How to Prepare for a Job Interview – Common Interview Questions - Job Interview Tips

Interviewers know if you’ve prepared for a job interview or not –

and if you haven’t prepared, you probably won’t get the job.

One of the most important things to do before a job interview is to practice answering interview questions.

You’ll have better answers and you’ll be more relaxed,

opening the door to a greater connection with the person interviewing you.

Today we’re going to sit down with three experts who will talk you though common interview questions,

how to answer them, body language, and some Do’s an Don’ts of interviewing.

This is a long video because there’s a lot to cover.

You’ll learn how to talk about transitions between jobs, what to say if you’ve been fired,

what to say when you’re not sure how to answer a question,

the right way to follow up, the right body language, and much more.

Being prepared WILL get you the job.

At the end of the video, there will be a lesson for my non-native English speaking students on vocal tone.

You may be absolutely wonderful at what you do, and have a great cover letter and resume.

But interviewing is its own separate skill.

Cindy has hired hundreds of people for the non-profits she ran in New York City.

Now she works as a recruiter and she interviews people all day.

She says, before your interview, it is extremely important.

To practice your interviewing skills.

Do mock interviews because it makes you more comfortable,

and the more comfortable you are in an interview, the more likely you are to have a connection with somebody.

If you walk in nervous, and you're not yourself,

then the interview doesn't get to see who you are, which means that they may miss something.

You don’t want the interviewer to miss anything about how fabulous you are.

Everyone I spoke to stressed practicing.

Laura is a career advisor at a prestigious American college.

The most important thing is to prepare as much as possible.

Practising your interview ahead of time in front of a mirror with a friend.

Steve is a small business owner who does a lot of hiring.

I asked him what makes a good first impression at the beginning of an interview.

They are anticipating that they're going to be asked some questions.

Some standard questions across the board or during an interview process.

And if they have good answers for those, what I mean by good is that they're they've thought about these,

they know how to answer them, then to me, that feels like, okay this person's, this person's been aware,

and is prepared for... prepared for this interview.

Employers CAN tell when you’ve prepared: your answers are clearer, more interesting, more thorough.

And they appreciate that.

If you haven’t prepared for the interview, they’re probably going to question if you’re really prepared for the job.

In the next three videos that follow this one, we’ll study mock interviews

and discuss how you can put together you own best answers for common interview questions.

For the rest of this video, we’ll continue to hear from Cindy, Laura and Steve.

They’re giving you insider information: what does an employer want to see in an interview?

First, it’s common for employers to ask you to share a little bit about yourself outside of your work life.

Why do they do this, and what are they looking for?

Does it matter if you prepare an answer to this one?

Yes. Listen to what Steve says.

We usually ask what other things do you do outside of work?

We're looking for what kind of well-roundedness are you.

Of a person are you, and even what other activities are you involved with?

What might you be involved with within your community?

And more of that giving back to the community kind of a way.

But oftentimes, that'll lead to additional questions where, okay, we've got maybe a common interest,

and all of a sudden, you're going down a path of asking a whole bunch of different other questions.

Have you ever asked someone this question and they really

didn't have anything else that felt like their thing that they could talk about ?

Definitely.

Had situations where they were the reply was: well, I sit on my couch, and watch tv, you know.

It's something that's....It's some... That's another activity, all right, but it's,

for me, it's not, doesn't feel like it's a real one, exciting one, or one that, if I were in that interview position,

I would say that. That would be my response.

So yeah, we've had...We've had people that are just like: well, I...

I don't know and I just I just kind of work. I work all day.

And those people probably would have had an answer if they thought about it ahead of time.

Yeah, that's true.

So it's all about being prepared.

Right. Right. If you had thought about that beforehand I'm sure those applicants wouldn't have said:

I just kind of sit...I sit at my sit on my couch and watch tv.

There’s nothing wrong with loving TV, but think of a more exciting way to say it. “I’m a huge TV buff”, for example.

DO have an answer for ‘tell me about yourself’, but DON’T get too personal.

Many interviews start with two general questions.

