Shadowing Practice: How Working For Google, Amazon, And Microsoft Lost 'Dream Job' Status - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Remember the golden age of working for the tech industry.
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Fortune is unveiling its top 100 best companies to work for.
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Google's number one again this year, it was number one last year and the year before. Google has everything - free food everywhere a Wi-Fi enabled free shuttle. They have horseshoe pits, volleyball courts street hockey, like you know pools.
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Netflix's letting you parents take as much time off as they need during the first year of their child's birth or adoption.
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Salesforce has mindfulness areas designed with help from monks.
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Airbnb gives employees a two grand travel stipend. Music discovery platform Pandora even pays for its workers to have gender affirmation surgery.
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Let's pause here. It's not only big names like Google, Apple and Amazon that entice workers with these perks, smaller tech startups were also offering workers outlandish extras, everything from performance based prizes to an endless supply of company branded swag.
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Top performers every month to the New York office, get an actual custom oil canvas painting.
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If you pop it actually reveals a secret room. And we have like meetings in here do poker and maybe even close the deal have a shot of whiskey or something.
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Here is a must come spot for anybody who comes to New Relic is where we have all our swag all our New Relic pride. And the great thing is, is you can just come and grab whatever you want.
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Well, that was the 2010s This is how tech companies are grabbing headlines these days.
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Layoffs in technology just keep coming. the latest Google cutting hundreds of jobs in its engineering product and hardware divisions.
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So this is the latest round of layoffs we are hearing about in tech today. It's two fintech companies Block and PayPal.
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Microsoft cutting almost 2000 jobs at Activision Blizzard and Xbox as the tech landscape resets.
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Layoffs in the tech industry surged in 2023, sparked by high interest rates and a pivot to generative AI. The pace of layoffs in the tech industry has persisted well into 2024.
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Workers who were laid off now see this industry in a different way.
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When you work for a big tech company, you had this assurance that you were going to be okay that you were part of this greater thing that you were part of this culture that really meant something - you were making a difference. At any moment -snap- you could be axed.
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Before 2020, people were interested in the tech industry just because I mean, the high pay prestige, I think just seeing it as different, right? You have all these traditional companies. And then you have all these companies that are just doing things different, and they look like kind of the future of work, people thought it was gonna be like a huge shift towards these fun environments and flexible environments and places where they put employees first. Now that sort of shifted anything. Well, these aren't too much different than these older traditional companies that people were already working at in the early 2000s.
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The tech industry as a whole has completely lost its luster because people are starting to recognize that the tech industry is just like any other industry. It was up one day and now it's down. You consider what's going on a companies like Google.
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Consider what's going on in the companies like Amazon, the moment they started to announce layoffs, people start to recognize that these companies these tech giants are just like every other company. They hire today and they get rid of you tomorrow.
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The tech industry completely dominated the news headlines in the 2010s. After the 2008 financial crisis, the US Federal Reserve brought interest rates to near zero and kept them there for years. That allowed tech companies and startups to borrow money at rock bottom prices, and open the floodgates for venture capital money too.
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Boosted by ultra low interest rates and a ready supply of venture capital money and skyrocketing adoption of smartphones and social media, tech companies took over the stock market as well.
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Working at one of these tech companies became a way to get rich. Employees often got a good portion of their compensation paid out in stock options. As tech stocks rose, workers got richer and richer. The tech heavy NASDAQ for example, rose about 347% from January 2010 to December 2019.
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Netflix was the biggest gainer among the FAANG stocks surging more than 4,000%.
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I think for a long time working for a major tech company like Google or Meta, Microsoft was really seen as a badge of honor, because these were companies that were growing tremendously.
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And through most of the lifetime, for many of our current students right now in our recent graduates, all they saw their entire childhood was growth.
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They saw these companies get larger, they saw them innovate.
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They saw new products that really transformed their day to day life. So to be able to work in those companies was seen as prestigious, and it was seen as a very positive step in building their own careers to be able to contribute to the technology that they themselves and their families used every single day.
