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Talking about your work experience

Pour parler de votre stage

Use these guidelines

Use these words and expressions

1. Introduce...

... yourself

(studies, future plans, ...)

... the company

(type of activity, location, assets, problems)

 

- A work placement / a training period / a training session / a work experience

Attention!
Le mot anglais "a stage" a des sens totalement différents!

- A trainee

- It is a small firm of subcontractors specialising in car equipment.

2. Explain...

... how you prepared your work experience.

w how you chose / found the company.
w what you expected from this experience.

- I started applying for this position in October.

- I had to call a large number of firms.

- They were impressed by my CV.

3. Describe...

... your activities.

(Did you analyse a problem? Did you create / improve something? What tools did you use? What were your working hours? Did you work on your own or in a team?)

... the difficulties you had to face.

(They could be technical problems, or human relationships problems.)

- I worked with my tutor / supervisor in the R&D [Research & Development] department.

- I sometimes worked on my own.

- I was in charge of the supply chain.

- I had to reorganise the warehouse.

- My job consisted in reorganising the warehouse.

- I was asked to reorganise the warehouse.

- I carried out a study of the supply chain.

- I had no difficulty mastering the new software they used.

- The staff were very friendly.

4. Analyse...

... the results.

• ... for the company.
  (Will they use what you created? Did you change their way of working?)
• ...for yourself.

- in terms of professional skills. (What did you learn / improve?)

- in terms of personality: what qualities did you develop (self-reliance, patience, team-work, creativity, ...)

- what you liked and didn't like.

- Has it changed your attitude? your vision of working life? your choice of a career?

- They are still using the forms I created.

- They have accepted my suggestions.

- It gave me first-hand knowledge of life in a factory.

- It forced me to master new skills.

- It showed me how important it is to speak English.

5. Conclude...

... by deciding if it was a positive / negative experience.

- I think it was a great experience.

- It was not quite as positive as I expected.