One being: tell me about yourself, a lot of people hate that question, but a lot of people use it.

And be prepared for that.

Tell a little bit about yourself. And what usually they're asking for is not to tell your resume,

they're asking for you to say a little bit about yourself, personally.

Like what, what would be, I mean, personally, there are so many things.

Oh I have two kids, or I love opera.

Like, is there any one thing that you think stay away from that? Or...How would you answer that?

I mean, yeah, I would stay away from anything that's like

super personal, that would be weird to say to somebody that you don't know very well.

But I think personal is good and so I think the things you just said are really interesting.

Like, I live in...I live in richmond, I have two little girls, and we moved down, I used to work in a non-profit,

I've just now switched careers, like, whatever.

I mean, just something about yourself that gives them a little bit of context of who you are.

So like something that you would feel comfortable saying to somebody that you're sitting next to on the bus

or something?

Yeah. Yeah. Or that you've just met at a dinner party, or you know, something like that.

Short.

They're not asking you for a long answer.

The other thing that a lot of interviews will start with is that you do a walk-through of your resume.

Now we’re moving onto a major topic you need to prepare for an interview: walking through your resume.

Both Steve and Cindy said this is something they ask interviewees to do.

Bring several copies of the same resume you submitted for the job.

Keep one for your own reference and hand the rest out to the people interviewing you.

What does an employer want to hear in a walk-through of your resume?

So I would say: I would love you to walk me through your resume.

Talk, start at the beginning.

Talk through the roles that you've held, key responsibilities at those roles,

would love for you to highlight your key successes in each role,

one of the things I really want to understand is your transition, so as you move from role to role,

would love to understand what prompted you to leave one place and go to the other.

And then, you know, if your career was long, I would love for you to spend more time on your more recent stuff,

but start at the beginning because I want to get a sense of your full career arc.

I want to get a sense of how it all connects, how you got from, you know, at the beginning to where you are now.

And then depending on the role, sometimes I will also say,

you know, when you start getting to the place of your career where you are managing teams,

or supervising staff, let me know how many people, the construct of your team,

and if you're managing budgets, what size of a budget? So I can capture that information.

I'm happy to like, you know, stop you as you go along if you forget anything but that's what I'm looking for.

And do that in about 15 or 20 minutes.

And that's awesome because that is something that anyone can practice ahead of time,

and can really, you know, time themselves, make sure they're not rambling on too much with any one thing.

And something that people will often do, I mean, there's errors on both sides,

some people go so quickly and don't actually note the information that I asked,

that I have to go back and ask questions all the way through. That's sort of annoying.

And then the rambly is also really annoying.

So some people will start and they'll...

They'll pause after their first job and say like: am I giving you the right level of detail?

I love that because I don't want to interrupt people.

It's not, you know, it doesn't always feel good to do that especially when people are nervous,

and they're interviewing.

So it's always good to check in and say like: is that the detail that you want?

And somebody asks me, I may very well say: actually, you know, feel free to go a little more quickly,

or you didn't know XYZ.

Talking through your resume in this kind of detail

is something you’re going to be able to do a lot more clearly if you’ve thought about it

and practiced it ahead of time.

One part of your resume that matters a lot to employers is timing.

Be prepared to talk about gaps in your work history, short tenures at jobs, and transitioning between jobs.

One of the things in particular that I'm looking for is is gaps in your work history.

If you're giving me dates of when you worked, and you have a one-year gap, I want to know why.

What's going on? What happened? Or didn't happen? Or why did, why is there a year off or six-month period off

on your work history? That's probably one of the bigger things that I'm looking at.

Transitions between jobs.

This is a really important piece.

A lot of workers they just care a lot about it

because they want to understand if you were asked to leave, you were fired,

if your very short job tenures on your resume, that's a red flag for a lot of organizations,

and actually could be a reason why you didn't get an interview.

But be prepared to talk about your transitions.

If you do get fired, figure out how do you want to talk about that.

And if you didn't, then talk about what was it that made you leave one organization and go to another.

And while you're doing that,

you want to make sure that you're never speaking badly about one of your jobs or organizations.

It's another flag that happens in a job interview.

And you know it's okay to talk about a rough transition, or a rough year,

but you want to do it very carefully,

in a way that you would feel comfortable that if somebody from that organization were there,

would, you know, generally understand and feel comfortable here.

If you are bad-mouthing an organization, or a previous boss, or anybody really, in a job interview,

that's gonna make people think it's possible that you would do the same about them, about the, you know, job.

Do prepare to talk through your resume, do prepare to talk about gaps in work or transitions between jobs,

but don’t ever talk badly about an organization or an employer you worked with in the past.

How can you gracefully talk about being fired?

Let's say I was fired from a job.

From your experience, what is a way that I can talk about that, that you feel okay about it?

I guess it depends on why I was fired, right?

It really does.

It does depend on the situation.

I mean ultimately, what hopefully you can talk about is a situation where there was just not a good fit

with an organization.

And to be able to explain why something wasn't a good fit,

and how that transition was done in a way that was really respectful on your side, if you were able to.

So, in other words, you know, we realized that that it wasn't the right fit,

at which point, I worked another two weeks, you know, to make sure that I helped with the transition.

And somebody's gonna dig into that.

What was it that wasn't a good fit for you?

Well, it wasn't a good fit because I...

You know, I just had my first baby,

this was a culture that required, you know, a lot of overtime.

I wasn't able to give it. Ultimately, my boss and I were able to sit down and have a conversation

about that, and we decided to, you know, part ways, sooner rather than later.

Okay. That's helpful.

If they don't ask you the direct question: did you get fired? Or they didn't ask you about your transitions, right?

Like, I wouldn't say you should offer it, if it's not being asked for.

If somebody says why did you leave that organization, then you need to be honest.

Talking about being fired without bad mouthing the organization or lying could be hard,

but if you work on it beforehand, you’ll likely be able to come up with a way to discuss this

that you’re comfortable with that's also truthful.

Both Cindy and Steve talked about the balance of talking about your accomplishments without sounding arrogant.

So if someone would come in with confidence and humility,

that would maybe endear me a little more to that person and say, boy,

I think this person could probably fit in our organization.

So I feel like I understand how someone can present themselves with confidence.

Can you think of anything of that a person says or does that makes you sense humility in them?

>> I mean, that's sort of a tricky, tricky one. >> It really is.

I think not over promoting yourself,

listening, truly listening to the people that are you're interviewing with,

not going on and on, talking on and on about yourself ,about your compliment, accomplishments,

about everything that you've done,

how wonderful you are, but still being able to talk about these these accomplishments, and...

Yeah. It's a fine line. It's a little tricky. You have to be able to speak well about what you've done,

but then also know at what point it's gotten to be too much.

Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

Cindy agrees.

She has a great tip on how to do this.

I think one of the most, like, noted

characteristics about somebody on the turnout side is somebody who is just a know-it-all,

overly confident, speaks very highly of themselves.

and again, like, it's tricky because part of the job interview process is talking about what you've done,

but being able to do so in a way that exhibits humility, super-important.

I have interviewed people who have amazing resumes, who, you know, have done amazing work,

who are more than qualified for a role, and I've decided not to advance them in the process

because culturally, they are not going to be a fit in an organization where humility is valued...

which is a lot of organizations.

Not all. But a lot.

Wow. So how can someone talk about their achievements in a way that feels humble and not cocky?

One of the ways I think people can do that is in truth, when we think about our accomplishments,

rarely, I might even say, never.

Are they actually solely our accomplishments?

So one of the ways that you can talk about that is to highlight the team that you

accomplished something with, and certainly, it's also important to note your role on that, you know, so

example I use earlier was raising a million dollars.

It is very unlikely that any one person raised a million dollars by themselves.

They had support in different ways.

So being able to say, you know, my role on the team was actually to be the one out, you know, doing the meetings,

etcetera, I had a great staff that supported me in doing that, did the research, you know,

we worked so hard all together, and that allowed us to accomplish this amazing goal.

