Office English

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Office English / Career development

Episode 260511/ 11 May 2026

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Transcript

Note: This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.

Phil

Do you have goals for your career?

Neil

I think it's really important that you enjoy the kind of work that you do. So I think you have to really understand your own personality and do something that suits you.

Georgie

I'm the kind of person that's happy with what they have. So, unless I have a really big or good idea about what I want to do next, I usually just carry on with what I'm doing and don't think about the next thing.

Pippa

Today we're talking about how to develop and grow at work.

Phil

Hello and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English. Your podcast guide to the world of work. I'm Phil.

Pippa

And I'm Pippa. Head to our website for a full transcript and subtitles for this podcast, bbclearningenglish.com.

Phil

OK, so, Pippa, today we're talking about career development. What do we mean by this?

Pippa

Well, career development is kind of how you get new experience, how you learn new things. So this can be the different jobs that you have across your career, getting promoted or changing jobs. But it can just be learning new skills or doing new things within your existing job.

Phil

Today we'll talk about a few different aspects of career development - that's improving your skills, applying for jobs, and building a network.

Let's start with improving your skills. Let's imagine you want to get better at a certain aspect of your job, or learn a new skill, such as leadership to prepare for the future. How could you discuss this with your manager?