Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 43. You're listening to English as a Second Language podcast. The podcast that helps you learn English every day. My name is Dr. Jeff McQuillan coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles, California. Visit our website for more information on this podcast. Our website is www .eslpod .com. Today's topic is Getting a job interview Lucy is going to talk
about her job interview. Let's listen in I've finally landed my first interview well Actually, that's not really true I have been on many interviews for part -time jobs. This is my first interview for a full -time job. In less than two months, I will graduate from Arizona University. After a lot of back and forth, trying to decide on a major, I finally decided to double major. I would study both political science and marketing. These are not majors that usually go together.
In fact, most people thought I was crazy. After a lot of soul searching, I decided to combine my two main interests. One, politics, and two, getting a job. Those are my two priorities. I thought that if I get degrees in these fields, I could cast a wide net when going job hunting. And that's what I'm trying to do now. Since I don't know if I want to work in the public or private sector, I've applied for jobs in both. In the public sector, I could work for the government.
Maybe one day I could even be a speech writer for the president. Okay, maybe I should shoot a little lower. In the private sector, I could work for private organizations such as museums, schools, or programs. Some of those are non -profit. Or I could work for a company. Everybody tells me that that's where the money is. I haven't decided yet. I'm planning to apply for a lot
of jobs, and we'll see what happens. What I want now is just to get some job offers Then I can start being picky Today Lucy talked to us about her first interview She started by saying I've finally landed my first interview. To land an interview or to land a job means to get, to obtain a job. We use that particular verb landed usually when we are talking about a job or an interview
that is often difficult to get. She said that she has had many interviews in the past for part -time jobs but this was her first interview for a full -time job. A part -time job is any job that is less than usually 35 or 40 hours a week in the United States. A full -time job is something that is 40 hours or more. 40 hours is the typical work week in the United States, Monday through Friday, eight hours each. Anything less than that in terms of hours is considered part -time
jobs. Lucy said that she will be graduating from Arizona University in two months. And after a lot of back and forth, trying to decide on a major, she decided to double major. A couple of expressions there. The first is back and forth. When someone says, I went back and forth about my decision, they mean they changed their minds. They weren't quite sure. Should I wear a red shirt or a blue shirt? I went back and forth, meaning first I thought blue, then I thought
red, and later I decided on blue. So that is going back and forth about a decision. A major, you probably know, is a specialization at the university. You can major in economics. You can major in history. It's what you study for in college or at the university. A double major would of course be someone who has two specializations. In this case, Lucy has a double major in political
science or the study of politics. government and marketing marketing is selling goods and services selling things to other people in order to get them to buy it you have to market your project your your product it includes advertising for example is part of marketing In colleges we have majors and we also have in the United States minors. Minors is another type of specialization but one that you receive less, take less classes for. So you could major in political science
and minor in marketing. That means your degree will be in political science with a minor in marketing. It usually requires taking less classes for a minor than for a major. Lucy said that her two majors don't usually go together. To go together here means that they're not usually
matched. They're not compatible. something that goes together is something that matches or is compatible for example a blue shirt and black pants would go together but a red shirt and green pants would not go together unless perhaps you are Santa Claus I don't know anyway Another expression that Lucy used was soul searching. She said after a lot of soul searching she decided on her priorities. Soul searching means thinking very seriously,
very deeply about your decision. It usually means that a person had difficulty coming to or making the decision. I did a lot of soul searching. I thought about what was important for me, what my values were, and so forth. A soul, of course, S -O -U -L, is your sort of spirit, your life spirit, in many religions. believe that humans have souls. Lucy said that she was going to cast a wide net when going job hunting. To cast a wide net means here to look extensively, to look
a lot around in many different areas. If you are casting a wide net for a new employee, you would interview many, many possible candidates or people who wanted the job. That would be casting a wide net to look in many different places or in many different areas. A net is what we use to catch fish. It's made usually of rope. and you put it in the water and it's of course many holes in it and you pull the net up and if you're
lucky you have some fish inside the net. So to cast a wide net is a fishing term meaning to cast a net over a big area and here it means to look in many different places. Job hunting is the same as job looking or looking for a job We use that particular verb to hunt To mean usually people who are trying to Kill animals you hunt an animal a deer or you can hunt certain birds but here we're treating job as if it were type
of animal, so we say job hunting. It's a very common expression in English in the United States. Lucy mentioned that she wasn't sure if she wanted to work in the public or private sector. A sector is a area or part of the economy or of business. The public sector means the government, the state government, the federal government, the local government. Those are all the public sector or the public area of the economy. The other possibility is the private sector. This is everything that's
not the government. Private businesses and organizations and companies are all part of the private sector. A sector can mean any part of the economy. We also talk about, for example, the housing sector. That means the people involved in selling, buying, and building houses. You can use that term for almost anything. The retail sector means stores
that are involved in selling things. Lucy went on and said that she perhaps could become a speechwriter for the president as the term implies Speech writer is someone who writes speeches for someone else The president usually doesn't write his own speeches. He hires people to write them for him That should be pretty obvious Lucy said that she may not necessarily try to become a speechwriter, that instead she would shoot a little lower. Once again, that's something of a hunting term.
Maybe that says something about American English and American psychology, that we have so many expressions like that. In any case, To shoot a little lower means to be less ambitious, to look for something less important, not so high in terms of this type of job. We can use that expression for jobs. We can use that expression for any goal or any objective that you have.
I wanted to come in first place the swimming competition but I decided to shoot a little lower and go for third place meaning I'm not going to I'm going to make my goal something less one of the places that Lucy said she might want to work was museums schools or other programs and that these are often non -profit. A non -profit organization is an organization that doesn't try to make money. It just tries to survive. Hospitals, schools, churches, all of these are
non -profit organizations. And in the United States, They receive special treatment or special favors when it comes to paying taxes. ESL Podcast is a non -profit venture, a non -profit organization.
Lucy also said that she was going to apply for lot of jobs to apply for a job means to go fill out an application or a piece of paper where you tell the person what your experiences are what your education is and so forth so we use that expression for any kind of job to apply for a job hopefully if you are successful you get a job offer a job offer is sometimes called an offer of employment it means that a company or individual wants to hire you wants to make
you one of their employees so they send you a letter or more likely call you on the telephone and say we would like to offer you the job means we want to give the job to you and the noun for that is job offers Lucy ended by saying that if she gets some job offers then she can be picky picky p i c k y means to be very selective to be very uh... to choose only the things that you really want we can use we use this expression picky often in a somewhat negative way for somebody
who for example only likes to eat certain kinds of food and it has to be just right and if it isn't perfect they complain we often say this kind of person is picky meaning they're too selective they only want certain things and can't accept anything less than that. That is being picky. Well, we won't be picky. We hope that all of you who are listening will email us and tell us who you are and where you are listening from.
Our email address is eslpod at eslpod .com For those of you who are listening on iTunes or using an iPod and there are many of you who listen on iTunes the Apple program We now have our scripts on the podcast if you are Using iTunes on your computer you can right -click on the name of the podcast select the show description and you will see the script for the first part of today's
podcast. On an iPod you should be able to press the center button of your iPod a couple of times, two or three times, I think it's two times, and you should see the lyrics. This is a new feature for our podcast and we hope that you enjoy it. My name is Jeff McQuillen. That's going to do it for today from the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles. We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast. 2005.