked for many, many years as a reporter.
Usually, I guess a junior news reporter would make less money than a senior news reporter.
Exactly.
You could also say junior executive or senior executive.
Junior manager.
These are ways of describing length of experience.
And in this case, she's junior, but what kind of a job does she have?
Well, she is a news reporter for local issues.
Okay, so she's a local news reporter.
Now, what exactly does that mean if you're a local news reporter or for local issues?
Well, if I live in Chicago and I'm a local news reporter, I only write or report the news about Chicago.
It's a way of describing the things in my area.
So it's the opposite of our next phrase, national news reporter.
Okay, so if you are a national news reporter or a national manager of maybe a company, then that means that you oversee things in the whole country.
That's right.
So local is my city or my county, but in the case of national, we're talking about the whole country, nation, national.
So national is an adjective.
But we could even go further than this.
What if I am a reporter and I talk about foreign countries?
I talk about France and South Africa and even Iceland.
Then I guess you would be an international news reporter.
Exactly.
And also at the executive level, you can have an international marketing manager, right?
That's right.
International marketing manager, national marketing manager.
These are very important ways to divide work to say he is the international manager, he's the national manager.
This tells you the kind of the size of this person's job.
Exactly.
Okay.
More or less you'd know how these jobs can be divided junior, senior, national, local, etc.
So I think we should go back to the dialogue.
Let's listen to this dialogue again.
And we'll be back in a bit.
Right, Rebecca.
Now I see that after graduating from university, your first job was...
For a local paper in York called the York Herald.
Actually, I started with them as an intern.
I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism and this seemed like a good first step.
Certainly.
And after your internship?
They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.
I ended up staying two years there actually.
I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.
I really enjoyed it there and it really helped me build my skills.
Yes, I see.
But you decided to leave them in 2006, right?
Yes, that's right.
My husband and I moved to London and so I managed to find a position with a national newspaper based in London.
To London Weekly, right?
Yes.
In some ways it was a step down from my previous job but it did offer me much better prospects for the future.
All right, so now let's start with a couple of phrases and phrasal verbs on Fluency Builder.
Fluency Builder.
Okay, in today's dialogue we heard a lot of really wonderful phrases, Marco.
Some of them are ways of making your experiences sound better, more professional even.
For example, this first one, sorry, Rebecca's talking about her first job in York and she says I was in charge of the sports news section.
In charge of.
Okay, so that phrase, I was in charge of or to be in charge of, what does this describe?
This describes responsibility.
Basically, she's saying I was responsible for or I had to manage the sports news section.
She's taking credit for this job that was important.
Okay, so this is a key phrase because this is the typical phrase that you use to describe your responsibilities or to describe what you did in your previous job position or your previous job.
That's right, I could ask you when you were in marketing, what were you in charge of?
Right, and then you say, well, I was in charge of and then you explain your responsibilities or what you did.
I was in charge of our national accounts or I was in charge of the local news.
Exactly, so this is a very simple phrase, just remember it, I was in charge of and then you can start explaining what were your responsibilities, what you did in your previous job.
Alright, moving on now towards the end of that paragraph, Rebecca says that, well, being in charge of the sports news section was really fun and it really helped her build my skills.
It really helped me build my skills.
So to build your skills or in this case, I build my skills means that I have some skills but maybe they're not really developed.
Maybe I just finished college, I want more experience.
Well, in that time during my first job, I build my skills.
I become better at writing or having interviews, things like that.
Exactly, so when you build your skills, you kind of improve your abilities or you gain more experience.
Alright, and another interesting phrase coming up here when Rebecca talked about moving to London with her husband, she said, I managed to find a position with a national newspaper.
Okay, so I managed to or you could say to manage to do something.
This is a really interesting phrase because it's another way of saying to be able to or to succeed at something.
Okay, so don't confuse it with manager or to manage people.
That is also correct, obviously it exists, but to manage to do something is to, as you said, to be able to do something.
Right, so for example, I was running really late yesterday and I had a ticket for a train at five o'clock.
I thought I would miss the train, but I managed to get to the train on time.
That means I was able to get on the train on time.
Exactly, okay, so you managed to find a job, I managed to get to the train on time, I was able to.
Alright, and towards the end, Rebecca talked about her job at the London Weekly and she described it as a step down from my previous job.
Okay, is this a good thing or a bad thing, Marco?
To be a step down in something is a bad thing, it's to reduce in level or to decrease.
Okay, so basically she's saying, listen, I had this really great job in New York and I took a new job in London and the new job, it wasn't as good in many ways because maybe she had less responsibility or maybe it paid less.
So this is a way of saying it wasn't as good as my last job.
Okay, so her new job was a step down from her previous job.
You could say, I think his new girlfriend's a bit of a step down, if you know what I mean.
Exactly, so usually you're comparing, right?
You're making a comparison between something from the past to now.
Exactly.
Okay, so a step down.
Why don't we go back and listen to the dialogue for the very last time and we'll be back to talk to you in a bit.
Right, Rebecca, now I see that after graduating from university your first job was...
For a local paper in York called the York Herald.
Actually, I started with them as an intern.
I was really keen on getting some experience in journalism and this seemed like a good first step.
Certainly, and after your internship?
They seemed impressed and offered me a position as a junior local news reporter.
I ended up staying two years there actually.
I was in charge of the sports news section of the newspaper.
I really enjoyed it there and it really helped me build my skills.
Yes, I see, but you decided to leave them in 2006, right?
Yes, that's right.
My husband and I moved to London and so I managed to find a position with a national newspaper based in London.
The London Weekly, right?
Yes, in some ways it was a step down from my previous job, but it did offer me much better prospects for the future.
All right, so talking about internships and interns, it seems that usually they get...
It's not very exciting to become an intern because it ends up that the office people just make you make coffee or copies and stuff like that.
You're not really gaining much work experience.
That is the reputation in the United States for internships.
So basically when you agree to do an internship, sometimes you have to apply to do an internship and stuff like that.
It's a very long process.
You end up, like you say, making coffee for people or photocopying reports and this is really boring work.
Right.
I think, yeah, that is the reputation that many places have, like you say, in the United States.
But also, I don't know, I guess it does seem in a way the only opportunity in order to be able to get into an industry or a company.
Maybe it's a really good company, like, I don't know, like Procter and Gamble.
And how else are you going to be able to get in there with no job experience?
Well, that's right.
And a lot of people know that an internship doesn't really give you work experience, but they still think that it gives you some edge or some advantage when you're looking for jobs later.
Because if I write down on my resume, we were talking earlier about resumes, if I write down on my resume that I was an intern at Procter and Gamble, wow, that's really impressive.
Right, it looks good.
All right, so this is an interesting topic.
Let us know if you were ever an intern.
Maybe you started out as an internship or maybe you're doing one now.
Was it better than we say?
Did you do anything else other than making coffee?
We really hope so.
And we look forward to hearing about your experiences.
All right, we'll see everyone at EnglishPod.com.
And until next time.
Bye.
Bye.