Vietnamese for Job Interviews: Vocabulary, Pronouns and Real Dialogues

Kevin was born in San Jose to Vietnamese parents. He speaks Vietnamese at the dinner table, which means he can talk about food, relatives and the weather without hesitation. After four years as a product manager in California, he moved to Ho Chi Minh City. A start-up called him on a Tuesday, and the recruiter said, in Vietnamese, that she would like to schedule a short chat. Kevin understood every word and realised he had no idea how to refer to himself, what to call her, or how to say he could start next month.

An interview in Vietnamese is a different skill from a conversation at home. At home, the pronouns are settled by your family tree. In an interview you have to choose them on the spot, from a stranger's apparent age and rank. The words for salary, probation and notice period are not dinner-table words either. The good news is that the set of phrases you need is small and repeats from one interview to the next.

This article follows one hiring process from the first message to the offer. It is written for English readers learning Vietnamese: heritage speakers like Kevin, expats working in Vietnam, and anyone interviewing at a Vietnamese company. It gives you forty-two words in three groups, a comparison of written and spoken Vietnamese, five points of grammar with the mistakes learners make, two dialogues with translations, and a word set you can play at the end.

• From a Zalo message to an offer: how hiring works at Vietnamese companies
• The words: a returning candidate's vocabulary in three stages
• Five points of Vietnamese you will use in every interview
• Two conversations: a call from HR and an interview with the department head
• How to practise when you only speak Vietnamese with family
• Questions people ask
• Before your next interview

From a Zalo message to an offer: how hiring works at Vietnamese companies

Many Vietnamese companies recruit through sites such as TopCV, VietnamWorks, ITviec for tech roles, and LinkedIn. Contact often moves quickly to Zalo or a phone call. A typical process has a first conversation with the phòng nhân sự (HR department), then a meeting with the trưởng phòng (head of department), sometimes a third with a giám đốc (director). Every company is different, so treat the table below as the common shape and not a rule.

Three practical points. First, salary is usually quoted as gross or net, and Vietnamese people use these English words. Ask which one you are hearing. Second, many companies add a thưởng tháng 13 (a thirteenth-month bonus) or a Tết bonus, so ask whether the figure includes bonuses. Third, the probation period and the notice you must give your current employer depend on the contract and on Vietnamese labour law. Read the contract, and ask HR when anything is unclear.

Written and spoken Vietnamese: the same message, two registers

In an email to a company, you use formal openings and closings, and you refer to the company as Quý công ty. On the phone, you use the pronouns and particles of spoken Vietnamese. Mixing the two sounds odd: reading an email aloud sounds stiff, and writing a phone-style message to a company sounds too casual.

A model self-introduction for a product manager

A short spoken introduction usually runs one to two minutes: who you are, what you have done, one thing you are good at, and why this position. The one below is for a product manager. Replace the content with your own work.

Notice that Kevin says anh chị when greeting a room of two or more people. In the singular, he always picks one: anh for a man, chị for a woman. We return to this in the grammar section.

The words: a returning candidate's vocabulary in three stages

The three tables below follow the order in which you need the words: the application, the interview room, and the conditions of the job. The forty-two-word set in the game at the end of this article sits inside these tables. The English column uses the same meaning as the set, so you can match what you see in the game with what you read here.

The vacancy and your documents

Vị trí is the position you apply for, and tin tuyển dụng is the advertisement for it. Do not mix them up when someone asks which one you saw. Ứng tuyển is the verb for applying, and the object follows it directly: ứng tuyển vị trí quản lý sản phẩm.

In the interview room

The pair điểm mạnh and điểm yếu is the classic question. For điểm yếu, choose a weakness that is real and say in the same breath what you do about it, as Kevin does in the dialogue below. Answering that you have no weakness sounds like you have not reflected.

Salary, contract and what comes after

A note on two of these. Nghỉ việc is the ordinary word for leaving a job, and it covers both resigning and quitting. When you need to be explicit that you are giving notice, add báo: báo nghỉ việc. For the notice period itself, say thời gian báo trước.

Five points of Vietnamese you will use in every interview

1. Choosing your pronouns: tôi, em, anh, chị

Vietnamese has no single word for you or I that fits every situation. You choose based on who is older or higher in rank. If the interviewer looks older than you, call them anh (man) or chị (woman) and call yourself em. If you are unsure, tôi for yourself is neutral and safe, though it can sound cooler than em. For a much older interviewer, cô, chú or bác may be used, but anh and chị are the usual choice in a modern office.

• Dạ em chào chị ạ. Em là Kevin.
• Cảm ơn anh đã dành thời gian cho em.
• Tôi xin giới thiệu ngắn về bản thân.

The common mistakes: using bạn with an interviewer older than you, which sounds like speaking to a classmate, and using con, which many heritage speakers say to their parents and is a child-to-parent form that does not belong in an interview. Say em, not con.

