Chatting About a Job Hunt in English: Six Places My Sentences Got Stuck

🌏 中文版

I was texting in English with a friend who is also looking for a job. We talked about interview progress, how big companies differ from startups, and what a friend's job at a multinational is like. The conversation worked and my friend understood everything, but when I reread my own messages, the same mistakes kept showing up.

This post sorts my own sentences from that chat into six fixes. The goal is to find the batches of sentences that share one cause, so there are only six things to remember next time. The content has been rewritten into general situations and does not include my friend's messages.

What I was trying to say

I was talking to a friend, casually, over text. I was doing four things:

• Asking about progress so far: have you found, have you applied, have you tried
• Describing my own recent experience: how many interviews, where I went last week
• Reporting what a third person said: my friend says, HR said
• Giving reasons and guesses: because of security, they might just be pushing the number down

What you can say in this situation

1. Asking "so far": Have you + past participle

I kept starting with Do you:

Cambridge explains that the present perfect is used for experiences up to now, where the time of the experience is not important, with the example Have you ever tried to write your name and address with your left hand? (Present perfect simple). Asking a friend about their job search is exactly this kind of "up to now" question.

With a definite past time, switch to the past simple. Cambridge says the past simple refers to definite time in the past, with expressions such as yesterday, two weeks ago, and last year (Past simple or present perfect?). So "I went to see the office last week" is I visited the office last week, and the present-tense I visit does not fit.

The three sentences above are adapted from this pattern. They are not Cambridge's own examples.

2. What follows apply and interview

apply: The Cambridge dictionary lists apply for with the thing you want (I've applied for a new job with the local newspaper) and apply to sb/sth with the organization (We've applied to a charitable organization for a grant) (apply). So:

• Sending an application to a company: apply to a company
• Going after a position: apply for a job

Another dictionary example, She's applied for a job with an insurance company, combines the two: for with the job, with for the company.

My apply big company and applied startup were both missing the preposition.

interview: The verb goes two ways. One is asking someone questions: we only plan to interview about 20 of them. The other is being the candidate: I interviewed for several jobs but I didn't get any of them (interview).

I wrote after interviewing many company. With a direct object, that reads as "I questioned many companies." To make it clear that I was the candidate:

• I've interviewed for several jobs.
• I've interviewed for jobs with several companies. (the dictionary's business English example is He interviewed for a number of jobs with banks and telephone companies)
• I've had interviews with several companies. (adapted from the dictionary's noun example an interview for a job with a publisher)

3. other, others, plurals, and articles

Cambridge's rule is direct: as a determiner, other has no plural form and goes before a plural noun (The other girls went home, not The others girls); others is a pronoun and stands on its own (others disagree) (Other, others, the other or another?).

So it is other companies, or simply others if companies have already been mentioned.

On articles, Cambridge explains that a/an marks something not yet known to the listener, goes only with singular countable nouns, and that an is used before a vowel sound (A/an and the). Ex starts with a vowel sound, so it is an ex-colleague.

Mandarin has no plural endings or articles, so these are the easiest things to drop when typing fast.

4. because takes a clause, because of takes a noun

I wrote because of no one knows and because of security issue.

Cambridge: because is a conjunction that introduces a clause; because of is a preposition meaning "as a result of" and is followed by a noun (Because of the rain, the tennis match was stopped) (Because, because of).

• …because no one knows who owns it. (a clause follows)
• …because of security concerns. (a noun follows)

Either form can express the same reason. The only difference is what comes after.

5. Adjectives need be, and sentences need a subject

Familiar is an adjective. Cambridge lists the phrase as be familiar with something/someone, with the example I'm not familiar with your poetry (familiar). So the question starts with Are you, not Do you.

Mandarin lets you say "maybe just want to push it down" with no subject. English needs they. For an uncertain guess, Cambridge says might is most often used for weak possibility (Might).

Cambridge labels lowball as US and informal, meaning to calculate something at an unfairly low price or level, with examples such as prompted would-be buyers to lowball their offers (lowball). The objects in the Cambridge examples are things like offers and estimates. Merriam-Webster also lists the verb with a person as object, defined as to give (a customer) a deceptively low price or cost estimate, with the example lowballed him in contract negotiations (lowball). So both lowballing the offer and my original lowballing me have dictionary support, and what my sentence actually lacked was a subject and a proper verb form.

6. Reporting what someone said: the verb follows the subject

Cambridge: the present simple uses the base form and adds -s for the third person singular; have, go, do, and be are irregular (Present simple). He say becomes he says, and a habit (always eating at work) also takes the present simple: he always eats.

