Describe a person who is good at their job

Cómo abordar esta tarjeta

Las mejores respuestas a esta tarjeta (cue card) parten de pruebas concretas de competencia y no de un elogio general: “she’s good at her job” necesita al menos un ejemplo concreto, como manejar bien una situación difícil o recibir una responsabilidad que a otros no se les confió, para demostrar lo que dices y no solo afirmarlo.

Elige a alguien cuyo trabajo entiendas razonablemente bien, sea un profesor, un jefe, un médico o un familiar con un oficio al que hayas visto trabajar, porque un conocimiento vago de en qué consiste el trabajo hace difícil explicar de forma convincente por qué esa persona lo hace bien.

Estructura la respuesta presentando pronto a la persona y su función, explicando brevemente cómo la conoces y dedicando después tiempo real a la línea “and explain”, porque “why you think they’re good at their job” es en la práctica todo el sentido de la tarjeta y merece más que una sola oración.

Vocabulario que mejora esta respuesta

Un plan de un minuto

Notas que puedes tomar en el minuto de preparación:

• who: name or relationship, role
• job: what it involves
• how know them: context or connection
• why good at it: specific evidence

Respuesta de ejemplo

La respuesta de abajo es un ejemplo de cómo construir una respuesta completa para esta tarjeta; sirve para mostrar la estructura y el nivel, no para repetirla tal cual.

I’d like to talk about my former manager, Aziza, who worked as the head of customer service at the company where I had my first proper job a few years ago. I got to know her fairly closely because I reported directly to her for almost two years, which meant I saw her handling day-to-day problems, not just giving instructions from a distance. Her actual role involved managing a fairly large team and stepping in personally whenever a customer complaint became too difficult for junior staff to resolve on their own, which happened more often than you’d expect in that kind of business. What convinced me she was genuinely good at her job wasn’t just that she was calm under pressure, although she was, but that she seemed to have a real knack for reading exactly what an angry customer actually needed to hear to feel resolved, often within the first minute of a call. I remember one particularly difficult situation where a client had been overcharged repeatedly through no fault of our team, and instead of just apologising, she personally investigated the billing error, fixed it, and called the client back herself the same day, which most managers at that level would have delegated. She also had a habit of quietly training junior staff by explaining her reasoning out loud during calls rather than just taking over, which meant the whole team gradually got better under her, not just the difficult cases she personally handled. It’s fairly rare, in my experience, to see someone equally good at the technical side of a job and at developing the people around them.

Errores comunes en esta tarjeta

• Elogiar a la persona de forma general, sin dar ninguna prueba concreta de que es buena en su trabajo.
• Dedicar demasiado tiempo a describir el trabajo en sí y no el desempeño de la persona en él.
• Elegir a alguien cuyo trabajo no entiendes lo bastante bien como para explicarlo.
• Olvidar el punto “how you know them”, que sostiene la credibilidad de tu juicio.