Prime Time 6, Coursebook mit Audio-CD und DVD

What have we not covered that is relevant to what you do at Google? I think for any company that is growing as quickly as we are, the work-life balance component is actually quite high. We don’t typically have early morning or late night meetings. And people are welcome to do things via conference call at home and we pay for people to connect from home. We have a good paternity leave policy where the dads can take o a couple of weeks when their spouse has had a child, and we pay for people’s meals when they have new babies for the rst few weeks. We’ve all heard about the ability for people to bring their dogs to work. And we have a benet where we reimburse people up to $5,000 if they buy a hybrid or electric car. And we have a shuttle service for commuters. (Elinor Mills, CNET News.com , 27 April 2007; adapted and abridged) b) In class, talk about the phrases and sentences you have underlined. What are the advantages of working in a company like this? Make a list. c) Why did Google carry out a happiness survey and what did the results show? Write down five questions that the survey might have included. d) Below are some examples of interview questions. With a partner, agree on a job situation (what kind of job, where, …). Do the interview below in pairs and act out the dialogues. • What job experience have you got? • Why do you want to work here? • What qualifications have you got? • What are your strengths and weaknesses? • What do you like doing outside of work? • What languages do you speak? • Where would you like to be in five years’ time? Tip Job interviews • Get information about the organisation/company you want to work for and be prepared to say why you want to work for them. • Be prepared to talk about anything that is on your CV from memory: education, work experience, special skills and interests. • Be sure to give good reasons why you have applied for the job and why you are just the right person for it. • Dress appropriately. Try to appear calm, confident and highly motivated to do the job. • Use your linguistic and argumentative skills as well as your body language to convince the interviewer that you are the right person for the job. • One question might be how you responded to a problematic situation in the past. Be prepared to talk about such a situation. • You may have to go through an assessment procedure and solve tasks like multiple-choice tests, group or presen- tation tasks. • You may have to prove your social skills, like being able to work in a team. T Your turn: Criticism of Google Google does not only have a positive reputation. Research one of the criticisms below and prepare a short talk about it. Google faces criticism for “deceptive” search ads Critics say Google invades privacy Google misuses and manipulates search results Google’s issues with data protection regulations Google uses other peoples’s intellectual property Google is one of the world’s largest and most influential companies Google uses aggressive tax avoidance strategies to minimise its corporate tax bill Word bank employer • employee • corporate culture • nine to five • work-life balance • salary • wage • white-collar worker • blue-collar worker • shift • workplace • career development • skills training • available on call W 3 35 40 99 Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv