IBM Mainframe Forum

[taf1988]

Hello, everyone!
I'm a Chinese MF programmer, 2 years of exeperience.
Could someone give me a guide about English telephone interview? Because my spkoen English is not good, and I will get a telephone interview this week. So I worry about this.
How do I do in the English telephone interview?
Thanks.

[BillyBoyo]

It is very difficult to give advice, as there is not a "standard" sort of phone interview.

Try to prepare you best. Concentrate on the main languages/tools specified in the advertisement for the job. Get to know the manuals for those, the table of contents, the sorts of topics covered. If you have a friend is encouraging your search for a job, try to practice answering questions with them. The questions need not be complex, but get an idea of how much you can cover in a relatively short time. No-one is going to listen to you go on for 15 minutes about something. If you can stick to 30-90 seconds for your replies, it would be better. So while considering answers, work out how to get the most important things in. You speak at about three words a secord, so you can say a surprising amount in that time.

If there is something you don't understand just about how the question is asked, explain that and ask if it can be stated in a different way. If the interviewer doesn't understand you on something, try to say it in a different way (just repeating what you have said already won't likely improve understanding).

Try to make notes of the questions. If the question is "How do you code a Cobol Unstring for a comma-seperated file" write down "Cobol Unstring Comma Seperated". When answering, look at the question so that what you say is relevant. If you don't know anything about the question, apologise and explain how you would try to find out (that is why familiarise yourself with the manuals). Afterwards you can use the notes to confirm or learn about what you have said.

You may get asked about your English, so if so explain where you learned/how you learned, and that you are willing to learn more.

Relax. Be yourself. Don't be afraid to ask for clarification, don't be afraid to admit you don't know. You don't want to travel thousands of miles to get turned out of the interview because it is the wrong thing for you.

Think about a few questions you might like answered about the job. Then there is the posibility of the dumb old "what are your weaknesses and strengths".

Good luck.

[Ed Goodman]

Is working with English speaking user part of the actual job you'll be doing?

If not, then maybe it would be better to arrange a video conference through your company.

Another idea may be to go with a text-based interface. Kind of like a TTY.

I'd bet the folks doing the hiring are more interested in the technical skills, and they know they are talking to a Chinese person working in a second language. So I doubt they are going to hold it against you.