5 Top Tips for Job Interviews  Before becoming a professional teacher on italki I was a Lawyer in the UK for 7 years, specialising in litigation. During that time I had several job interviews - for both internal promotions and new jobs. Here are my 5 top tips, based upon my experience, about how to be successful at job interviews.  1. Be prepared Before a job interview it is important to prepare answers to questions you think you will likely be asked. Furthermore, to research the company you are going to join. However, don't just read the company's homepage. Dig further into the company - look into projects they are working on, their ethos and, if possible, perhaps their pricing structure. 2. Come armed with examples   For competency based questions you will need to provide examples to demonstrate you have the required competencies for the role. For example, analytical thinking. Consider your career history and think of examples to demonstrate your competencies. 3. Read your CV again  Although this may sound obvious, it is likely we wrote our CV a long time ago, reread it. Check for any errors and familiarise yourself with it.  4. Be yourself There is a tendency in job interviews to speak in jargon. Only use language you are comfortable with. If you start to speak in only jargon you may appear a little robotic. Be yourself, communicate naturally.  5. Don't speak about your personal life unless directly asked What is the most common interview question? Tell me about yourself. To answer this question give an outline of your professional and educational background. The interviewer generally doesn't want or need to know what you did last weekend. Keep your answers professional, unless directly asked.

5 Top Tips for Job Interviews  Before becoming a professional teacher on italki I was a Lawyer in the UK for 7 years, specialising in litigation. During that time I had several job interviews - for both internal promotions and new jobs. Here are my 5 top tips, based upon my experience, about how to be successful at job interviews.  1. Be prepared Before a job interview it is important to prepare answers to questions you think you will likely be asked. Furthermore, to research the company you are going to join. However, don't just read the company's homepage. Dig further into the company - look into projects they are working on, their ethos and, if possible, perhaps their pricing structure. 2. Come armed with examples   For competency based questions you will need to provide examples to demonstrate you have the required competencies for the role. For example, analytical thinking. Consider your career history and think of examples to demonstrate your competencies. 3. Read your CV again  Although this may sound obvious, it is likely we wrote our CV a long time ago, reread it. Check for any errors and familiarise yourself with it.  4. Be yourself There is a tendency in job interviews to speak in jargon. Only use language you are comfortable with. If you start to speak in only jargon you may appear a little robotic. Be yourself, communicate naturally.  5. Don't speak about your personal life unless directly asked What is the most common interview question? Tell me about yourself. To answer this question give an outline of your professional and educational background. The interviewer generally doesn't want or need to know what you did last weekend. Keep your answers professional, unless directly asked.

Hi. I'm a professional English teacher. Is there a professional Spanish teacher interested in a language exchange?

What would you like to know about the UK legal system?

Journals of a Pandemic I wrote a diary entry for a journal coursing peoples' experiences during coronavirus: I started the lockdown period in the North of Spain. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable about it. I was living in a small town with only a few thousand inhabitants. There were no cases of the virus in the town but instantly the atmosphere changed. Once packed bars and terraces were empty. The once friendly people now avoided each other - thrown into conflict by an unseen (and as yet for this town, non-existent) foe. Shopworkers wore masks. No exercise was allowed. You could buy food and work, but that was it. Life had been boiled down to these two facets (neither of which I particularly liked being both work-shy and a vegan in the Basque Country). Initially, I told myself the lockdown would last only four weeks. Two for the purpose of the government showing they were taking action and a further two out of the usual government reticence to retract any draconian law. However, the news from Italy seemed to contradict this. Hospitals in the North were being overwhelmed. People over the age of 60 weren't being treated as they lacked capacity. I had read the virus had spread from only one man (who had returned from Wuhan) in a small town and quickly infected a thousand people. Were health systems going to be overwhelmed? But all this still seemed far away. The first man with the virus in the UK had been identified and named (and shamed). Maybe these measures were necessary in totality, even if a town had zero cases. In Spain it wasn't permitted to exercise and I was going stir-crazy living with the owner of the school at which I was working. In the UK you could exercise. I decided to leave. I travelled by bus to Bilbao. I was nearly denied entry as I didn't have a travel card, but in this ridiculous situation I was allowed to board. I waited at Bilbao bus station for four hours for my coach to Madrid. There were no trains to Madrid that day and only one coach. Four people were on the coach. I saw perhaps ten other people and cars on the journey to Madrid. I had been in Madrid in November and January. In November the streets were packed for the public holiday. Today, I left the metro at Plaza de Sol and the only people there were myself and ten police officers. I was stopped and asked where I was heading. I told them an AirBnB, in a panic. AirBnB was not allowed to operate during the lockdown in Spain. The police accompanied me to the apartment....

English/Spanish language exchange/intercambio