# English speaking Output base learning: writing and speaking Input base learning: listening and reading ## Greeting 1. Politeness 對方問候你或你問候對方,通常被問候者會回答狀態,並對狀態解釋,然後回問 2. 不要拘泥於對話架構或格式或詞語, ex. Don't mention it = No problem = You're wellcome = happy to help ex. Hi = Hey = what's up ex. Peace = bye = later = see you 3. 如果回答的答案跟對方一樣,可以說**Same here, I ...**,後續再解釋為什麼也一樣,或是有那裡不一樣(狀態一樣但造成的狀態原因可能不一樣) 4. 英文有分正式跟非正式的打招呼方式(其實中文無形中也有), Hi, 人名!How is it going today? Good morning/afternoon/evening,人名!How are you doing today? 5. 當你邀約別人並且答應參加,但不會馬上前往,可以說Hit me up,或是剛好有事,想下次再參加時,可以說Remember to hit me up 6. Will you be down? = will you be okay? 7. What did you do when you took a half day off this afternoon? I was reviewing some subjects (that) I’ve learned **back** in Grad. school. Because these topics that I reviewed for, maybe important for my **future** job interview. *這邊的back有強調當時的意思、future也有強調未來的意思 8. Why do you coding every day? A) Because my habit and my future job might need a lot of programing skills, and I need to practice coding a lot. *這個答法不太好,工作跟習慣盡量不要一起說,不然會給人一種工作狂的感覺 B) Because I want to be very familiar with my coding skills, which may be helpful for my future career. C)Because I am really **passionate** on coding, and I want to make sure I get familiar with this skill, which may be helpful for my future career. *這個passionate的說法是比較加分的,此外,這個說法邏輯也符合下面what...,result...的句型(省略時間when...) 9. How is you day, Ryan? My day has been a little bit busy becasue I was stamping documents for our section cheif this entire morning, but I was more chill this afternoon. *因為一天還沒結束 所以要用My day has been... 如果是昨天就用 yesterday I was... My day has been impactful because my employers didn't assign many jobs to us. But I used my time wisely to search for some job information on the internet. 10. How have you been these days/past few days/so far? ## Interview ### Points * 回答盡量簡短且重要,但必要時(有些資訊一定要解釋清楚時)還是可以使用長句,加深描述細節,不過要記得避免重複說到相同意思的字(資訊重疊) ex.如專案中,有多少人參與,和各自負責的部分必須提出說明。 而隊友的部分盡量簡短帶過,著重在自己的部分。說明團隊專案的好處還有告訴面試官自己是個有團隊合作能力的人 * 如果是新鮮人求職可以先介紹大學專業和專案,再介紹碩士專業和專案,才有種帶給人提升的感覺。如果是第二份工作,則介紹碩士專業和專案與第一份工作經驗,就不必再介紹大學的部分了 * 自我介紹的時候可以tie into company's value/vision(因公司而異,因此面試前要做一些company research) ex. creative, leadership, specialist & generalist, self-learner, adaptable, communicative * 自我介紹的部分前一版只說了做了什麼專案和結果,但為了引起面試官的好奇心與切合公司的價值,可以把skills加入介紹中,讓skills跟專案互相呼應,其中skill又分為inter-personal skill和technical skill * technical skill: Python, C++ language, signal processing techniques, ML/DL/OP algorithm... * inter-personal skill: Above (like company value) * Conclusion是相信自己的能力可以勝任職缺做個總結,有些人會在最後一句對公司拍馬屁 * 回答問題的答案盡量包括qualitive(observation)和quantitive(data),才能有說服力或證明 * 回答問題時,有很多個例子要說的話,第一個可以重複問題,第二個以後可以說my second example is / my another example is 最後一個my last example is ### Tell me about yourself (30秒到1分半) Common structure: >1.Where you graduated, and what degree? (歷史) >2.What is your major? (經驗與技能) >3.What you did? Projects? (經驗與技能) >4.How can your experience and skills benefit the company? (結論) - History >Hi, my name is Yu-Fu, Liu. I graduated from Chang Gung University as an undergraduate (student) and National Cheng Kung University as a graduate student, and **both** majored in Electrical Engineering. During my time as a Grad. student, I also specialized in data science domain and achieved/ accomplished (several projects in both individual and team assignments.) - Skills and experience 結構: 什麼時候? 做了什麼專案? 跟誰/人數? 用了什麼技能? 結果是什麼? >One of the projects (that I did) was with a group of 4 people. We built an AI model to pre-screen patients'severity of sleep apnea. >Through the use of python and signal processing techniques, we created/developed an algorithm whcih allow the device to see if a patient has any obstructive sleep apnea at home. As a result, the device we made was more time-saving and convenient than/compared with those we see in the hospital. * Simple conclusion 結構: 人, 什麼能力和經驗, 適合某個職位和公司 >As a coder/programmer, I believe my set of technical skills can be a great fit (as a ___Position_Name___ /to this position) and to this company. * Conclusion that ties into company values >As a coder/programmer, I thrive to learn different technical skills, like novel AI models, optimization algorithms, data processing techniques(, so I am a self-learner). And through my project experience, I use Python and C++ to accomplish different