That's a great point. And then it also highlights perhaps that you work well in a group,

and that you're team oriented, which is often qualities that someone's looking for.

Both Steve and Cindy mentioned humility.

It is a characteristic that many employers will care about.

Do be prepared to talk about your accomplishments,

but know how to frame them in a way so that doesn’t sound arrogant.

I aside from ‘tell me about yourself’ and the resume walk-through,

I asked Steve what other questions he asks in interviews.

A couple of the regular questions are: how do you fit in within an organization?

What type of personality do you have?

So I'm asking that, I'm trying to get an idea of how they would fit into our culture, into our organization.

It can be helpful to know how to talk about yourself and your personality in an interview.

Laura actually suggested that some of her students take a personality test like the Meyers Briggs test.

This can give you something concrete that you can say about yourself,

and you can think ahead of time of how you might relate that to the job you’re interested in

or the organization you’re interviewing for.

She also talked about another test.

So the other assessments that we offer are the strengths quest

which generates your top five strengths out of 24 strengths.

And that's a great assessment for learning about what you have to offer,

in terms and language that you may not have used before,

which will be very helpful when talking to employers, or thinking about certain careers that might be a fit for you.

Okay, so even just knowing how to describe your strengths from this exam from this test,

would be useful in any job interview because it gives you the language to do that articulately.

That's right.

Especially if you’re new to interviewing, taking a test like Meyers Briggs or the Strength Quest test

can give you the language you can use to describe yourself in an interview.

Steve mentioned a lot of what he’s looking for to learn in an interview is process.

He asks:

How do you deal with an upset customer?

And that can be asked in multiple ways, but how do you how do you handle conflict is kind of what I'm getting to,

but in our environment we're constantly dealing with customers,

so how do you deal with them when one customer may not, you know, feel like they haven't been treated fairly?

So I want to hear that process.

To me, that it's the same process over and over again with anyone,

and does that person know that process of how do you talk with them, how do you...

How do you not know when to not talk with them.

So that's, that's another big one that we ask.

There are lots of common interview questions you can find online.

As you think about how you’ll answer them, focus on specifics, on telling stories from your work history.

you want to be prepared with very specific examples from your past work history to answer.

if somebody says give me an example of when, what they want is a very specific example of when.

and when you say, well, you know like I manage people by doing X Y Z and like,

in this job, I did this, in this job, I did this, like, they want a very specific example.

it's competency-based, meaning, what you've done in the past is likely to be what you will do in the future,

and it's the best demonstration you can have of how you will act.

And so they don't want...

very few interviews these days are about what you will do, very few people will say:

how would you manage X Y Z?

Now, they may, toward the end, right, to get a sense of the way that you think strategically,

like there are things like that that happened, but but initially, they want to know what you've done in the past.

So you want to prepare ahead of time

to think about the questions that people ask and what is this specific example that you can talk about,

and practice those. And so if somebody says: tell me about a time that you got feedback from a boss.

What was the feedback, you know, what did you do with it?

How did you respond to it? And what was the results after?

Okay. So be very specific about all thing.

So what you're saying then is there was... So at this job, my... I was doing a performance review,

um, you know, annual performance, and the feedback that I got was that in my emails that I was sending,

I wasn't very clear in my subject line.

And so it wasn't easy for my boss to understand what it was that I was sending emails about.

This is actual feedback I got at one point in my career.

And my boss was like: I really need you to be more clear in your subject line, and so that was an easy one,

like I was more clear with my subject line, but they want that, like, specific feedback.

Laura also stresses having stories to go with common interview questions.

Predict what they might ask you.

And then come up with examples, or stories to go with your response.

Stories stick much more than just answering a question. So for example, if they tell you, or if they ask you:

tell me about a time you failed, or even tell me your greatest weaknesses,

instead of just saying: these are my weaknesses, having a story to go along with it, and then being able to say:

but here's how I've overcome those weaknesses, and so that there is a sort of happy outcome to that question.

So stories really stick and general vague answers really don't.