For place, Cambridge says at is used for companies and workplaces seen as a place of activity, with the example How many people are working at Microsoft? (At, on and in (place)). So it is at the office and a former colleague at that company.

For colleagues in other countries, based works. Cambridge's examples are The company is based in Toronto and Where are you based? (based); based abroad is adapted from that usage.

Can I also say it this way?

A word-choice note: sugar daddy

I joked that the ideal startup has a sugar daddy. Cambridge defines the term as a rich and usually older man who buys presents for or gives money to a younger person, usually so that the younger person will spend time with him and have a sexual relationship with him (sugar daddy). A friend will take it as a joke, but the core meaning involves a sexual relationship, so in an interview or with colleagues I don't know well, a startup with a lot of funding is safer. That phrase is my own plain wording and was not checked against a separate source.

Say it again with new content

Read the situation, say it yourself, then check the reference.

1. Ask whether your friend has found companies that allow remote work.
   • Have you found any companies that allow remote work?
2. Ask whether your friend has applied to startups.
   • Have you applied to any startups?
3. Say you interviewed for three backend positions.
   • I've interviewed for three backend jobs.
4. Say the other teams have not started using it.
   • Other teams haven't started using it yet.
5. Say the meeting was canceled, and the reason was the typhoon.
   • The meeting was canceled because of the typhoon.
6. Ask whether your friend knows this framework well.
   • Are you familiar with this framework?

A short dialogue

This is a practice example I wrote, not a real conversation.

A: Have you applied to any big companies?

B: A few. I've interviewed for three jobs so far. How about you?

A: I got one offer, but they might just be lowballing it.

B: Are other companies still deciding?

A: Yeah, two are still in the approval process.

B: A friend of mine works at one of them. He says it depends on the team you get.

Without looking at the English, how would you say it?

Rate yourself on whether you got the meaning across, not on matching the exact words.

Five phrases I confirmed later

A few more sentences in the chat were guesses at the time. I later found support for them:

The British Council page also gives support at the level of the situation: it asks learners directly, Have you had a job interview in English?, which is the Have you pattern from section 1 applied to job hunting.

Still to check

I have not found a suitable source for these yet, so they stay out of the practice set:

• "The pay system is different": Cambridge examples include pay system, base salary, and starting salary, but nothing that compares pay structure with salary structure
• Whether "he is on the firmware team" takes on the team or in the team
• Which wording is more common: that needs a corpus query, which I did not run

Overall

Of the six, the first two (Have you, and the prepositions after apply and interview) change the meaning the most and deserve practice first. With the other four, the listener can usually guess, but fixing them makes the sentences much smoother. Most fixes here were checked only at the level of word meaning and sentence pattern, against learner's dictionaries and a grammar reference; only the "interview in English" sentence has a situational example from British Council material. There was no native-speaker test and no frequency comparison, so the post says "works in this situation" and never "most natural."

References

• Cambridge Grammar: Present perfect simple (I have worked): experiences up to now, the Have you ever example
• Cambridge Grammar: Past simple or present perfect?: past simple with definite past time
• Cambridge Dictionary: apply: examples of apply for and apply to
• Cambridge Dictionary: interview: the two directions of the verb, and interview for
• Cambridge Grammar: Other, others, the other or another?: other as a determiner has no plural; others as a pronoun
• Cambridge Grammar: A/an and the: what a/an signals, and an before a vowel sound
• Cambridge Grammar: Because, because of and cos, cos of: because + clause, because of + noun
• Cambridge Dictionary: familiar: be familiar with
• Cambridge Grammar: Might: might for weak possibility
• Cambridge Dictionary: lowball: US informal label and examples
• Cambridge Grammar: Present simple (I work): third person singular -s, habitual events
• Cambridge Grammar: At, on and in (place): at with companies and workplaces
• Cambridge Dictionary: -based: examples of be based in
• Merriam-Webster: lowball: definition and example with a person as object
• British Council LearnEnglish: How to prepare for a job interview in English: a job interview in English, Have you had a job interview in English?
• Cambridge Dictionary: in: in with a language
• Cambridge Dictionary: conversation: hold a conversation
• Cambridge Dictionary: round: a round of talks or meetings
• Cambridge Dictionary: reapply: applying again
• Cambridge Dictionary: ask: ask someone for something
• Cambridge Dictionary: sugar daddy: definition