Professional English Vocabulary: Talk about your career

Hi. Welcome back to engVid. Today we are going to be looking at talking about your career.

So it's very important that you are able to fluently do this, especially if you're in

a North American culture where it's one of the first questions that you are asked in

a social situation, but also in the UK and the rest of the English-speaking world. It's

something you can't avoid talking about. You know what it's like at Christmas when a grandmother

or a well-meaning aunt asks you how work is, so we're looking to facilitate you talking

about your own career. And we're going to be looking at how "career" collocates with

these six nouns here to talk about different things to do with one's career. So let's start

having a look now at what they mean when they are put together.

So, a "career move" is where you maybe go from one sector, one industry, to a totally

different industry. Yep, you go from A to B. It's like a football player, he has a move

or she has a move, or a transfer goes from one industry to another. A "career break",

yep, means a stop, a pause. If you go off travelling for nine months or if you go...

If you take a sabbatical or you do some research for a while, that would be a "career break".

"Career plan" is where maybe quite early on in your career, you decide the direction you're

going to be going, some milestones, as in some targets you want to achieve, where you

want to be in 10 years, 20 years' time. Yep, this is a "career plan".

"Career opportunities" are situations where you are able to advance your career. So, maybe

a "career opportunity" would be a vacancy, a rising in your company which would result

in a promotion.

"Career path" is the actual sort of journey of your career. My career path, I'm going

to invent this, I started off as a junior doctor, I worked in casualty wards, and I

ended up as a consultant in St. Thomas' Hospital. Yep, the actual... The kind of the story of

your career.

Your "career ladder", going from one step to the next, going up the hierarchy of command

and responsibility, a step on the "career ladder", the first step, maybe getting that

entry level job. Okay? And each step is going up the ladder.

Right, we're now going to see how these noun collocations work with some verbs. So, we're

going to go into a greater level of detail now. So, we've got our "career move", our

"career break", our "career plan", "career opportunities", "career path", and "career

ladder".

Now, I've put six verbs up here that go with different collocations. Okay? So, let's think

about... Let's do a nice, easy one first. "Climb", which one is that going to go with?

To climb a career... A career ladder. Yep. If you climb the career ladder, you're going

from entry level right up to executive level. Okay, good. We've done "climb", it goes with

"ladder". Right, next one, which should we go for? "Continue". To continue... What would

you continue? To continue on one's... On one's, as in belonging to us, to continue on one's

career path. Yep. To continue walking on the path. Yep. To continue the story of your career.

So, we've done "continue" and "path".

Let's go for "long for" next. If you long for something, you kind of dream about it,

like you so want it, you've been working really, really, really hard, then you long for some

time off. Ooh, that reminds me of something here. To long for a career break. Yep. For

some time off. Long for career break. To long for a career break. Okay. Let's go for "think

about" next. To think about your career or to think about a career, it could be a couple

of different options. So, you could think about a career move or consider a career move.

You could think about your career plan. So, probably this one or this one. To think about

a career move is probably the best option. Yep. You're thinking about taking some action.

Are you going to do it? Are you not? What are the advantages? What are the disadvantages?

To think about a career move. Right. "Identify". So, let's imagine that there is, you know,

like a ball pond that children play in with those funny plastic balls. There's a ball

pond of pink balls. Identify the red one. So, you're looking for it. Ah, I've got the

red one. Identify career opportunities. Yep. You look for them. Is there anything out there

for me? Ah, yes. That job there is a great opportunity. You identified it.

So, we have "execute" goes with "plan". I'm not talking about chopping someone's head

off. "Execute" can also mean to carry out. To carry out a plan. To execute a plan. Right.

This is kind of... So, this... Knowing these collocations, here, was level one. This is

level two. We're now going to go to level three, which is introducing even more verbs

because you can have lots of different options with these. So, this is a real vocab expander

today's lesson. Okay, great. So, welcome to my career plan game opportunity game thing.

The way this works, right, is you take a word from the outside edge, a verb, you add it

together with a particular career collocation. I'll give an example. "To look forward to",

now I go to the middle, a career... What would you look forward to? Something you're kind

of excited about. Look forward to a career break. Yep. So, that goes together. Ooh. So,

we know... The next thing I need to explain. Where you see the lines, the double line,

that marks off a particular group of verbs that go with one particular collocation. So,

we have our top group over here. Now, that's a long list. Okay? And it's going to be...