Do look up common interview questions and DO come up with specific examples

and detailed stories for your answers.

DON’T give vague or generic answers.

What should you do in an interview when you don’t know the answer to a question?

The interviewer thought of one you didn’t prepare.

Okay so what happens if someone asks you a question like that, or any question

and you're not sure how to answer it. Either you just can't think of one on the spot, you haven't prepared for that,

or it's something technical, and for whatever reason, you're not familiar enough to know how to answer it.

Are there ways people can say something like "I'm not sure" in a way that doesn't turn you off as an interviewer?

Actually, I don't mind at all when somebody says "I'm not sure."

what it says to me is you have confidence

in your ability to admit what you don't know,

and that is a really important characteristic for anybody that you want to have working with you.

So, of course, if they say "I don't know" the entire interview, they're not qualified for the job.

But I prefer somebody to say "I don't know", I'm gonna be able to tell anyway, likely,

that you're making something up, and you could say is, you know, I don't... I don't have an example for that,

or I haven't done that before, would it be helpful if I tell you, you know, what I think I would do?

Or like, actually, I don't have experience with that.

>> I would love to-- >> and leave it. And be done, right?

Like, like, if it's something very technical and you haven't done its, just say "I don't have an experience with that"

And that's okay. Like, yeah, I would love to learn. That would be something I'm really interested in.

But I wouldn't then ramble on making something up because that's kind of annoying and...

But I think saying "I don't know" is actually a...

It is helpful to know that you have the ability to do that.

I asked Laura what she tells students to say when they don’t know the answer to a question.

That's a really good question. Let me take a minute to think about it.

That's what you say?

That's one thing that you can answer is: let me just take a second to think about it...

And then you really have to take a second, you can't take 30 seconds or it starts to get really awkward.

But you can take a pause, and I often hear people doing that.

Another thing that you can say is: I can't think of that the answer right now,

but could we come back to that at the end of the interview?

At that point, you might be more relaxed, you might have thought of it,

something else that you've been asked might bring it up for you, and then if you really can't think of an answer,

what I would say is to focus on how you would go, how you would think about the response.

So a lot of employers are interested in not only what you say but how you're thinking about a problem,

and and they want to see your thought process.

So you could say: well, I don't know the answer to that, but here's the first thing I would do as I started thinking

about it, or here's the research that I would do in order to look into this.

And so you have an answer, though you really haven't answered the question.

You are showing them how your mind works and that you are willing to

think through something when you actually don't have the answer right off the bat.

>> Right, which is very valuable, of course. >> Exactly.

So you have options.

And if you haven’t prepared an answer to a question that comes up and you’re not sure how to answer it,

you can still impress an employer with your response.

At the end of an interview, interviewers will often give you a chance to ask questions.

DO prepare one or two questions to ask at the interview, but DON’T make them only about logistics,

and DON’T make it something generic that you could on the website.

Asking the right kinds of questions can show your interest and engagement

and makes you more interesting and memorable.

Some of the best questions that I've heard, or one of the best questions that I've heard is: what would...

What do you think would allow me to be successful in this position?

And giving us a chance then or the interviewers a chance to talk about

how you could be successful in an organization.

Really what we're looking for and it gives us ability to talk about...

A little more about the culture that we're, that were in in our organization

and that, there's some pieces to that that make me feel like this person is really starting to engage with us,

and really asking some of these questions like: I think I'd like to work here, I'd be a good fit.

So I like....I like when they ask me why I work at the place that I'm working at.

I think it, it shows that they're trying to get to know me in a way that is connected to the work and the mission,

and it is a question I ask them, right?

So I think there's a good reciprocal conversation there.

Other than that, I want people to ask about the role and about the organization.

I want them to ask questions that are strategic and high-level, generally,

about the organization and then it's fine to ask very detailed questions about the role.

I do not want somebody to ask me about salary early on, um

at the end of the interview, I think that's totally fine.

Most places are gonna bring that up, but I think you want to wait until the end.

I think it's also fine to wait till a second interview.