projects, so I can adapt to different scenarios or environments. Moreover, as creating an efficient device, I think I am creative and can be benefit to the company. ## Questions ### What are your Greatest Strengths? - Structure:(不用照順序,但都要提到) - Reflect - What are you good at? - What project did you do? - Select - What skills did you use? (Soft/inter-personal skills? Hard/technical skills?) - Support - Evidence + result - This structure is also similar to the When? do What? Result? - The example needs to be detailed and show the strengths out Example 1. >Reflect : >Select :NLP, ML skills / Adaptable, Communication and Good planner >Support : > >As a (coder/programmer/someone) who (knows/is good at/has experience with) NLP and ML, I competed in an AI competition back in my graduate school. There were 1250 people and split into teams of 3. Our goal was to do text classification.During the competition, I communicated well with my teammates and distributed our tasks evenly. We also discussed problems in each member's task. (For my task/ Take my task as an example), I gathered the processed data from my teammates and then surveyed some models such as LSTM, GRU, BERT...and etc. which were good at handling text data. After that, I used python to (create/build) the models to do text classification. As a result, we completed the task and ranked in the top 20. - no need to say **etc** when answering questions to the interviewer Example 2. >Reflect : >Select :DSP, ML skills / Adaptable, Communication and Good planner >Support : > >I consider myself (as/to be) a good communicator and listener. As I mentioned before, during my time as a graduate student, I created a device with a team of 4 and built an AI model to prescreen patients (for sleep apnea/if they have any sleep apnea.) In the process, I was willing to learn some medical knowledge about sleep apnea and integrated with my major. Therefore, I was able to communicate with my professor, the doctor we cooperated with, and the patients with sleep apnea. With their feedback and suggestions, I could adapt them into (a/my) new algorithm that fits their needs and expectations. At the end, over 100 patients successfully tested by our device and the result of our performance (slightly) improved where we have a higher accuracy to monitor patients if they have any sleep apnea. - I believe myself to be ... - Our device was improved and increased the accuracy/had a higher accuracy to monitor the patients if they have any sleep apnea. - 如果沒有tell me about yourself 就沒有as I mentioned before,要再次稍微介紹碩班做的事情,但別忘了切合主題(Greatest strength),不管在說明例子的過程中還希望凸顯什麼優點或是描述例子更仔細,都必須盡量精簡並拉回說明選擇主題的原因跟例子還有結果 Example 3. >Reflect : >Select : skills / self-control or self-improve >Support : >accomplish tasks before deadlines and without any supervision. - Raw matrials: 1. work under pressure -> figure out some solutions before the deadline 2. adaptable -> originally stocked in A but try B (in success) / be willing or embrace to change / switch fast 3. teamwork = team player? team leader? = listener? communicator? manager? 4. leadership -> able to communicate with teammates who focus on their jobs/tasks (communicative) / 5. team player -> listen to other teammates'suggestion (easy-going) / propose new ideas/techniques to try -> work/not work? ### What's your weakness? - points 1. speak it in short or precisely 2. speak like this way:weakness->improvement->result/strength 3. Don't take lazy, not confident, not brave as example of weakness, make the same mistakes(unteachable) 4. Don't mention the weakness too many times, even describe in other words Example 1. >One of my weaknesses is sometimes I would lose track of my thoughts (time management). In the past, sometimes I would lose track on managing my time, since I can be quite focused on my task. After reading a book called “The Checklist Manifesto “, I learned how to (keep track of my work and) keep a checklist on my daily assignments. This allows me to manage my time well and complete several tasks at once. >Describe the reason in another way: Because I would focus on one task too much, which leads me to lose track of my time, and results in not being able to finish other tasks on time. >(For example, back in graduate school, I had a lot of projects, meetings, and research to do, so I (would manage/managed) my