Part One: Warm Up
Discuss the following questions with your partner(s).
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Have you ever been offered a job interview that you were unable to attend because of a schedule conflict? If so, what did you do? Were you able to reschedule the interview for a better time?
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How flexible are employers with interview times in your country? Are they usually willing to change the time and/or date, or do candidates need to rearrange their own schedule so that they’re able to attend?
Part Two: Getting Ready to Speak
In this lesson, you are going to learn how to rearrange job interviews and other professional appointments.
Open the exercise and follow the instructions.
Exercise
Part Three: Your Turn
Imagine that you are in the following situation:
You have an interview next Thursday for a job that you are very excited about. You have been talking to someone who used to have the same job at the same company on LinkedIn. They invited you to meet for coffee on Monday afternoon to help you prepare for the interview. You aren’t available on Monday afternoon. Call them to reschedule.
Work with a partner to roleplay the phone call. One of you should be the person with the interview, and the other should be the former employee. After you finish, find a new partner and switch roles.
During the phone conversations, make sure that you:
- open the phone conversation appropriately
- politely decline the offered time and request to reschedule
- try to fix a new time
- close the phone conversation with the three steps (pre-closing, closing, and leave-taking)
- use appropriate language from this lesson
- adapt the formality of the language you use so that it is appropriate to the situation and relationship