My English isn’t perfect, can I still interview?
“I don’t think my English is good enough for an interview.”
I hear this from clients all the time.
Yes, it’s possible that if you have beginner or lower intermediate level English you won’t be able to do a good job in an interview. But most of the time I work with clients and we realize that they do need to improve certain things about their interview skills, but it isn’t the language that is the problem.
You don’t need perfect/advanced English to interview.
Case Study: Biz Dev Manager
I was contacted by a man who was applying to Amazon for a Senior Biz Dev Manager for Alexa Smart Home. Farid had already passed a phone interview with HR and next he had a call with a senior manager in the department. He wanted my help because he was worried about his English in the interview.
We had a consultation and when I talked to him I was surprised he was concerned about his English because although he did have an accent it wasn't heavy and I didn't have a hard time understanding him.
A heavy accent can definitely make it hard for the interviewer to understand you, but having a heavy accent in your interview is not the same thing as having English language problems.
My evaluation of his answers
I asked him to give me his answer to the "Tell me about yourself" question to see how he was doing with his prep. He said,
"I started my professional life in a tech startup. This was great for me because I have a passion for technology. I felt blessed to be able to have this opportunity. After 10 years I joined a European company in the industrial ioT space. Then in 2013 my family and I decided to emigrate to the US and I went back to school to get a Master's.
I am an entrepreneur and technology consultant. My career focus has been on customers’ solution development, Business development and Technical Program Management in automation, IoT and smart buildings.
My passion is solving customers’ problems using technologies.
Collectively, I have 10+ years of experience in startups, 3 years of experience as a regional manager of a European technology firm in Industrial IoT, and 3 years in business and technical consultancy services in automation and Energy IoT, which is my current job.
And here I am very interested to join Amazon Alexa team, I can walk through my resume if you need more details.”
My thoughts on this answer:
There are four things that bother me about this answer: (1) unnecessary repetition, (2) unnecessary content, (3) lack of detail, and (4) incorrect structure.
Repetition - he repeats “I have a passion…” and “My passion is…” - once is enough, so don’t say something twice.
The unnecessary content is “I felt blessed to have this opportunity” - how is this relevant? And going back to school - this isn’t relevant. And emigrating. These are personal details that don’t say anything about his skills. It’s better to focus on your skills and experience - your competencies - rather than personal details.
Not enough detail about the companies themselves and the industries. What was the startup industry? What was his role there? What are the company names?
Structure - He starts with an overview. Then he adds things that aren’t necessary. Then he adds more overview. Then he starts detailing his years of experience - this is the detail section, but there aren’t really many actual details.
The structure for Tell me about yourself should be: overview, current job, then previous jobs, then connection to the current job/why he is here. He skipped the details about the jobs, which should be the main part of the answer.
He was worried about English but the problem wasn’t English
His English language skills weren’t the problem with his interviewing.
His English wasn’t perfect, but even though he came to me worried about his English, we ended up not really talking much about it.
This happens to me a lot. I see that clients are worried about their English, like he was. Yes, his English wasn't perfect, but the problem with these answers was that they weren't detailed, they weren't clear, and they weren't structured clearly.
This isn’t an English problem.
Don’t focus on your English, focus on preparing correctly
I think when people have what they think of as an English problem they are just not understanding how to prepare strong answers.
I realized during our call that he did have problems thinking of words in English so he had a hard time describing his jobs. That’s normal. But he needed to practice that, as describing previous experience is a common challenge in interviews.
He also had a hard time getting directly to the point. American interview style requires a tight linear structure. Persian style is definitely not as direct.
He had a hard time even explaining what the companies did. That's a pretty basic skill because they will obviously want to know what the companies are. Practice that.
These topics are ones that everyone needs to practice before their interview.
Get outside feedback
If you’re stuck in anxiety about your interview English, try to move into the preparation stage. If you learn as much as you can about how to prepare and what answers should sound like, you will have something to focus on besides your English.
Ask a native English speaker to listen to your answers and give you honest feedback about how you sound.