time through my computer (by making/through) a checklist of assignments and projects (I would need to complete on a daily basis/I need to complete day by day.) >(a checklist to remind myself to complete the assignments and project on a daily basis) >Checklist Manifesto Summary: The book explains to me how important the checklist is and uses an example to explain how a doctor use a checklist to reduce the mortality rate in surgery (only say it if interviewer asks more about the book) Example 2. >My other weakness is public speaking. I used to be nervous and stuttered when having a presentation. During graduate school, I had 1-2 weekly meetings which gave me more chances to think how to express my (contents/thoughts/ideas) clearly and speak in public confidently.Since then, I am more open to speaking in public and not afraid to share my thoughts as well. ### What was the most difficult period in your life, and how did you deal with it? - Structure: 1. When + who 2. What happened + explain the difficulty 3. How you managed the difficulty and how you deal with it 4. Result Example 1. >The most difficult period in my life was during graduate school, my advisor and I had a weekly meeting, so I usually did my research on weekdays and organize my progress on the weekend. It was a tight and stressful period. During the period, I kept trying to meet the advisor's expectations and facing new problems, like how to process the signal well, how to deal with data imbalance, what kind of AI model is suitable for this task...etc. To deal with this situation, I change my mindset to be willing to learn and a positive attitude. As a result, I accomplished the research and got the master's degree. Example 2. >One of the most difficult periods in my life was when I was a senior at undergraduate school. I failed the Graduate school exam and wondered if I should go to work or retake the exam. Although I chose to resist the idea of giving up, I decided to face my failure and retake the exam. During the process, I put in extra time and effort on studying the subjects that I wasn't good at. Instead of having a tutor or attending cram school, I studied everything by myself to be more familiar with the exam. In the end, I received a higher grade on my exam and got into a school that ranks in the top 4 in electrical engineering in Taiwan. From this experience, I learned that we should seize every opportunity and never give up. Example 3. >One of the most difficult periods in my life was when I was a junior at undergraduate school, I had a course called independent study. It was the very first time for me to have a chance to apply what I learned to a project and work with other people. Our topic was to build an ultra metal cleaner. One of my teammates designed an algorithm to control the cleaner. Another teammate and I were responsible for the ultrasonicator and the power supply. In the process, I layout the circuits, welded the electronic components to the PCB boards and tested the boards if they could work. Although we made a lot of errors, we finally integrated them into an ultra metal cleaner and gained a sense of achievement. ### **What is your Greatest Achievement/ Accomplishment?** 1. Data imbalance 2. Multi class classification 3. Overall accuracy >My greatest achievement is the competition I mentioned before. In the competition, We faced some difficulties like data imbalance, how to deal with multi-class classification, and how to improve the overall accuracy of classification. >Take data imbalance as an example, because the minority class had less amount of data, so we tried some methods, like Easy data augmentation and Back translation, to create more data. At the end, the accuracy was slightly improved. >For the multi-class classification problem, it is different to one-class classification, which just chooses the largest probability as output class. So we tried 2 different methods. First method is to set a threshold for the output classes, the other method was to train the classifier separately. In the end, the first method had the best performance. (why?) >As for improving the overall accuracy of classification, we used several novel models to do text classification. Some of the models we used are.......... At the end we used “Transformer” and received a better overall