IELTS Speaking Vocabulary - Talking about Work and Jobs

hi it's teacher Neil again and today we will be learning about jobs so in your IELTS exam people will often ask you what is your job or what kind of job do you have or what do you do for a living now if that is going to be on your IELTS exam you can take a look at this useful vocabulary and sentences that can help you to express yourself when answering these questions now let's take a look we have got three different sections has a job don't have a job and self-employed and we will go through them step-by-step one-by-one to help you understand and be able to express yourself fully when answering these kinds of questions now let's take a look first we have has a job so if somebody asks you do you have a job you can say well yes I work in the field work in the something plus field so you can say I work in the mining field or I work in the sports field or I work in the diamond field so you will have to say your job title where the plus is and the field is the area of work or the type or the kind of work that you are involved with moving on work in plus place and Department if you want to be specific you can use this the place in the department if you have a famous company that you're working for or something people know like you can say oh I work in the police department or I work in the bank or I work in the stadium in the sports stadium that's one way to describe it also work for plus company if you are working for a famous company like for sample Apple or Microsoft you can say I work for Apple I work for Microsoft I work for the beers so we don't always have to say company if your company has a famous name you can just use the name of your company and people will understand work as plus job position so if you want to be specific you can say what is your position at your company for example we can have CFO or manager so if somebody asks you where do you work you can say well I work in Apple and I work as the manager in a store or you can say well I worked for the beers and I am the chief CFO over here at that company looking over do the for a living so you can say I do trade for a living or I do insurance for a living this again is your field so sometimes when you want to explain yourself you can just use the field I do engineering for a living I do IT that's just right here do i tea for a living and then people will quickly understand what you do earn a wage buy something so if you do not work for a specific company or you have a skill based job you can use this sentence I earn a wage by fixing things or I earn a wage by plumbing plumbing if you don't know plumbing means fixing a toilet or fixing things with water pipes so you can say because plumbing doesn't have a certain company or you don't want to say which company you are you can say I earn a wage by plumbing or I earn a wage by doing this or doing that land a job means you got a job and usually this sentence we will use in a story for example you can say I was working in a restaurant and then I met the owner of another company and he liked me so much that I landed a job at his company or you can say I had many interviews and at the end they liked me so much I landed the job so lad in this sense means got also one more way to describe your job is you can say I have a nine-to-five job which just means you have a regular job with regular times and regular hours so you can say I work from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock you know I just have a nine-to-five job I work at McDonald's and I work as the manager of one branch what do you do for a living oh you know I I do plumbing for a living I earn a wage by fixing some toilets that's what I do moving up if you don't have a job if you don't have a job yet or maybe you're a student you can use these words to express your current situation let's take a look unemployed which means the same as jobless which means no job sometimes you get fired from a job and you are unemployed or you can also say currently I'm in between jobs which means that you are finishing at one company or one place and you are now in the time where you are going to be moving to a new job so you can say when somebody asks you do you have a job you can say at the moment I am unemployed but I recently quit my previous job and now I'm in between jobs I have a position starting in September at a new company also we have job hunting which hunting in this sense means searching or looking so you can say I'm jobless at the moment and I'm actually job hunting or I'm actually hunting for a job at the moment so if you know of any place looking for a skilled worker please help me out because currently I'm in between jobs just remember when you are using between jobs the proper way to segue into that is in don't make the mistake of saying on it is in between jobs so if somebody asks you what is your job at the moment you say currently I am in between jobs moving on to one of the more exciting kinds of jobs we have self-employed remember employ means that somebody is giving you work or giving you a salary so if you are self-employed that means you give yourself work which means you are your own boss or you give yourself work now when you are self-employed you can use these words to describe to what level you are self-employed if somebody asks you do you have a job at the moment are you currently employed you can say well I'm self-employed currently I am a freelancer now a freelancer means that other companies will hire you to do jobs on occasion which means you don't work at one company you are a freelancer or a free agent and you can choose which place you want to work at and you can discuss a fee for your services so you can say I do freelance work at a few different companies freelancer can be something like a photographer or a writer something which doesn't make you have to sit in one place all the time so you can say you know I'm a photographer so I do a lot of freelance work and I'm employed by many different companies but I choose my own time moving on self-employed as we know means you are your own boss I don't like to work for a boss I prefer to be self-employed telecommute means that you are working from home using either your telephone or the Internet to do