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Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we’re looking for a new job.

That’s right. We are looking for a new job and so we’re bringing you this great lesson where we’re going to teach you in English, a lot of terms related with looking for a job or things like resume, cover letter. So, before we get into that, why don’t we take a look at a word that we have in vocabulary preview.

Vocabulary preview

So, this is actually the name of a job, it’s a position. It’s gas station attendant.

Okay. A gas station attendant. Now, we know what a gas station is, right?

That’s right. It’s a place where you go to fill your car with gas.

Okay. So, an attendant at a gas station, what does he do?

He or she is a person who will help you put the gas in your car. So, an attendant is someone who is almost like an assistant or a helper.

Okay

You can have a bathroom attendant, someone who gives you a towel after you wash your hands.

I’ve seen those in the fancy restaurants.

Yeah. So, gas station attendant.

All right. So, why don’t we take a look now at our dialogue. Let’s listen to it for the first time and we’ll be back in a bit.

A: Woo hoo! This just might be the start of the rest of my life!

B: What happened?

A: I’m in the market for a job! I went on a website with hundreds of job listings in the area and browsed through them until I got the names of a few employers I would like to work for. I have the resume I wrote for English class last month and a cover letter will be a piece of cake to write. I’ve even done my research and found the names of the managers so I can address the letters personally.

And you know I can be charming in interviews.

Goodbye my penniless days! Hello salary and a career!

B: Ben, we’re fifteen. What kind of job are you looking for?

A: Oh, just for a position as a gas station attendant.

You know, starting at a simple lowly job, just like all the greats before they made it big in the world.

B: Uh-huh.

A: But I’m just in it for the money, right? How else am I going to be able to afford to keep taking Angela to the movies? Besides, I love the smell of gasoline, don’t you?

All right, we’re back. So now, you’re probably wondering what those words meant. So, why don’t we take a look at a couple of them in language take away.

Language take away

The first phrase we have today is one that’s very important when you’re looking for a job. It’s called job listing or job listings here.

Okay, job listings. And this is really common before the Internet existed, you would have the listings in your local newspaper, right?

Exactly. And in the movies, you always had the person sitting with the newspaper circling the potential jobs

Right, with the red marker

Exactly. But now that we have the Internet you have lots of websites that have job listings. And so, a job listing is literally a list of jobs that are available.

Okay. So, you look through the job listings. Maybe you found one that’s interesting. There’s an email address, so what do they ask for? They ask you to send in your resume.

Okay. A resume is very important when you’re looking for a job. It’s a document, it’s a piece of paper that tells someone all of the work that you’ve done before, your job experiences. And it tells them where you went to school and what your qualifications are. So, it’s a summary of your work life.

Okay. And that’s why it’s called a resume, right? It’s pretty much a summary of your work life as you said.

That’s right. And a different one, sometimes people use this is a CV, Curriculum Vitae. And that’s an academic summary of your life so you have the work summary and the study summary.

Okay, very good. So, if you’re sending your resume, what’s recommended is that you attach it with a cover letter.

Okay well, cover letter, you know the word letter. It’s something that you write to somebody else. But a cover letter is like a cover for your resume. It’s a letter where you explain to the future boss or future employer, what exactly you want and how this job is going to help you get it.

Okay. So, that’s basically a small little introduction to yourself, right? Before they read your resume, who you are, what you’re looking for maybe, very quickly.

Exactly. so, you could say, hi my name is Catherine. I am very motivated and excited to have the opportunity to talk to you about why I’m a skilled employee and why I will benefit your company.

Very good. Alright, so you’ve sent in your resume and your cover letter and well, maybe you’re looking to get into a career as a gas station attendant.

So, what’s the difference between job and career?

Okay, and this is very interesting because in many languages, there is a similar word which, for example, in Spanish is carrera, right? And that means, like a profession. So, many people translate it literally as career, but is not the right word. What is a career?

A career I think of as a long term goal. A career is your profession. It’s the name you give yourself. But a job is a position in a company from one time to another. So, for example, my job here is host of EnglishPod, but maybe in the future I will have a media career. That means that my job or jobs will have to deal with this profession. It’s kind of have a bigger thing

okay

a longer thing

So maybe, you can think of it this way, a career is like, as you say the bigger picture, like the macro category, right. You’re into media and television, for example, and your job specifically is a podcast host.

But in the future maybe I want to have a different job in this career and move into production and be a TV producer

right

so that’s a part of my career path. I can move it forward. So, career is a very important word.

All right. So, we’ve taken a look at a couple of great words. Why don’t we listen to our dialogue again and we’ll be back in a bit.

A: Woo hoo! This just might be the start of the rest of my life!

B: What happened?

A: I’m in the market for a job! I went on a website with hundreds of job listings in the area and browsed through them until I got the names of a few employers I would like to work for. I have the resume I wrote for English class last month and a cover letter will be a piece of cake to write. I’ve even done my research and found the names of the managers so I can address the letters personally.

And you know I can be charming in interviews.

Goodbye my penniless days! Hello salary and a career!

B: Ben, we’re fifteen. What kind of job are you looking for?

