English Job Interviews | Two Magic Words

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

with a quick piece to help you learn to speak fluent English effortlessly. Hi, I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English, Learn to Speak English Like a Native. Go to effortlessenglish.com.

Enter your email in the middle of the page and get my free audiobook, EffortlessEnglish.com. I was desperate at one time in my life. Desperate for a job.

I was unemployed. And I had just a little bit of savings, and my savings were going down, down, down very quickly. I desperately sent out resumes and cover letters.

Now, eventually, I did get some interviews. But they all went the same. I went into the interviews, and I was confident. This was later in my life, so I had more confidence.

I was better at interviewing, but still not great. So I would go in, and they asked the usual questions again. What's your greatest strength? Well, my greatest strength is that I work very hard.

I'm intelligent. I'm always... looking to solve problems, whatever, something like that. What's your greatest weakness? Why do you want this job? What do you want to be doing in five years?

All that stuff. And I gave decent but boring answers, like most people. And I did not get called again. And I started to panic because I was getting job interviews.

I was doing a good job with my cover letters and resumes. And I use a method. I was using a method that I talk about, rather, in the Business English Conversations course. BusinessEnglishConversations.com.

A very powerful and effective method for getting interviews using interviews. Letters or emails. Now we can do emails and resumes. So that wasn't my problem.

I could get interviews, no problem. But I could not pass the interviews. I would get one interview and then done. One interview and then done. One interview, then done.

Again and again and again. And then I was getting more and more and more desperate. Like, oh my God, I'm not going to be able to pay my rent. I'm not going to be able to pay my bills, my phone bill.

I'm going to starve. You know, all these thoughts in my head. I was starting to panic. And that's when I decided to try something different in the next interview.

I got an interview at a hospital for a job in the emergency room. as a social worker. I thought, okay, I've got to do something different in my job interviews. So I decided to try something new and different.

And I decided to use two magic words. Two magic words. And these two magic words transformed my interviewing ability. With these two words, I went from being okay at interviewing to great at interviewing.

I got that job in the emergency room because of those two words. And then after that, any time I went for a job interview, I got the job offer. I had 100% record after that until I started my own business.

Mainly because of these two magic words. The two magic words of job interviewing. What are they? I know you're wondering, what are they, AJ? Why don't you tell us?

Because I want you to think about it. What do you think they are? The two most powerful words you can use in any job interview. Any job interview, any situation, doesn't matter.

Two most powerful words when you give an answer. Ideas? All right, I'll tell you. The two most powerful words in job interviewing are for example. For example.

For example. For example makes you an amazing interviewer. Let me tell you how it works. I'll show you. I'll give you two different answers here. The second one will use the magic words.

So, number one. Tell us about your job history. Are you good at showing up on time? Oh, yes, I'm very punctual. You know, I always come to work on time.

I'm not late. I'm never late. That's answer number one. Sounds confident. Sounds good, right? Answer number two. Much better. Same thing. Ah, yes, yes, yes.

You know, I'm always on time. I'm never late. Being punctual, being on time, is very, very important to me. For example... In my last job, I never missed one day of work and I was never late.

I was on time or early every single day of that job. In fact, I encourage you, please call my former boss. He's one of my references and I'm sure he'll be happy to talk to you about my attendance record and my dedication to being on time and punctual.

But that's Not the only thing that's important. It's also important when you're at work to do good work, to be proactive. For example, at my last job we had a big project.

There was a problem. One of our team members quit and I had to step in and do his work also. And we got the project finished on time. I'm very proud of that.

Can you feel the difference between those answers? Can you see what that does? Those two magic words, for example, they transform the answer. How do they do it?

Well, by being specific. See, as a job interviewer, what I want is I want proof. I want evidence. Every person says the same thing. Nobody comes into a job interview and says, you know, really, I'm not a good worker.

I'm lazy and I'm always late and I really hate working and I suck. My skills are no good. Nobody says that. Nobody, even though it's probably true for a lot of them.

They don't say that. Everybody says they're always on time. Everybody says they're a hard worker. Everybody says they have good skills. Everybody does.

So just saying it is meaningless in a job interview. The interviewer doesn't believe it. He hears every person says exactly the same thing. He doesn't really believe it.

So how will you be different? How will you convince him that it's true? With examples, specific stories, specific examples, specific numbers. When you say, for example, and then you tell a story to show your actions...