your business so you can say I am self-employed and I run my company from my home I mostly telecommute to talk to my clients using email or using faxes moving on we have start my own business then we can also look at business owner and entrepreneur so entrepreneur means you make your own work and another way to say that is I start my own business or I am a business owner so let's look at the different ones you can say 10 years ago I started my own business I didn't like working for a boss and now I am self-employed I am a busy this owner which means the business belongs to you or you can also say I own multiple multiple let me just write that here multiple multiple means many so you can also use it like this I am a multiple business owner which means you own many different kinds of businesses and the entrepreneur just to reiterate means that you create work for yourself maybe you can have your own company or maybe you can just hustle on the street and buy it from one place and telecommute and sell it by yourself on the internet without having an official company right moving on we have the word start up start up means that you just started your own business so or maybe you can also say you are in the process of starting your own business so if somebody asks you do you have your own job you can say currently I am unemployed but I have a start up and we are just looking for funds or investments and then hopefully one day I will be a business owner now when we have start up or use the vocabulary the vocabulary for business owner we can use these words venture capital and overheads now venture capital means that you are getting funds for your business from another firm or somebody giving you money to help you start up your company so you can say I have a startup at the moment but we are looking for more venture venture capital to really get it started so it can be huge overhead means the costs that you are paying for your business that is not related to your product so overheads will be things like your rent or your insurance things like that so you can say I currently have a start-up but we have so many overheads that it's really hard to get it going so what I'm doing now is I am looking and asking other firms and seeing if they can help me with some more venture capital which will help my startup which can help me to become self-employed which can help me to become a business owner one day but until then I am doing a lot of freelance work and I'm paying my bills by doing that but I don't want to be a freelancer my whole life I want to be a business owner one day moving on sometimes in your exam people will ask you does your company pay you well or provide good benefits here are some examples we can use to fully express ourselves when faced with this question first work benefits you can say when somebody asks you the question well my company pays me a good salary and what I like about my company is that there are some fringe benefits fringe benefits means there are some extra things that comes with your contract so fringe let's just say extras and usually it will be in your contract so health insurance is one kind of fringe benefit especially in a place like America whose health insurance is maybe not as progressive as some other places then having health insurance or even dental insurance for your teeth I'll write here dental insurance that can be a good fringe benefit that could make people want to work at your company even if the salary is not that good a company car is another example if you don't have a car but your job requires you to drive a lot then maybe your company can give you the fringe benefit of a company car which is owned by the company but that you can use in your off time as well so that is a good fringe benefit moving on perks perks is a nice word that usually means an extra thing or a little special thing we can use perks for other examples as well but usually we keep it for jobs for example well I have a great job I love my job my job has so many little perks some of my perks include I have a lot of time off at work so I can do a lot of chores on the Internet in between my work maternity leave now maternity leave is an interesting word and that means when a woman or in some countries like Europe even men will get maternity leave it means that when you are going to have a baby you being the woman or the husband if you are going to have a baby you get time off to take care of your baby to deliver the baby or stay at home with the baby so you can say my job has a lot of perks I got three months maternity leave so I had time to deliver the baby and to rest up and get my strength back holiday entitlement is also a very nice perk that some good companies will offer you and you can say my company is so great we have a lot of perks we even have holiday entitlement I got four weeks paid holiday at my last job so that's a very nice perk maybe you don't fully understand what does entitlement mean entitled means what you are owed what you are owed or what you deserve so most companies are entitled their they are entitled to give you certain days off like public holidays or national holidays like Christmas so everyone has a minimum holiday entitlement entitlement just once again means what you are owed or what you deserve and usually that is the minimum which means everyone usually gets the same holiday entitlement but some jobs might offer you more than the basic holiday entitlement but the holiday entitlement will be written in your contract so make sure you understand that you can say for example my job has a lot of perks we have the minimum holiday entitlement but my job gives me two weeks of extra holiday time if I want to take it moving on we have the word base salary plus Commission another word for a commission is no actually you can have a commission or you can have a bonus so just to explain that the base salary is what the company in the contract says it will pay you so your base salary is your normal or your average salary some jobs will offer you a base salary plus a commission now what is a commission a commission is if you are a sales person let me just write here sales if you are a sales person and you get a big sale because of you only you and no one else helped with the let's