accuracy of (0.709 in f1 score). >(At the end, we completed the competition and ranked in the top 20.) ### Why Would We Hire You? Goal is: How to sell yourself to the employer * Highlight your experience with particular skills, and describe in detail what that experience looks like and how you have used it previously. * This gives the hiring manager the chance to see some of your work and determine if it fits what they are looking for. * Ties strengths with company goals or values Example: >I am familiar with C++ and Python, and specialize in data processing and machine learning, so these skills equip myself for this position. Moreover, I like this domain very much and have some experiences adapting these skillsI to my previous projects, so I believe I can learn fast in this position. Besides, I also believe myself to be a good communicator and listener, which makes me work in harmony with colleagues from different departments to create good products. ### Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years? In the next five years, I would like to become a software engineer having better backend and programming skills. Moreover, I hope I will develop many products for the company and gain more experience in machine learning and computer vision. With the growth of these skills and experiences, I can apply them to create better products for the company and become a mentor to teach the newcomers. Besides, I also want to improve my communication skills such that I can cooperate with the foreign members or clients well. Your company is international and offers the opportunity to achieve these goals for long-term growth. ### How do you deal with conflict with a Co-Worker/member in a team? Example 1. >Back in my time as a graduate student, I competed in an AI competition with a team of 3. Two teammates had a conflict for contribution. In the process, everyone discussed different methods for achieving better results. But one of our teammates decided to choose an easier way of accomplishing this task resulting in the worst performance. Due to his lack of effort and contribution, other team members also decided to start slacking off. To let the team stay focused, I encouraged and led our teammates to try other methods to accomplish this project. In the end, our team tried 7 different methods (5 models and 2 data augmentation methods) and ranked in the top 20 in the competition. Example 2. >Back in my time as a graduate student / my other example is, I once had a conflict with my advisor on my research. I was doing a paper reproduction then, and I got a twice larger error than the result in the paper. Although it might be caused by a different dataset, he is still strict and angry to me. To deal with this situation, I listened to his arguments carefully ,asked questions to clarify my understanding, and explain my result. After that, I told him that I would check the code, find other methods, and improve my result. In the end, I improved my result with a different method and he accepted it. ### Referring to the situation of how you deal with conflict NOW - Explain the steps or ways of how you would deal with a conflict within a team E.g. How would you start to encourage and lead our teammate - After explaining, bring up a previous example of how you deal with this situation >To deal with a conflict, I would like to understand the trigger of it and each teammate’s statements. Moreover, I have to keep objective to judge the fault and correctness of each member. Instead of pointing out their faults or scolding them, I used to encourage them with some opinions and focus on the future goal. For example, back to my time as a graduate student, I competed in an AI competition with a team of three. In the process, we had a conflict because a teammate lacked effort and contribution by choosing to use the easiest method, the other teammate decided to start slacking off. To let our team focus again, I encouraged our teammates to try more methods. At the end, we tried seven methods, including 5 models and 2 data augmentation methods, and ranked in the top 20. ### Are you the type of person who follows rules or not? Example 1. > *Maybe the rule is out of date *Maybe the rule is not complete initially or suitable to every situation [Reference](https://medium.com/illumination/4-tips-to-follow-rules-your-way-1faea30d1216) [Reference 2](https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=5862048) ### How do you make sure your colleagues remain accountable? >Being accountable relates to many parts of a person at work, so I would like to explain them with the following situations. I usually check the progress of my colleagues by weekly meetings, especially their performance data. If they accomplish their project on time and achieve the target, I think they are accountable. However, it is hard for a person to keep perfect. Therefore, Even though they did not finish their work or achieve the target, they admit their faults and explain the reasons. I still think they are accountable because it means they take the responsibility and might improve the performance next time. Otherwise, they might not be accountable enough to their work. ### How would you deal with someone who has been left out? - empathy- ability to understand how another person feel >If I’ve grown to really rely on that person, I may feel deserted and alone. Maybe asking him the reason is hard, but I would like to try it. Sometimes he just got a better offer, then I would bless him and be grateful for his contribution. Sometimes he had some personal reasons, for example, his spouse transferred to other cities or he needed more time to take care of his aging parents. Then I would give him some suggestions, like working remotely or taking some unpaid day-offs so that he might not have to leave the company. If he had already made his mind to leave, I would suggest the manager divvy up his responsibility to other employees evenly to ease the workload of other employees. Moreover, I hope he could leave complete documents when transferring his work to others and keep communicating in case a problem shows up. [Reference](https://hbr.org/2015/03/when-an-employee-quits-and-you-didnt-see-it-coming) ## Notes: 1. 口音或聲調(上揚或重音):熟悉一個語言到可以在日常生活中使用後,就跟說中文的時候一樣,加入情緒後,自然就有聲調上的差異 2. 說話可以適時的停頓,給自己時間思考,別人也不會覺得你說話太快有壓力,通常停頓可以帶來更有力的下一句話 3. 如果在想怎麼說的時候會發出ummm...;uhhh...等狀聲詞,可以用停頓代替 4. 說話時記得張大嘴巴! 5. 在描述過去的專案或經歷時,是過去式! *常常忘記切換 6. both這個字很好用,可以避免重複用同樣的字,又可以強調自己兼具有哪些能力/專業/專案經驗... 7. 大學的部分描述完 說到碩士部分 可以有個連接詞: **later on...** 後來... 8. [職業相關單字](https://bnlanguage.blog/2019/12/14/job-profession-occupation-vocation/) 9. [how about / what about](https://funday.asia/blogDesktop/blog.asp?blog=453) ## Phrase 1. What is even worse, ... ## Other vacabilaries 1. dish washer洗碗機/ washing machine洗衣機/ XXX cleaner XXX清洗機 2. update seating chart 更新座位表 3. section chief 科長 chef 廚師 4. department director 處長 5. topic = subject 學科 6. Take a half day off 請半天假 7. I like to surround myself with... because... 我喜歡自己身邊圍繞著什麼(人事物) ex. I like to surround myself with books because I love reading to gain more knowledge. ex2. I like to surround myself with music because music relieve my stress. ex3. I like to surround myself with ediots.這句是反諷,沒人會喜歡自己身邊圍繞白癡,所以是指身邊有很多白癡 8. civil servant公務員 officer科員 9. finish/ achieve/ accomplish 都有達成和完成的意思,但finish就有點普通的感覺 10. ...., by any chance? 有沒有...可能性? 11. I have read your biogrphy/thesis/article...我讀過你的自傳/論文/文章...第一次見面的同事或主管很常這樣說來拉近彼此距離 12. 當形容狀態"不忙碌,但還是有一些事情要完成"可以用chill 13. 當形容一個人在很多領域上有接觸或發展時,可以說Someone is wearing many hats. 14. 說明結果的時候,可以明確的轉折說As a result...= In the end...= The result was... 15. 文具類單字: https://english.cool/stationery/ 16. take something at face value 從表面上看待某件事情 17. tricky = intractable 18. stochastic = random 19. give you good advices **tailored to** your case 20. Certification 證書/獎狀 21. well-rounded 全面的、豐富的 ex. a well-rounded engineer 22. employee工作人員/科員 employer = manager主管 23. physiotherapy / Rehabilitation復健 hot compress / hot patch 熱敷 24. Don't rush too much 不要太著急 25. cosmetic/make-up 化妝品 put on/wear 化妝 26. tactful 委婉的 37. ambivalent = contradictory 矛盾的 28. when a rule does not resonate with 當和規則沒有共鳴 29. tweak 調整 30. embargo 禁運 31. catalyst 催化劑 32. numb 麻木的 33. accrue (透過自然增長)產生 34. back and forth 來回地 35. crane 起重機 36. dumpster 垃圾車 37. stroller 嬰兒車 38. As intended, ... 如同預期,... 39. More specifically 更具體的說 40. pave the way for ... 為...做好準備 41. reminisce 42. snack & snake發音注意 43. it cannot be helped 沒辦法 44. meat space 現實世界 (相對於virtual space) 45. pachinko 46. flow state 心流 47. Living Will Organ dlonor leek slow cooker Instant Pot astronomy mirror / refraction fresnel Fraser Cain