But you shouldn't wait too long.

But I certainly shouldn't be a leading, and I wouldn't lead with anything else logistic, in other words,

you don't want to ask "What's the work-life balance here?"

is your first question, right?

>> Vacation time. >> Vacation time.

Benefits. All of that stuff all, of that stuff you have to ask about, and you will at some point,

and if you need to ask it in the first interview, that's also fine, wait till the very end of the interview.

Usually that is something that the organization will also broach.

So it’s okay to ask about logistics, but don’t do it at the beginning of the interview,

and don’t make it the first question you ask.

What about what you say without words?

Body language, vocal tone, eye contact?

So you want to be sitting up straight, you don't really want to be, if you're a woman,

you want to cross your ankles,

women and men, you wanna cross your ankles, you don't want to cross your legs.

Why is that?

Um, I think it's a more open posture.

And so if you're if you're crossing your leg you're kind of cutting off okay the connection with the person.

You don't tap your fingers, you don't want to have too much eye contact, you don't want to have too

little eye contact.

So it's not like there's a one-size-fits-all, there's no perfect body language, no perfect vocal tone.

But there are some best practices I guess you could say.

With vocal tone, I have worked with students who are very monotone.

And so trying to introduce some variation into your tone can

help you connect a lot more especially by telling a story.

When you’re practicing your interview, practice these things too, not just your answers.

I do think it's important to exude confidence. I think it's important to have a good handshake.

I think eye contact is very very important.

I think it's important to look relaxed, also.

But I think all of those are like those are things that you should practice in your mock interview,

and try not to make them, though all of those things can go overboard, so it's

this I think it's this balance where like if you're practicing eye contact,it can sort of get awkward at some point

because you're staring, something like this.

So you want to like

figure out that balance and I think the best way to do this is to practice

with somebody who's willing to give you feedback,

which we should have mentioned when we talked about the mock interview.

Like you don't want to practice with somebody who's just gonna say: great job!

You want somebody who's gonna say: that answer could have been better, try it again,

you're not looking at me, you're looking at me too much, like, whatever those things are.

And then there's the general body language things like you're not sitting in an interview like this, you know?

I would even say like, sometimes, like crossing can be, you know, can come across as not being very open.

Okay, sort of like crossing your arms?

Sort of like crossing your arms, although it's a little bit certainly more acceptable.`

DO mock interviews, DON’T do them with someone who will give you no feedback.

Cindy’s husband told me when he was last looking for a job, that they did a mock interview together,

and every question in the interview, is one they had practiced.

And I bet you can guess what happened – he got the job.

Now let’s talk about following up after an interview.

It’s one last way you can make a positive impression.

Do you expect people to follow up from their interview with you? And if so, what's the right way to do that

with timing and how they follow up?

I expect this somebody is going to write a "thank you" note.

If you want to really show your initiative, then do a hand-written one.

Handwritten one is not necessary but you should at least do it, and email to follow up, and email "thank you".

Follow up is I think based a little bit outside of that, right? So you've done your thank you.

How long should that thank you be by the way?

It can be super short.

I mean, they do not....as a matter of fact, I prefer shorter ones.

Sometimes people send me like a whole, you know, email of

more information or I want to clarify or whatever.

I find that slightly annoying.

Recently, someone sent me a follow-up that actually was helpful, I asked for an example

and she couldn't think of one and struggled with a little bit, and which was fine, and then she

sent me a follow up and said: you know I've thought of an example and I thought it would be helpful.

And in fact, in that case, it was helpful.

Because it was a key piece of information, it was a key

competency that I needed to understand more about in order to recommend her to advance.

So it was actually... that was a helpful case.

Cause it was a really specific thing and she knew that I was giving her more time to sort of

get there and she couldn't get there on the phone.

And that was okay.

So I think short is fine.

And something meaningful about the interview is always nice. Like,

I'm super excited because by X,

it was really interesting to learn about the organization's future trajectory, like

whatever the thing is, but I would keep it a little paragraph.