say for example a car or a ring you can get the commission which means that a purse a portion or a percentage of the money your company got from selling that item will go to you because you are the reason it got sold so you can say I have a good base salary but I make a lot of extra money by Commission because I'm such a good worker also we can have a bonus a bonus just means extra pay and usually a bonus can be given for different reasons or factors some jobs will give you let's say attendance bonus let me just write here attendance bonus which means if you don't miss work or you're always on time they will give you extra money just to say thank you or if you did a really good job you can also get a bonus or some very nice generous companies might even give you a Christmas bonus or a birthday bonus so a bonus just means that extra money that you made as opposed to a commission which means you get a part of a sale which is extra money only for you no one else gets that unless if you worked in a team now moving on we have work income and vocabulary words and sentences that can help you to express that further for example if they say what is your job you can say I work here and here and here and maybe they will ask you what is your income like the income is the money that you get from your job so income is like your salary or the money you make here are some words that can express that pay or remuneration pay and remuneration means the same thing essentially you work for people and they give you a pay salary in other words we can just write here is salary or a remuneration of the same things you can say well I'm a plumber but I get remunerated for my services I get a good pay doing what I do another word is stiffened so stiffened is an interesting word it usually means things like a minimum wage or an extra fee or extra amount of pay that you get for something for example you can have a housing stipend if you are working in another country the company can give you a housing stipend which will pay for your accommodation or pay for the rental of your apartment also if you are an intern an intern means you are still learning how to do the job you don't have the job position yet you're still training they will give you a living wage or kind of a minimum wage to give you money while you are learning a good company will do that just to go deeper into a step end especially when it refers to an intern or an internship when you are an intern and studying learning how to do your specific job at the company you are not getting an official salary just yet but if the company is kind and nice they will give you a intern step and the step end meaning like a small fee or a small amount of money that can cover something like your traveling costs or your food cost while you are in between jobs so a step end something extra they don't have to give it to you but if they are a good company they can like if you are doing your internship you get stepand or you can get a housing stipend or if you are on your phone a lot and you have to make a lot of phone calls for the company they could pay for that as well so you can get a airtime step it it's just a basic extra fee that you don't have to pay in addition to work for that company moving on we have this I am reimbursed for a service or for time so if you are a freelancer let me just write that here freelancer or if you give a service service means usually you don't work in a company you will go to somebody's house or go to somebody's company to do a service a service means you work for them or do something for them then you can use the word reimbursed reimbursed means you are paid it actually means paid but also we can use reimburse if you use your own money you use your own money which is coming out of your pocket but somebody is giving you that money back then you can say oh you know I had to spend a thousand dollars to do the job but the company reimbursed me for the money that I had to pay so you can say I am reimbursed for my service or for your time for example let's say you had to work overtime let me just write here over time you worked longer than you were supposed to and the company doesn't pay that in your base salary you can say we had a big project and last night we did a lot of overtime but my boss is very nice and he reimbursed me for that extra amount of time so in conclusion for the words associated with work income if somebody asks you does your job or your company give you a lot of benefits or do they give you a good income at your work you can say well the pay or the remuneration is pretty good but what's nice about my job is when I started I got a stepand I have a housing stipend so I don't have to pay rent and I get reimbursed for any other services that I do I get reimbursed for any overtime that I do and I get reimbursed if I have to do anything extra that is not in my contract another question that you might get asked during your IELTS exam is what is your typical day like at work here are some useful words that can help you to express yourself with that question first I work in the afternoon or you can say I work the day or the night shift the shift is the time in which you work so you can say oh I work in a 7-eleven I work the day shift and sometimes on a weekend I will do the night shift shift just means the time moving on be responsible for or in charge off so if you have a certain task that you do at your job you can use the sentence you can say at my job I am responsible for overseeing the spending I am responsible or I am in charge of labor or I am in charge of communication that means that there is one focus at your job that is your specific responsibility or duty which you have to focus on you can use this sentence my job in Valls blah blah blah for example my job involves cleaning the store or my job involves talking to the customers or talking to the international departments moving on be on my feet for many hours so a lot of jobs you will just sit down but if you have to walk a lot or move a lot or go from one place to another place you are on your feet so you can say at my job I'm on my feet for many hours I have to run over there I have to check at that department I'm on my feet for a lot another one we can say is do routine correspondence