A: Oh, just for a position as a gas station attendant.

You know, starting at a simple lowly job, just like all the greats before they made it big in the world.

B: Uh-huh.

A: But I’m just in it for the money, right? How else am I going to be able to afford to keep taking Angela to the movies? Besides, I love the smell of gasoline, don’t you?

All right, we’re back. So now, we have lined up for you three key phrases that we found in this dialogue. So, let’s take a look at those now in fluency builder.

Fluency builder

This first one is a great phrase. It’s going to make you sound very fluent in English, if you use it. We say in the market for.

I’m in the market for a new job.

All right. So, this person is looking for a new job. He is in the market for. I could also say, I’m in the market for a new house, Marco. Do you know any good real estate agents?

So, what does that mean if you say, I’m in the market for a new job or you’re in the market for a new house.

I am right now actively looking for this thing. I really want one.

You’re available.

Yes.

Okay.

So, I’m in the market for a new job. I’m in the market for a new car. It means the market is the marketplace.

Right, right. And this sometimes you could see it related in movies for example, they say, if a person gets married, they are no longer in the market.

Well, I’m in the market for a husband.

Right

Do you know any nice guy?

All right. So, you’re in the market, you’re looking for a job and well, if you’re qualified, it will be a piece of cake to find a new job.

Isn’t this a delicious phrase? So, piece of cake, you think what is cake have to do with anything? Well, cake, this is a way to say something is easy. Okay, so—

it’s really easy.

That’s often happens in our office, actually, because you and I understand computers, but we work with someone who had a hard time with computers and she’s like, oh, it doesn’t work.

And we’re like, it’s a piece of cake.

It’s a piece of cake. It’s so easy. Why is this hard? So, a piece of cake is a way to say something simple. It’s easy.

And that’s a very, very, very common phrase. You’ll hear it all the time. Piece of cake, don’t worry about.

Piece of cake. Hey, can you help me out with this thing?

Sure, it’s a piece of cake. All right, and for our last phrase, he was talking about his position as a gas attendant and he said well, you know, all the greats, all the famous people, they started somewhere before they made it big. What does he mean by they made it big?

Well, the phrase to make it big or in here in the past tense, made it big means to be successful. So we’re talking about for example, Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein worked in the patent office. He was a clerk in Europe and you know that’s not a very impressive job, but it was a job. And he made it big later on as a physicist. And so, to make it big is to succeed, to become famous or successful or important.

Right. Or sometimes people say yeah, I made it. I made it big or I made it in my life. And that means that you were successful.

Or this product is gonna make it big. It’s going to be really successful.

Yeah, that’s good. Okay, so it’s a key phrase to make it or to make it big. Why don’t we listen to our dialogue for the last time and we’ll be back in a little bit.

A: Woo hoo! This just might be the start of the rest of my life!

B: What happened?

A: I’m in the market for a job! I went on a website with hundreds of job listings in the area and browsed through them until I got the names of a few employers I would like to work for. I have the resume I wrote for English class last month and a cover letter will be a piece of cake to write. I’ve even done my research and found the names of the managers so I can address the letters personally.

And you know I can be charming in interviews.

Goodbye my penniless days! Hello salary and a career!

B: Ben, we’re fifteen. What kind of job are you looking for?

A: Oh, just for a position as a gas station attendant.

You know, starting at a simple lowly job, just like all the greats before they made it big in the world.

B: Uh-huh.

A: But I’m just in it for the money, right? How else am I going to be able to afford to keep taking Angela to the movies? Besides, I love the smell of gasoline, don’t you?

All right, so talking about jobs. Now, I noticed something that in the United States, unlike many other countries, there are no gas station attendants anymore.

There are. There’re actually a lot of gas station attendants in New Jersey because it’s the law that you cannot pump your own gas. You can not put gas in your own car.

Why is that?

It’s a way for the New Jersey government to increase the amount of jobs in the state. So, to create jobs, they made gas station attendants.

Yeah, I’ve noticed in some states for example, you just go up to the pump and if you have your credit card, you put in your credit card and you pump your own gas. And apparently it also has to do with health issues because people who are working at in gas stations tend to have serious health problems later on. I mean you’re inhaling all these gases from the gasoline.

That’s right. It’s very unhealthy and I think that’s also very dangerous in some places because gas stations are often robbed

Yeah

because there’s only one person and the security sometimes, so– There are some negative parts of being a gas station attendant but if it’s a job and you need a job it’s probably good one.

Yeah, no true. I actually, I remember seeing back to the future when in the 50s, you would pull up to the gas station, somebody would check your tire pressure, they would check your oil, they would clean your windows and it’s just like full-service when you pulled up to the gas station.

They might even buy you a beer.

All right. So, it’s really interesting about these positions. I imagine that, you know in other places, some job positions and maybe we would find a little bit strange or uncommon.

Absolutely. And I encourage everyone today, this is your homework. Tell us on Englishpod.com, what is your job and what’s your career? Okay?

Okay.

What’s your job and what’s your career. So what’s the career you would like to have in the future.

Very good. Alright, so we’ll see you guys there.

Bye everyone.