09 March 2011Job Seeker Diary: How’s your Written English?
Guest post by Jonathan Hammond
Over the past few interviews I’ve been to, a multitude of different questions have been thrown at me. You get the usual ‘Why do you want this job?’, and you know the answer ‘Because it’s more money’ won’t do, but it’s always the first thing that comes to mind. Others such as ‘How would you describe yourself?’, ‘Why are you the best person for the job?’ and ‘What do you know about this company?’ always crop up. Then you have the awkward ones like ‘What is your biggest weakness?’ and the closing ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ which always get asked, especially after the interviewer has covered my prepared questions fully. This leaves me wracking my brains for something that doesn’t sound improvised.
One question that came up in a recent interview that really threw me was ‘How’s your written English?’ I had never been asked this one before and, for a few seconds, I was dumbfounded. I answered with a nervous laugh and responded impulsively with ‘I consider it to be pretty good’. I realised straight away that this was the same answer a friend used to give whenever I questioned his terrible writing skills. Consequently, I spent the rest of the interview thinking about my answer to this question and not about the questions that were being asked. Looking back, ‘How’s your written English?’ probably didn’t hold much sway over the interview as a whole. The interviewer had copies of both my CV and covering letter, so they could tell that my written English was good, but the way that I dwelled on it made it much more of an influence than the question itself.
So I took away a great little tip from this interview. If you get a question that throws you off and you worry that your answer was terrible, don’t let it ruin the rest of your interview. Keep your head, and you can make up for it with even better answers to the remaining questions.
Job Seeker Diary is a new series of posts by job seekers for job seekers. If you’re interested in writing for us, please contact us here.
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Comments Job Seeker Diary: How’s your Written English?
Guest post by Jonathan Hammond
Over the past few interviews I’ve been to, a multitude of different questions have been thrown at me. You get the usual ‘Why do you want this job?’, and you know the answer ‘Because it’s more money’ won’t do, but it’s always the first thing that comes to mind. Others such as ‘How would you describe yourself?’, ‘Why are you the best person for the job?’ and ‘What do you know about this company?’ always crop up. Then you have the awkward ones like ‘What is your biggest weakness?’ and the closing ‘Do you have any questions for me?’ which always get asked, especially after the interviewer has covered my prepared questions fully. This leaves me wracking my brains for something that doesn’t sound improvised.
One question that came up in a recent interview that really threw me was ‘How’s your written English?’ I had never been asked this one before and, for a few seconds, I was dumbfounded. I answered with a nervous laugh and responded impulsively with ‘I consider it to be pretty good’. I realised straight away that this was the same answer a friend used to give whenever I questioned his terrible writing skills. Consequently, I spent the rest of the interview thinking about my answer to this question and not about the questions that were being asked. Looking back, ‘How’s your written English?’ probably didn’t hold much sway over the interview as a whole. The interviewer had copies of both my CV and covering letter, so they could tell that my written English was good, but the way that I dwelled on it made it much more of an influence than the question itself.
So I took away a great little tip from this interview. If you get a question that throws you off and you worry that your answer was terrible, don’t let it ruin the rest of your interview. Keep your head, and you can make up for it with even better answers to the remaining questions.
Job Seeker Diary is a new series of posts by job seekers for job seekers. If you’re interested in writing for us, please contact us here.
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