Preparing for an interview in English

Step 1: Find out which part of the interview is in English

Preparation starts with one question, asked when you confirm the appointment: which language will the interview be held in, and will any part of it be in another language? In Switzerland that is an ordinary thing to ask. It signals that you are preparing properly, and you get the answer in writing.

The reply sets the size of the job. If the whole interview is in English, every answer gets prepared in English. If only one block is, say a technical round with an international team, it is enough to have those questions solid in English and the rest in the local language.

If no clear answer comes back, read the advert. One written in English points to an English interview. A German or French advert that lists English only among the requirements points more often to a short test. The companion page on interviewing in English sets out how those cases split in numbers.

Step 2: Take your vocabulary from the advert

The most important word list is already in front of you. Mark every technical term, task and tool the advert names, and use exactly those words in your answers. If it says «stakeholder management», do not say «working with lots of different people». The person across the table wrote or approved that advert and will recognise their own language.

Add the terms from your field that you use every day in German, French or Italian but rarely say in English. These are usually the plain ones: a year-end close, a work order, a specification, a shift roster, budget responsibility. Look them up and write them next to your keywords. In the room it is rarely grammar that goes missing; it is that one word.

Finally, read the company's English website if it has one. Does it talk about clients or partners, products or solutions, teams or squads? Nobody fails for getting that wrong, but a candidate who speaks the company's language comes across as someone who has done the reading.

Step 3: Write English keywords, not a translated script

The most common mistake is writing answers in your first language, translating them sentence by sentence and learning the result by heart. It sounds stiff, and the first follow-up question breaks it, because the sentence was never built in your head.

Work the way you would in your own language, only directly in English. Take the questions most likely to come up and write three English keywords for each: a situation, what you did, the result. «Migration 2024 / led testing / zero downtime» is enough. From three keywords you build a sentence in the room, and it is yours.

STAR works well for the examples because it survives the change of language: Situation, Task, Action, Result. Put the weight on the result, with a figure or a visible effect. International teams in Switzerland often ask for the outcome more directly than a classic Swiss interview would.

Step 4: Rehearse the Swiss fact questions as spoken numbers

Salary, workload, notice period and start date come up in almost every Swiss interview, and this is where many people stumble in English. Not because they lack the answer, but because numbers come more slowly in a second language. Write these answers out in full and say them aloud.

For salary, give an annual gross figure and say whether the 13th monthly salary is included: «I am looking at around ninety-five thousand francs a year, including the thirteenth salary.» For workload, say «a hundred per cent» or «eighty per cent» rather than only «full-time», because Swiss roles are advertised as a percentage, the Pensum. For notice, name the months and the end date: «My notice period is three months, to the end of a month.»

Do not translate Swiss terms; explain them. «My Arbeitszeugnis, the written reference from my current employer» is clearer than an English word that does not quite exist. The same goes for Probezeit, the probation period, and Bewilligung, the permit. Using the terms correctly and glossing them briefly shows you know how the system works.

If your residence status is relevant, write that sentence in advance too: which permit you hold or need, and since when. It is the kind of detail that comes out vague in a second language, and it is exactly where you want to be precise.

Step 5: Keep three recovery lines ready

Good preparation does not stop a question from being unclear or a word from going missing. What matters is that you do not go silent when it happens. Learn three lines by heart, the one exception to the rule in step 3.

To ask again: «Could you rephrase the question, please? I want to make sure I answer the right point.» To buy time: «Let me think about that for a moment.» To get round a missing word: «I don't have the exact English term, but what I mean is…» and then describe it.

None of these sounds weak. In a Swiss company, both sides of the table are often speaking English as a second language, and a calm request for clarity reads as confidence. What reads as uncertainty is a fluent answer to a question nobody asked.

Step 6: Say the answers aloud and record yourself

Silent preparation is misleading. An English sentence that feels fluent in your head often takes twice as long spoken, and you want to find that out before the interview rather than during it. Say each answer aloud from your keywords, time it, and record it on your phone.

When you play it back, listen for three things. Where do you search for words? Where does an answer run past ninety seconds? Where does a filler from your first language slip in, an «also», a «donc», a «cioè»? The searching goes back to step 2. The long answers get cut back to their three keywords.

If you want a voice that asks follow-up questions, ask someone whose English is strong, or use the SwissJobs.app interview practice. It takes your CV and the advert, asks the questions aloud in English and scores each answer. It does not replace a teacher if pronunciation is what you need to work on; for that, a language course is the better route.

Step 7: Prepare the opening and the close

The first two minutes decide whether you settle into speaking. Put the most care into your introduction: who you are, what you do now, why this role. Say it until it comes without notes. The small talk before the interview proper is often in English too; a sentence or two about the journey or the day is all it takes.

At the end you ask your own questions, and one of them should be about language: which language does the team work in day to day, and which is used in meetings and documents? The answer tells you more about the job than the language of the interview did.

If asked for your level, give a code from the Common European Framework of Reference, such as C1 or B2, rather than «fluent». The Europass self-assessment grid helps you place yourself honestly. Your level will be tested live in the room anyway, and a realistic claim avoids disappointment on both sides.