now the word correspondence means you have to talk to other people in the company either from another department or in another country or with your coworkers so correspondence means you have to check on other people and you have to make sure that everyone understands each other and everyone is working together in a good way so you can say when somebody asks you what is your typical day like at work you can say I do a lot of routine correspondence with the other departments and with the other companies in other cities or you can say at my job I'm on my feet for many hours I have to run from one place to another place my job involves taking care of customer service so whenever someone complains I have to be involved with that because I am responsible for the quality of our products so if there's any problem I have to take responsibility for that now moving on we will be looking at the question do you like your job now there are two ways to answer this question you can either say you don't like the job or you don't make a lot of money or you can say you make a lot of money or you love your job here are some examples that we can look at to fully Express and to go into detail on your feelings of the subject let's take a look make ends meet ends in this case is your bills or your expenses so you can say I don't make a lot of money I barely make ends meet barely means hardly or almost almost almost so I can't make ends meet means you cannot pay your bills you cannot do the basic money that you have to pay for things moving on live paycheck to paycheck that means that you cannot save any money every time you get the paycheck that is all the money that you have for the month and that means that you are using almost all of your money every month so if you are living paycheck to paycheck that's not a good thing moving on make the bare minimum minimum means the least or the littlest that you can make so usually it is talking about minimum wage so that means the lowest that a company is allowed to pay you so you can say I don't like my job you know I'm starting at the bottom and I just make the bare minimum I can't even make my ends meet I'm living paycheck to paycheck so that's not very good moving on barely earn a living wage the wage of course is your salary and a living wage means a salary that can give you a good life that you don't have to worry about money or saving money or paying bills so you can say I don't like my job I barely earn a living wage I'm living paycheck to paycheck I cannot keep doing this moving on the pay is not very high of course we know what that means your salary is not high it's pretty and you can also say I don't like my job I'm stuck behind a desk all day that means you're just sitting at the table sitting at the computer you want to move you want to do things you cannot because you're stuck behind a desk and that is making it not a fun working experience for you moving on these are some more words that you can use to express that you don't like your job the first is rat race now just think of a lot of rats like coming together they're all pressed together there's no space the rat race means you are just a little rat running with all the other rats which means that it's a big group you're rushing you're rushing but you're not making a lot of money and you're not like the boss who is on top and is comfortable it means you're racing and you're uncomfortable and you're just living paycheck to paycheck moving on exhausting exhausting means very very tiring so very tiring so you can say I don't like my job it's so exhausting at the end of the day I can't even move I just lie on my bed and fall asleep it's so exhausting super super tiring moving on thank less less of course means no so thankless means no one is saying thank you for all the hard work you are doing you can say I don't like my job it's so exhausting I work so hard and it's a thankless job my boss never says thank you the customer never says thank you I don't like working there anymore I want to be thanked for what I do moving on mind-numbing job numb means it's cold you cannot feel anything means can't feel so when we use this word mind-numbing it means your brain becomes so overworked that you cannot feel a happy or sad it just feels like a robot or a machine so you can say all day at my job I'm just writing emails and it's so mind-numbingly boring it's a mind-numbing job I do not feel stimulated it's not creative I hate my job moving on the salary does not commensurate with my commensurate if you don't know what commensurate means it basically means makes up for so my salary does not commensurate with my effort let's use the word effort or my hard work what that means is you are doing an extra service or working extra hard and you are not getting paid for that for example you can say I don't like my job I work overtime and it's very exhausting and I still just get the bare minimum salary my salary does not commensurate with my effort or with my overtime so I don't really like my job another one last word we can use to describe a job we don't like is a dead-end job now what is a dead-end job dead-end just think about a road the road stops it doesn't go anywhere so if you say you have a dead-end job that means you are stuck you cannot go up you cannot make more money you're just there doing the same thing over and over and there's no way up or down so you can say I hate my job it's a dead-end job the work is mind-numbing I do not get commensurate with all of my efforts I'm going to quit my job very soon now on a more positive note maybe you like your job maybe you love your job so if somebody asks you in the exam do you like your job let's look at the good things we can say first we have I have a high paying job which is pretty simple it means that you get a lot of money for your efforts and for the service that you do we can also make or if you want to be fancy you can say I pull in six figures figures in this case means a zero for your salary so if you have six figures that is six zeroes and then of course is 1 million so if you are a CEO or you have a high paying job you can say well I am a business owner and I pull in six figures every year or if you're very lucky every month going on make a killing make a killing does