Not just talk about it, but show specifically when you did something and how you did it. Then you give the interviewer a picture. They see you performing.

And this will make you so much different than most other interviewers. Most other interviewers are too general. You always want to be specific in your answers. You always want to give an example for everything, everything, everything.

Every answer should have at least one example. Specific example. Don't just say you work hard. Talk about a specific time when you worked hard. Talk about the details, about how hard it was.

And I stayed up every night until midnight and then I would sleep for four hours, and then I got up at eight the next morning and worked again because this project was so important.

See, that's a specific example of you working hard. Talking about a specific example is so powerful. Just saying, I'm a hard worker, that sucks. That's weak.

It's meaningless. Everybody says that. So when you prepare for job interviews... You not only prepare for all the different questions, you have to prepare your examples.

You need 20 or 30 great examples from your past to show that you work hard, to show that you solve problems, to show that you can work with other people well, to show that you know how to make money, to show that you know how to save money, to show that you're not stupid or crazy or foolish or difficult.

show that you come to work on time, all of those things, right, that employers are looking for. You need specific stories, specific examples to show each of those things. Don't just say it, show it with specific examples. This makes you a super powerful interviewer.

They will remember you. You will get a lot more job offers when you do this in every interview. For example, you should use that phrase, those two words, in every single answer you give.

I'm giving you... This is a super powerful secret. It's simple. It's simple. But see, it takes time. Because you really have to think about it. You've got to think about all the details.

The more detailed your example, the more detailed your stories, the better. They're more powerful. The detailed examples, that's what's powerful. That's what's convincing.

That's what sells yourself to the interviewer. That's what convinces them that you're special, that you are better than the others, that you're different, that they should hire you.

Now, a common question I get, especially from young people, maybe they're just in college, they'll say, well, but I don't have any work experience. I don't have any examples.

Hmm. What should I do then? Well, you need to get examples. That means you need to get out and live your life. Get out of the damn classroom. Stop just taking notes and taking tests.

That's all useless. Get out in the real world and do something useful. Then you will have the stories. Then you will have the examples. How can you do that?

Get a part-time job. Even working at McDonald's or Pizza Hut or fast food, that's still a job. And you can still show that you worked hard, that you were on time, that you were good working with other people, that you could handle money. There are a lot of good things that come from a job like that that you can show.

You just got to think about it. Something else you can do is volunteer. Volunteer for different groups, charities, events in your school or outside of your school.

And again, this shows. You can show leadership. You can show examples of hard work. You can show examples of getting results, all of those things. You need to get out in the real world and do something.

Don't just complain, oh, I don't have a job yet because I've just been in school. Well, that's no excuse. You're going to lose. You're going to lose if you just think that being in school is enough.

It's not enough. Everybody else interviewing also went to school. So just going to school, it's not enough. So you better get your butt out in the real world and do something useful.

Then you will have the examples. Then you will have the stories. And the other guys won't. You'll get the great jobs. They won't. And of course, as you get older, it should get easier because you get more and more and more and more work experience and life experience.

So you should have more and more and more great stories, great examples of all the good things you've done to prove, to prove that you will be useful and good and skillful and hardworking and on time and all of those things.

You want to prove it. Don't just say it. Prove it. This is also where having good references can help. I gave that one example. If you know you have a great reference, if you did good work for them and you know they will say great things about you, mention them in the interview.

Actually encourage the interviewer to call them. Say, you know, one of my references is my... last boss from my last job. And, you know, I completed a great project that made $50,000 for the company and he was very happy.

I encourage you, please, you know, call him and talk to him about my work. I know that he's going to say great things. You can say it a little differently, but some people, it's like they're almost afraid of their references. You should have good references so that you encourage the interviewer because that's more proof.

It's more evidence, not just talking. Everybody talks. The more evidence and specific examples you can give, the better the chance you get the job and you get the better jobs and you get higher pay. And over the years, as you get older in your career, your career will go higher and higher, better and better.

as you get good at this. All right, so that's it. It's a simple one today, short, but this is super powerful, super, super powerful. I want you to get out there and get those great jobs.

You can do it. All right, as usual, all of the shows have text, free text guides on our blog. Go there, download the text guides. You can read everything I'm saying.

Helps you understand everything. Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com EffortlessEnglishClub.com Go to the bottom. You'll see blog and video podcast. Click on that and then get all the free text guides.

Lots of love to you. I will see you next time. Bye for now.