BEP

BEP 41c – Interview English: First-Round Job Interviews (2)

BEP 41c LESSON - English Interview: First-Round Interview 2

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on the skills you need to succeed in a first-round job interview in English.

A job interview is a chance to highlight your achievements and talk about the amazing things you’ve done in your career. By talking about what you’ve achieved, you can show how your experience fits the position. And by showing how your strengths have helped you, you can convince the interviewer that you’re the right person to hire.

If only it were that easy, though! Interviewers aren’t going to ask you only about the good stuff. They’re going to ask about difficult things as well. That means they might ask you about problems in your current or past jobs. And they might also ask you that dreaded question: what are your weaknesses?

But don’t worry. You know these questions are coming, so you can get ready. Think of some difficult situations you’ve been in. Focus on the ones where you were able to solve a problem or deal with difficult people. And think about your weaknesses honestly, and how you’ve tried to improve on these things. In that way, you’ll be able to face the tough questions confidently.

In this lesson, we’ll rejoin William as he interviews for a position at a bank in Hong Kong. William is being interviewed by Mike, an HR manager at the bank. You will hear how William deals with difficult questions, and how he isn’t afraid to discuss problems and how he dealt with them.

Listening Questions

1. William talks about a problem with short-term loans. What does he say was the cause of this problem?
2. What does William say is one of his strengths?
3. What does William say is one of his weaknesses?

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BEP 40c – Interview English: First-Round Job Interviews (1)

BEP 40c LESSON - English Interview: First-Round Interview 1

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on key skills for a first-round job interview in English.

If you find job interviews stressful, you’re certainly not alone. Many people struggle to feel confident and comfortable in interview situations. And there’s the added worry that the stress you feel will make it even more difficult to answer the questions well. But you can reduce this stress with effective preparation.

You know that you’ll be asked certain types of questions. So you can make notes about your responses, or make an outline of important ideas that you want to talk about. You can also develop skills to make sure you’re being clear and accurate in your responses.

So what should you prepare and what skills should you develop? Well, for starters, you should be ready to introduce yourself and your career path, and to summarize your current job responsibilities. In terms of skills, it’s good to practice clarifying the words you use, buying yourself time, and connecting your answers back to the question.

In this lesson, we’ll listen as William is interviewed for a position in business development at a bank in Hong Kong. He’s being interviewed by Mike, an HR manager at the company. This is a first-round interview, and you can hear William show how comfortable and skilled he is at responding to the questions.

Listening Questions

1. What information does William give about his education and work history?
2. What does William say about his management style?
3. What does William say to buy himself time to think of an answer?

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Business English News 59 – DeepSeek

Business English News LESSON 59 - DeepSeek

In this Business English News lesson on recent hiring trends, we look at business English vocabulary related to IT English and the DeepSeek AI chatbot.

A surprise development in artificial intelligence is making waves across the industry. DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, has upended expectations, drawing global attention and raising new questions about the future of AI. With new players entering the field and established giants forced to respond, this moment could redefine how AI is built, funded, and controlled in the years ahead. The drama kicked off at the start of the year, as the Financial Times reports:

A small Chinese artificial intelligence lab stunned the world by revealing the technical recipe for its cutting-edge model. This has transformed its reclusive leader into a national hero who has defied US attempts to stop China’s high-tech ambitions. DeepSeek, founded by hedge fund manager Liang Wenfeng, released its R1 model, explaining in a detailed paper how to build a large language model on a bootstrapped budget.

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BEP 413 – Business English Idioms about Technology (2)

BEP 413 - English Idioms about Technology (2)

Welcome back to Business English Pod for the second part of our series on English idioms related to technology.

Every day you use dozens of high-tech devices and apps to communicate, plan, organize, monitor and store information. It’s almost impossible to imagine the workplace before modern technology. It’s also almost impossible to imagine the English language without all the idioms we use related to technology.

If you want to be on the same wavelength as expert English speakers, you can’t ignore idioms. And I just used a prime example there. If you are “on the same wavelength,” it means you understand each other. This comes from radio technology, where you have to be tuned to the same frequency to receive a signal.

As you can see, an idiom has a special meaning that isn’t always clear. You can think about the words on their own, but that won’t help you. You need to learn idioms as chunks of language, with a special meaning beyond the individual words. In this way, you will be able to communicate even better in English.

In this lesson, we’ll rejoin a conversation at an engineering company between Maggie, Antonio, and Finn. They are continuing their conversation about upgrading the tech systems in their company. In their discussion, they use many idioms related to technology. See if you can spot some of these, and we’ll explain them later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. What does Antonio say about HR and their training plans?
2. Why didn’t the company move to PayWorks software a couple of years ago?
3. How does Antonio describe the new servers that are available?

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BEP 412 – Business English Idioms about Technology (1)

BEP 412 - English Idioms about Technology (1)

Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson on business English idioms related to technology.

The world of tech has given rise to a host of new vocabulary and terminology. Think about a phrase like “to reboot,” which originally referred to restarting a computer but is now commonly used to mean starting over in any context. Idioms like that highlight how mastering language goes beyond just grammar.

Indeed, many language learners spend a lot of time trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of a language. By that I mean the grammar, writing system, sounds, and basic vocabulary of a language. The thing is, once we’ve got the nuts and bolts, it can feel like our progress stalls. Getting to the next level requires you to move beyond basic vocabulary and master expressions like idioms.

For example, a second ago, I mentioned the “nuts and bolts” of language. Nuts and bolts are a way of connecting things made of metal. So why am I using those words when I talk about language? Because “nuts and bolts” is used as an idiom to refer to the basic parts or pieces of something. And with technology as such an important part of our lives, it’s no wonder we have so many English idioms related to technology.

In this lesson, we’ll listen to a conversation at an engineering company. The company is led by Maggie, Antonio, and Finn. They’re talking about how the growth in their company requires upgrades to all their tech systems. In their discussion, they use many idioms related to technology. See if you can spot some of these, and we’ll explain them later in the debrief.

Listening Questions

1. Near the start of the meeting, what does Finn say he wants to avoid doing?
2. What does Maggie worry might happen if they don’t improve or “level up” their tech systems?
3. What does Antonio say the company did with Zoom not long ago?

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