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People definitely look at you differently when you have Microsoft or a larger tech company on your resume. People have called it the easy door into your next job or whatever.
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I don't know if it's that far. But definitely if you especially if you're going to a place that is built on Azure and you have Microsoft experience that seems like a no brainer. Or if you have going to somewhere that's a Google based company, you have Google on your resume or Amazon, I think it probably puts you towards the front of the line.
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When COVID-19 began, the economy initially struggled, but the tech industry thrived.
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The Federal Reserve's swift actions, such as cutting interest rates back to near zero boosted tech stocks. This in turn led to an increase in tech jobs, primarily as people stayed home.
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However, tech stocks took a hit once the Fed started raising rates in 2022. So the industry started using mass layoffs as one of the many ways of belt tightening. Wall Street loved this move, reflected in the bounce in tech stocks in 2023.
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The tech heavy NASDAQ climbed to 43% in 2023, its best years since 2020.
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In the pandemic, the tech industry saw some pretty big pickups in job posting games on Indeed platform. We saw really strong hiring. People were at home, they were consuming more kind of these tech goods and services. And many tech companies adjusted to that and hired more workers.
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So we saw a big run up in 2021-22. And then in 2023, we saw some of that demand start to kind of cool down and soften. In 2024, so far, we've seen somewhat similar to 2023, some layoffs being announced, we've seen kind of a continuation of pull back and job postings in the tech industry.
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But again, a lot of these layoffs that we've seen so far this year in 2024, have really been about right sizing and adjusting to a world of post Covid consumer demand and trying to figure out what does the world look like after Covid. So, a lot of it really comes down to businesses making moves to really understand, you know, where their consumers are, and trying to fit their workforces to that demand.
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Now we see the stock market reacted quite favorably to this round of layoffs. We see these record stock prices for a lot of these tech companies. The investors really favored profitability, really favored this lean year that these tech companies had. And so instead of rewarding the growth that we saw in them all pursue years ago, they're now rewarding profit.
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And so the layoffs have continued, people have become used to them, and regrettably, and sadly, it seems that the layoffs is going to be the new normal.
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Layoffs in tech show no signs of letting up. In fact, more and more companies have embraced quote, efficiency, as a common mantra in recent earnings calls.
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A memo sent out by Elon Musk to the staff outlining that the company will be cutting more than 10% of its global staff.
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Layoffs are the first for Apple since the pandemic and come shortly after the company shuttered its self driving car project.
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Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs from its cloud computing division Amazon Web Services.
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Even though mass tech layoffs continue dominating headlines, the labor market still seems strong. The US economy added 303,000 jobs in March well above the Dow Jones estimate for a rise of 200,000 with the unemployment rate edging lower to 3.8%.
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The tech layoffs have prompted new workers to seek other opportunities according to Handshake, a popular free job posting site for college students and graduates. So the share of tech majors job applications submitted to internet and software companies dropped by more than 30% between November 2021 and September of 2023, while the share of applications submitted to government jobs, more than doubled.
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And part of the reason why this is happening is because stability is such a major factor in student's decision around what types of jobs they apply to and what types of jobs they accept. 77% of this recent class of 2024 cares about stability as the number one factor. And the government, for example, is an entity that provides a strong level of stability, whereas they're looking at the headlines and the news. And they're paying attention to all of the layoffs that are happening in Big Tech.
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And that makes them feel unstable.
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The layoff pandemic is not necessarily impacted tech the way we thought it was - largely because of the fact that these jobs still pay really well. And there's still a degree of luster. It's not nearly as exciting as it was 20 or 30 years ago. But it's still exciting. And people really want that bullet point on the resume. Even if they only lasted a Google, for let's say six months or a year, they can still say they work there. I think what we're starting to see ultimately is that people are starting to consider other options. Whether they're deciding that once they get their degrees, they're going to go create their own businesses, they're going to get government space, they're going to get in other industries, where there is a need for their technical skill set where they can essentially be a big fish in a small pond, which in many ways gives them job security that they don't necessarily get in the tech industry.