And then beyond that, is there anything that you expect or that you'd hope they don't do?

I hope they don't follow up incessantly.

Cindy went on to say that after a few weeks, if you haven’t heard anything,

it’s okay to follow up and check in once.

But that’s it.

Anything more than that could leave a negative impression.

And if the employer reaches out to you to schedule a second interview, or even offer you a job,

it’s important to acknowledge that, even if you’ve decided against the job.

What if you’re not sure, or if you’re waiting to hear from another job?

Don't ghost your potential employer, and what I mean by that is don't...

If... If you are scheduled for a second interview, show up.

If you are, you get past the second interview, for us, we do two interviews,

and an offer of employment has been sent out to you, you sign that, make sure you come to work.

If you're not, if you're not sure about it, tell us that, talk to us, communicate,

but don't allow us to get all geared up and ready for that new employee, and then not show up.

So let's say you've given me an offer but there's an another job, you're saying it would be appropriate to say:

can I have just a few more days?

Absolutely, absolutely.

And tell me that, too, for that matter.

Tell me that: hey, I've got another I've got another job out there that I'm waiting to hear back from,

might even give me the chance to maybe offer something more.

If I'm really interested in that person, and I really want them on board,

I might be talking to them a whole lot more to say: look, what can I do to get you here,

to get you in our organization?

And if someone decides ultimately they are going to go with the other job by keeping you as informed as

possible along the way, they've left the door open for potential future work with you.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

To me, that honesty and that integrity is huge, and when people do that, or aren't treating people with respect

enough to even tell them: you know, I've got another position, or I'm not sure yet, that's a huge piece for me.

Even if you don’t want the job, it is important to let the employer know and be honest.

You never know when a connection with that person or organization might be important in your career.

In the next three videos in this course, we’ll see four people, a teacher, a doctor, a social worker,

and a marketing expert interview for a job.

We’ll take some standard interview questions and study how they answer them.

As we see what really works, and what doesn’t, we’ll discuss how you can form your own compelling answers.

For my non-native students, we’re going to get your English lesson in just a minute.

If you haven’t already, be sure to click the subscribe button and the bell for notifications.

I make new videos on the English language and American culture every Tuesday

and to date, I have over 600 videos that focus on listening comprehension and accent reduction.

While you’re waiting for next week’s video, a great next step would be to check out this “get started playlist.”

And now, for my non-native English-speaking students, I want to come back to something Laura and I discussed,

vocal tone.

I actually work with a lot of my students on something related to vocal tone as well, which is

you know when we have a stress worried the voice kind of goes up in pitch and down, and it's the higher pitch

that helps the person who's listening identify them as important words, which helps

understand ability increase, and so definitely a vocal tone is something that I talked about,

I haven't used those terms, I usually talk about pitch and stress, but just to

define it for someone who might not know, if someone's speaking in a monotone,

then that means there's not very much change in pitch, and it can be a little boring and uninteresting to listen to.

No matter what the person is saying.

Right.

I’m going to say that sentence fragment twice, one's with monotone and one's with more pitch variation.

“monotone is when your speaking is on more or less the same pitch”,

“monotone is when all your speaking is on more or less the same pitch”.

The first one is not very engaging at all.

It’s very boring to listen to.

And if you’re a non-native speaker, it can make you even harder to understand you.

I work with my students a lot on varying their pitch when they speak.

Our pitch is higher and peaks on stressed syllables,

and this structure helps listeners follow and understand what's being said.

The contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables really does matter, just as much as accurate sounds.

As you practice your mock interviews, record yourself.

Go back and listen.

Can you hear changes in pitch?

Does it sound like you’re speaking like this?

Or does it sound like you’re speaking more like this?

If you’re used to speaking in a monotone, or your native language has less pitch variation,

then it will likely feel very silly to vary your pitch more.

Commit yourself to it.

Recognize that it doesn’t sound silly to the listener and in fact makes you easier to understand.

Speaking with very little pitch variation will likely leave a bad impression in an interview.

I hope this helps you think about how to use your voice when speaking English.

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.