not mean a real killing relax make a killing means that you make a lot of money or you make a lot of profit that means that your job or your business is doing very well or you are making a lot of commissions so make a killing just means like a success like your job is going very well you're getting a lot of money moving on pay is very high that's the same as a high paying job and on some notes you can say get a lot of job satisfaction so maybe your pay is not very high but you love your job or you feel what you're doing is a good thing for example if you are a teacher then you can say my salary isn't that high but I get a lot of job satisfaction teaching children for me it is very rewarding rewarding means you feel what you're doing is good for your heart or for your soul and you feel happy about your job so just in conclusion about that if you make a lot of money you can say well I love my job it's a high paying job I make a killing in fact I made six figures last year and not only that it's a very rewarding job I'm helping the environment I'm helping people and when I see people thankful for my service at the end of the day it's very rewarding I get a lot of job satisfaction from it now moving on we will be looking at vocabulary and sentences pertaining to losing or quitting your job maybe you feel at the time at the job is over or maybe you did a really bad job and now they're going to let you go let's take a look at some examples of what you can say if somebody asks you how did you lose your job if somebody asks you that you can say well I was fired fired means that they said you cannot work here any gun anymore so I was fired usually fired means that you did a really bad job and they were very quick to say go away let go usually means that they don't need you anymore or maybe there's a new employee that's better or maybe a machine that can do your job and if that is the case if there is a new better younger employee or a machine or a robot you can say I was made redundant redundant means useless or meaning less so that means that they don't need you anymore the robot can work faster than you so you can say well I used to do this job but when they got that new robot I was made redundant and they had to let me go also you can say this is pertaining to being fired there are more interesting ways you can say that get the axe sacked given the pink slip that means that the company does not want you anymore so you can say well I was given the axe I was fired you can also say the boss sacked me last night after I made a huge mistake with the finances the pink slip of course means the slip that is given when your contract is canceled so you can say after five years I was given the pink slip just like that all because that new machine has made me redundant very sad if you are let go they can give you severance pay severance pay means if you had a contract and your contract said you had to make a certain amount of money you will be given severance pay severance net pay means that they are giving you a little bit of extra money so you can be okay for a month or two after you are let go or if you had an important job or you worked at your job for many years they will reward you by giving you a severance pay so severance pay is like a letting go pay moving on maybe you were not fired maybe you didn't want to work at your company anymore so if somebody asks you why did you stop working at that company you can say well I quit my job there are many ways we can say that you can say if you are too old if you are the owner of a company you can say well I resigned I didn't want to do the work anymore I officially resigned or if you're too old you can say at my company if you're 64 years old you have to stop working so I had to step down and give the position to somebody else hand in my resignation so you can see that is the noun for the word resign resign of course is the verb so when you resign you must write on a piece of paper and that piece of paper is called the resignation or a resignation form so you can say I am going to quit my job in two weeks so I have to fill in a resignation form to let them know in advance here is an interesting word a golden parachute now think about that word if there is an airplane and it's going to crash you jump out with a parachute a parachute of course looks like this so parachute means it saves you for example with the banks and the owners and CFO's of the banks after the huge economic downturn when everyone lost their money a lot of the high-up bosses and the banks were given a golden parachute that means that the company saved them when they had to lose their job so a golden parachute means maybe when you quit or resign they have to give you a big bonus or if they give you a lot of stocks or they give you a big payout so one good example of that is Steve Jobs Steve Jobs when he became the CEO of Apple he stopped having a salary and instead the company gave him the golden parachute of a lot of stocks in Apple so just remember that when you resign and you want to quit your job you can say you know what I wasn't liking the job anymore so I handed in my resignation I resigned because it was time for me to step down but I did such a good job and the company really appreciated my efforts I was given a nice golden parachute I was given a great severance pay and also I got a lot of stocks to say thank you for my contribution and that is the end of our lesson for jobs so if you're going to be doing your IELTS test and you need some extra revision on how to express yourself when you're answering questions pertaining to what is your job what kind of job do you do do you like your job you can take a look at this video review it over and over until you get comfortable expressing yourself and answering these questions of course if you want to see more videos like this you can always go to best my test comm and see a lot more videos that can help you I'm teacher Neil and I just want to say thank you so much and have a good day

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Keywords: yt:cc=on, IELTS, IELTS speaking, IELTS test, IELTS speaking test

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Length: 48min 14sec (2894 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 08 2019