You'll have to make sure that every single one of those verbs works with the particular

one that it is. It's no good, like, some of them working. They're all going to need to

work. Okay. Now, I gave you a bit of a starting point over here, because I was like, "Look

forward to a career break." So, we know that this group down here is "break". To take a

break, to ask for a break, to opt for a break. Break, you are done. Thank you.

Guys, it's your turn. Which one should we do next? I think it would make sense to do

this nice, long top one. It'd be quite satisfying. So, we have "consider". Yep. To go, "Hmm.

Yes. Well. Hmm." To contemplate, to do even more, "Hmm. Hmm. Hmm." To think about, to

do even more of that. To decide on, "Ah, some action. We have stopped philosophizing. We

are now going into action. We are deciding this one." To opt for, again, it's an excellent

piece of vocabulary, and it's about decisions. But this over here is a different flavor.

Yep. To long for, that's an emotion. That's going, "Oh, I wish. I wish." To dream of,

same thing. Yeah, it's an emotional kind of, "Oh, I would really like that."

So, we've got "thinking about", "deciding", and "wanting". Thinking, deciding, and wanting.

Thinking about, deciding about, and wanting. A career ladder? No. Thinking, longing for

opportunities? Maybe, but you don't really contemplate an opportunity. You know, it's

either there or it's not. Consider opportunities. Maybe you would, actually. To think about,

to decide, to decide on opportunities. That doesn't really work. You could decide to take

opportunities, but you don't decide on opportunities. To long for a plan, to opt for, to dream of

a plan. You don't really dream of a plan. It's not really the stuff of dreams. To long

for a move, to dream of a move. This is sounding promising. To think about a move, to consider

a move. I think all our eggs are lining up in one row. Move, you have found a new home.

You now belong at the top of the board. Congratulations, Mr. Move, or Mrs. Move, whichever one you

are. Okay, we've done these guys. Yep. "Top" is done. We've got all the way down to here.

That's where we are. Right, let's look at these verbs down at the bottom, here. We've

got "make", "agree on", "think about", "decide on", and "execute". Now, can you remember

what "execute" went with from the last board? To execute a career. I can't hear you. A career.

To execute a career plan. That was it. Well done, folks. Let's see how it works with the

other verbs. To decide on a plan. I'm going to do this. To think about it. Shall I do

it? Maybe, maybe, maybe. To agree on a plan. Yes, I'm going to do that. To make a plan.

Yep, that's the actual creation from beginning to the end of the plan being made. So, plan,

you now live down here. Right, what have we got next? We've got these verbs, here. We've

got "to take", "to create", and "to identify". What could it be? Path. To identify your career

path. That's possible, yep. My career path is going from here to there. I think, you

know, this is my journey. To create a path. Sounds a bit dodgy. To take a career path,

to take a certain career path. Yep, that would work, but I don't really like it with "create".

The only remaining collocations, yep, which means like the way the noun is linked with

another noun. We've got "ladder" and "opportunities". Do you create a career ladder? No, no, no,

no, no. This one, yep. To take an opportunity. To create an opportunity by putting something

out there into the world. To identify opportunities. Ah, I could do that, yep. Opportunities, we've

got it. You live over here. Opportunities. Right. We've got "path" and "ladder". And

we've got these three and this one. "Climb" goes with "ladder", yep. You climb a ladder.

A ladder being a visual metaphor for your progress through your career. Yep, to climb

the ladder. Ladder, done. Path, must go here. Surely, otherwise we're going to have to start

again and that would be very painful. To decide on a path. I'm going to go that way. To continue

on your path. Just having a little cup of tea. I'm going to continue now to follow your

career path. Good. We got there, folks. Look how many verbs we have looked at. 1, 2, 3,

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 verbs. Now,

if you can remember all of these, then you're going to be speaking about your work, your

career in a much more high-level and fluent way.

One way of ensuring that you remember some of this material, and it's good material,

is by doing the quiz now. So, have a go and see what you can get. A good score is 9 or

10 out of 10. If you get a low score, you might have to watch again, folks. But you

could always do a little bit of fast-forwarding to the bits that you're not sure about.

Hope you've enjoyed it. Hope you've learned something. If you do enjoy my style of English

videos, make sure that you subscribe to my channel. I'd appreciate that. And I will see

you in the next video.