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People that are wanting to work in tech and wanting to still stay in tech. I think we just have to be a little bit more careful, and little bit more guarded about keeping our options open and not feeling the need to be extremely loyal and dedicated to one company. Because they surely are not dedicated and loyal to us, no matter what your manager no matter what your director is saying, no matter what praise you're getting, it doesn't really matter sometimes at the end of the day, at a lot of tech companies, unfortunately.
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These layoffs have, to an extent hurt the luster of the tech industry, but not to the point that I think that people all of a sudden are going to decide not to go work for them anymore. But even we consider that recent college grads, five years ago, they couldn't wait to go to work for the big tech industry.
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But now they're considering things whether I go to tech, whether I go to government, whether I go someplace else, I want to go someplace where I feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself.
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Tech companies are just not offering that anymore, because they're not necessarily disruptive. And I'm talking the big giants. I'm talking about the Amazons of the world, the Microsofts of the world, the Googles of the world. They're not seen as disruptors. Now they're seen as more established companies.
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To the people who are chasing like a tech dream job, I think, keep your options open and be realistic. Don't just focus on one company and feel like you have to get into that one company because it's the dream. Pay attention to the other ones.
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Pay attention to smaller companies. There's a lot of really good smaller companies that are not in the headlines that are great places to work, but also don't hold back. Drive towards something and have a goal. Just temper your expectations.
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I think the glory days of the tech industry will certainly continue to flow back into the existence in the eyes of our early talent. I think it will look different as it continues to evolve. I think the values and the needs and the desires of our early talent will continue to change as the macro economic situation around them also changes. And I think Big Tech if they want to remain an attractive option for early talent will need to continue to evolve their workplace, their expectations and their benefits.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 55 sentences and 2192 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:01. The speaker talks fast, about 182 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| headline noun | /ˈhɛd.laɪn/ | The heading or title of a magazine or newspaper article. |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
| hire verb | /ˈhaɪɹ/ | To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment. |
| stability noun | /stəˈbɪlɪti/ | The condition of being stable or in equilibrium, and thus resistant to change. |
| resume verb | /ˈɹɛz.ə.meɪ/ | To start (something) again that has been stopped or paused from the point at which it was stopped or paused; continue, carry on. |
| boost verb | /buːst/ | To lift or push from behind (one who is endeavoring to climb); to push up. |
| reward noun | /ɹɪˈwɔɹd/ | Something of value given in return for an act. |
| submit verb | /səbˈmɪt/ | To yield or give way to another. |
| venture verb | /ˈvɛn.t͡ʃɚ/ | To undertake a risky or daring journey. |
| loyal adjective | /ˈlɔɪəl/ | Having or demonstrating undivided and constant support for someone or something. |
| adoption noun | /əˈdɑp.ʃən/ | The act of adopting. |
| adjust verb | /əˈd͡ʒʌst/ | To modify. |
| expectation noun | /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/ | The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen. |
| dominate verb | /ˈdɑ.məˌneɪt/ | To govern, rule or control by superior authority or power. |
| startup noun | /ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/ | The act or process of starting a process or machine. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| cool down verb | /kuːl ˈdaʊn/ | To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| hold back verb | To act with reserve; to contain one's full measure or power. | |
| lay off verb | (of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume or through no fault of the worker, often with a severance package. | |
| pull back verb | To retreat. | |
| send out verb | To issue, dispatch or transmit. | |
| take over verb | To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 28 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: adoption /əˈdɑp.ʃən/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/
- Long words — get the stress right: necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, stability /stəˈbɪlɪti/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, primarily /ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like headline, necessarily, hire.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has persisted · have called · we've seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were laid · was really seen · was seen |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | anybody who comes · people who are |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.