BUSINESS VOCABULARY

UNIT 2

I. Circle the odd one out.

1 CEO PA CIO IT
2 post place job role
3 local premises headquarters regional office
4 board member manager client director
5 accountant systems analyst auditor financial director
6 white-collar worker office worker administrative officer shop-floor worker
7 secretary personal assistant company secretary administrative assistant
8 advertising public relations human resources marketing

II. a. Complete the text with the words in the box

In my company, nearly all work is done in (1) ……………………………, and all our managers
budgets
are (2) …………………………… I found this quite easy to adapt to, because at Business
deadlines
School, we worked a lot together on (3) …………………………… and this got me used to
launch
working towards goals or (4) …………………………… and meeting (5) …………………………… I
performance
work in Research and Development of new products, and we get real satisfaction
projects
from taking new products through from the original idea to the (6) ……………………………
targets
perhaps one or two years later. I’m a Financial Manager, so a lot of my work involves
team leaders
ensuring high (7) …………………………… in our projects while they keep within their
teams
(8) …………………………… - and that involves strict cost control.

b. Use some of the words to write a paragraph about yourself or your organisation. This
will help you to personalise and remember them.

Compound nouns (e.g. Human Resources Manager, Team leaders etc.) are very common in
Business English. Compound nouns have two or more elements. The first element is made of a
noun (e.g. Team Leader) or a verb (e.g. working day). The second element is a noun.

III. How many compound nouns can you make by combining a word from box A
with one from box B? In some cases, more than one combination is
A B
Finance Budget
Job Development
Team Forecast
Product Manager
Advertising Satisfaction
Office Work
Sales Place
Work Worker

IV. Complete the following table.

Verb Noun Adjective

1 …………………………… satisfaction 2 ……………………………
Develop 3 …………………………… 4 ……………………………
Supervise 5 …………………………… -
Manage 6 …………………………… 7 ……………………………
Introduce 8 …………………………… 9 ……………………………
Recruit 10 …………………………… -
11 …………………………… 12 …………………………… challenging

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 V. Complete these questions with the question words/phrases in the box. You will
not need all the words/phrases

how 1. …………………………… is your boss? Ms Jones?

how long 2. ……………………………have you worked for this company?
how many 3. …………………………… office would you prefer to work in: company headquarters
how much or a regional office?
how often 4. …………………………… did you go to school - in this country or abroad?
what 5. …………………………… does your HR department carry out formal appraisals -
when every six months, or more often?
where 6. …………………………… job would you like to be doing in tenyears’ time?
which 7. …………………………… people work in your office?
who 8. …………………………… does your boss earn
why

VI. Put the words into the correct order to form questions.

1. enjoy job do about What your most you?

2. your there about you job anything Is dislike?
3. How discipline you to often workers have do?
4. many are your people there How store in?
5. work of line this into get you did How?
6. What think years’ you time you in will be do doing ten?

VII. Each of these questions has a mistake. Correct them!

1. How long you have worked for this company?

2. When you left school?
3. How much are you earn in your present job?
4. If we give you the job, when you can to start?
5. What studied you at university?
6. How long you expect to stay with us?
7. Are you need to speak English in your present job?
8. What you find most challenging in your job?