E4IT STARTER - MODULE 16.pdf

1. English For IT:Starter
Module 16

2. What you will learn
Vocabulary
Cracking the job
interview
Grammar Pronunciation
1 3 4
Soft Skills
Common mistakes Common
mistakes
Small talk with the
interviewer
5
Speaking
Group interview
2

3. WARMUP
1. You should write down your answers to
interview questions and memorize them
2. You should show how your skills match
the position you’re applying for
3. You should keep your answers structured
4. Keep your answers 1-3 minutes long
5. Tell the interviewer about your family
6. Mention your salary expectations
Behavioral interview questions require
preparation and practice. Today we will look at
some common interview questions, sample
answers and most importantly strategies you can
use to build solid answers to those questions.
First, let’s go over some interview question
basics. Decide 3 pieces of advice which are
good and 3 pieces of advice which are bad.

4. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 1
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about yourself”
Hey! My name is Sam. I’m a software engineer and I enjoy solving ____ problems. I have
experience as a full stack web app developer and I enjoy working with all layers of the stack and I
enjoy ____ user friendly ____ websites.
My passion for web app development started when I was doing my internship at AWS and I was
given a solo project to work on for the entirety of the internship and this really gave me full
ownership over everything from the ____ to the actual coding of it. And I was also ____ to
gain a lot of experience and exposure to a lot of AWS cloud computing tools. After my internship I
decided that this is what I wanted to do as a career.
Since then, I’ve gained about 3 years of experience building out dozens of different applications.
At my current company, I am helping out with the ____ of our existing ____ . This includes
building out new microservices as well as updating existing ones. The technologies I have
experience with include .NET for building out APIs, and our server-side code, SQL, MySQL and
Oracle as well as experience with various different JavaScript frameworks including VueJS and
Angular,
I believe my experience and my ____ would make me a great asset for your company.

5. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 1
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about yourself”
Hey! My name is Sam. I’m a software engineer and I enjoy solving complex problems. I have
experience as a full stack web app developer and I enjoy working with all layers of the stack and I
enjoy building out user friendly efficient websites.
My passion for web app development started when I was doing my internship at AWS and I was
given a solo project to work on for the entirety of the internship and this really gave me full
ownership over everything from the design decisions to the actual coding of it. And I was also
able to gain a lot of experience and exposure to a lot of AWS cloud computing tools. After my
internship I decided that this is what I wanted to do as a career.
Since then, I’ve gained about 3 years of experience building out dozens of different applications.
At my current company, I am helping out with the modernization of our existing infrastructure.
This includes building out new microservices as well as updating existing ones. The technologies I
have experience with include .NET for building out APIs, and our server-side code, SQL, MySQL
and Oracle as well as experience with various different JavaScript frameworks including VueJS
and Angular,
I believe my experience and my passion would make me a great asset for your company.

6. ‘Crack that job interview’ tip
“Tell me about yourself”
Structure:
★ Give a general overview of what you do (Present Simple: I am a software
engineer)
★ Mention a few things you did in the past (Past Simple: I worked at Google
for 2 years before switching to freelance)
★ Give an overview of something you are doing right now (Currently, I am
working on a healthcare app project etc.)

7. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 2
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about a time you
had to persuade someone at work. What did you do?”
At my ____ company, our team supported 20-30 different web applications. There was really no
uniformity in terms of what front-end JavaScript ____ we could or should use. So what ended
up happening is that we would have some apps written in Angular, some apps written in React,
some written in Vue. It was kind of all over the place.
The problem with this was, say you were assigned to write a ____ in a certain app and you
didn’t really know that framework, you would have to at least spend time getting the ____ of it
before you can even start to implement that feature. This potentially increased the development
time by a lot.
So my ____ was just have our apps be written in Vue JS because it’s something that I had
experience with, I thought it was fairly easy to pick up, it’s a lightweight app, and it’s pretty easy
to inject into existing applications.
What I did was I created a little mini ____ and I set up a meeting between my team and my
manager and ____ the pros and cons of using that framework.
The result of that was my manager was on board and we decided to use Vue JS for all our new
development.

8. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 2
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about a time you
had to persuade someone at work. What did you do?”
At my previous company, our team supported 20-30 different web applications. There was really
no uniformity in terms of what front-end JavaScript framework we could or should use. So what
ended up happening is that we would have some apps written in Angular, some apps written in
React, some written in Vue. It was kind of all over the place.
The problem with this was, say you were assigned to write a feature in a certain app and you
didn’t really know that framework, you would have to at least spend time getting the basic
understanding of it before you can even start to implement that feature. This potentially increased
the development time by a lot.
So my proposal was just have our apps be written in Vue JS because it’s something that I had
experience with, I thought it was fairly easy to pick up, it’s a lightweight app, and it’s pretty easy
to inject into existing applications.
What I did was I created a little mini demo presentation and I set up a meeting between my team
and my manager and demonstrated the pros and cons of using that framework.
The result of that was my manager was on board and we decided to use Vue JS for all our new
development.

9. ‘Crack that job interview’ tip
“Tell me about a time you had to persuade someone at work.
What did you do?”
Structure:
★ State the problem
★ Describe what steps you took to solve it
★ Describe what the result was
★ Don’t skip over important details and don’t use too many jargon words.
Your interviewer needs to understand you very clearly or else your answer
won’t make an impression.

10. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 3
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about a
time you failed at work and what did you learn from it?”
So this one time I was assigned the task of ____ a new feature into one of our applications.
We used git as our ____ so as I was working on this feature, I was continuously pushing to
our master branch which isn’t good practice because you always want to keep your ____
deployable as well as in sync with what’s in ____. Also if we deployed this app with this
feature partially done, it would break the application.
This was the app that barely got updated so I figured it would be alright. But of course, we
had an ____ bug fix that had to be made. And I was like: “We actually can’t deploy it
because the app is going to break.”
Luckily, with the source control we were able to go back and we were able to add that
change to where I started working on that feature.
But in the future, I learn to first create a branch off of master and deploy to that branch,
then ____ the changes back into master.

11. Vocabulary: Cracking the job interview. Part 3
You’re going to hear a developer answer the first common interview question: “Tell me about a
time you failed at work and what did you learn from it?”
So this one time I was assigned the task of implementing a new feature into one of our
applications. We used git as our source control so as I was working on this feature, I was
continuously pushing to our master branch which isn’t good practice because you always
want to keep your master branch deployable as well as in sync with what’s in production.
Also if we deployed this app with this feature partially done, it would break the application.
This was the app that barely got updated so I figured it would be alright. But of course, we
had an emergency bug fix that had to be made. And I was like: “We actually can’t deploy it
because the app is going to break.”
Luckily, with the source control we were able to go back and we were able to add that
change to where I started working on that feature.
But in the future, I learn to first create a branch off of master and deploy to that branch,
then merge the changes back into master.

12. ‘Crack that job interview’ tip
“Tell me about a time you failed at work and what did you learn
from it?”
Structure:
★ State clearly what happened
★ Choose a story with a “happy ending” (where your mistake didn’t cause
too much damage)
★ Place your main focus on what you learned from that experience

13. Grammar. Common mistakes
Discuss (not “discuss about”)
Listen to (not “listen smth”)
In English / in PHP (not “on”)
I agree (not “I’m agree”) agree is a verb
I am sure (not “I don’t sure”)
I am trying to watch more movies in English
(not “I trying”)
I like to learn new things (not “I like learn”)
I told him (not “I said him”)

14. Grammar. Common mistakes
I am sure (not “I don’t sure”)
I am trying to watch more movies in English
(not “I trying”)
I like to learn new things (not “I like learn”)
I told him (not “I said him”)

15. Practice
Come up with your own
sentences using the “tricky”
words from the grammar
section

16. Pronunciation tip
Suite [swiːt] Paradigm [ˈpærədʌɪm] Report [rɪˈpɔːt]
API Java [dʒɑːvə] OS Confirm [kənˈfɜː(r)m]
Archive [ˈɑːkʌɪv] Server [sɜː(r)və(r)]

17. Soft skills
Small talk
Small Talk is important in terms of establishing a
positive connection with the person you are talking
to. You want to come across as a person who is
friendly and easy to work with and small talk can
really help with that.
Here’s what you can do:
Ask the interviewer about their day
“How is your day going?”
“Are you having a good day?”
Make a compliment
“You have a lovely background”
“I love the plant on your desk”
Make a casual comment on your surroundings or
something that happened to you today
“I see you have a big bookcase. That’s cool.”
“I am actually looking forward to going to this Marketing
event I signed up for, It’s happening this weekend.”

18. Practice
Pick a person. Start and
keep up a casual
conversation with them for
at least 2 minutes

19. Speaking
Interview role play
If you’re an interviewer:
Think of a question to ask
Give feedback on the
interviewees answer
If you’re an interviewee:
Answer the interviewer’s
question to the best of your
ability.

20. That’s a wrap!
🌯