2. Dạ, vâng and ạ: politeness particles

The particle ạ at the end of a sentence shows respect to an older or higher person. Dạ opens an answer politely, and vâng is a slightly more formal yes. Thưa is used to address a group respectfully.

• Dạ vâng, em hiểu ạ.
• Dạ em chào chị ạ.
• Thưa các anh chị, em xin phép giới thiệu bản thân.

Learners often drop ạ completely, so the sentences sound blunt. The opposite mistake is to put ạ on every clause, which sounds stiff. A good rule is one ạ at the end of a full sentence, and dạ at the beginning of an answer.

3. Đã, đang, sẽ, mới and chưa: marking time

Vietnamese verbs do not change form for tense. Time is shown by context or by small words before the verb. Đã marks something completed, đang marks something in progress, sẽ marks the future, mới marks something that has just happened, and chưa means not yet.

• Em đã làm bốn năm ở công ty cũ.
• Em đang làm ở công ty hiện tại.
• Em sẽ nhận việc vào đầu tháng sau.
• Em mới nghỉ việc tuần trước.

In an interview, time matters, so use these markers when you talk about your career, even though everyday speech often drops them. A frequent mistake is to say Em làm ở công ty cũ without a marker, so the listener cannot tell whether you still work there. Another is to overuse đã in every sentence.

4. Chưa and không: not yet and not

Không negates a fact or an ability: Em không làm được. Chưa means not yet and implies it may change. In an interview, chưa is a gentle and honest way to describe a gap in your experience, because it points forward.

• Em chưa có kinh nghiệm quản lý, nhưng em đã dẫn một nhóm bốn người.
• Em chưa quen với thị trường Việt Nam, nhưng em đang học nhanh.
• Em không làm được vào cuối tuần.

Learners often use không where chưa is meant. Em không có kinh nghiệm quản lý sounds final, while Em chưa có kinh nghiệm quản lý sounds like a starting point. Questions follow the same split: ...không? asks yes or no, and ...chưa? asks whether something has happened yet.

5. Polite requests: cho em hỏi, xin phép

To ask a question politely, open with cho em hỏi (let me ask), and finish with được không ạ or ạ. To ask permission, use em xin phép. These are the standard formulas for asking about salary, hours and overtime.

• Cho em hỏi, giờ làm việc từ mấy giờ đến mấy giờ ạ?
• Anh cho em biết mức lương được không ạ?
• Em xin phép nói chậm một chút ạ.

Giving an order, as in Nói cho tôi biết lương, is the common error. It is grammatical and very rude. Use the polite frame. One more thing: tones change meaning. The word mùa (season) and mua (to buy) differ only in a tone mark, so slow down on words you are unsure of.

Two conversations: a call from HR and an interview with the department head

Conversation 1: a call from HR

Kevin takes a call from chị Lan in the HR department of a company called Bình Minh. Read both parts aloud.

Conversation 2: the interview with the department head

A week later, Kevin meets anh Hùng, the head of the product department. Notice how Kevin keeps the same pronouns from beginning to end.

A thank-you email after the interview

Many candidates send a short email on the same day or the next. Some people feel it is optional, but a short and correct email rarely does harm. Replace the names and details with your own.

Kính gửi anh Hùng,

Em cảm ơn anh đã dành thời gian cho buổi phỏng vấn chiều nay. Em rất quan tâm đến vị trí này và mong sớm nhận được tin từ anh.

Trân trọng,
Kevin Trần

In English: the greeting names anh Hùng with Kính gửi, the formal opening. The body thanks him for the interview and states interest in the position, and the closing Trân trọng is the standard written sign-off.

How to practise when you only speak Vietnamese with family

If you only speak Vietnamese with family, you have the ear but not the work register. Start by playing the interview word set in Falling Stars or Pop It, a few minutes at a time. Then say each example sentence in the tables aloud, using em and anh or chị as in the dialogues. Record yourself giving the self-introduction and listen for the tones.

Next, listen. Pick an episode from the Vietnamese podcasts, listen sentence by sentence and write down what you hear, then compare with the transcript. Dictation shows you exactly which words your ear skips, especially the small words such as đã, mới and chưa. For a path, see the courses, and use the vocabulary test to see where you stand.

For resources outside WELE: read real job advertisements on TopCV and VietnamWorks to see how requirements and benefits are phrased in Vietnamese. VietnamesePod101 offers lessons at several levels. A tutor on italki who plays the interviewer is the fastest way to get feedback on pronouns and tones. When you want to know your level, the Vietnamese proficiency mock test on WELE gives you a measure.

If you work in an office or in tech, also read Vietnamese for office workers and Vietnamese for IT professionals. See all Vietnamese by profession and the job interview page for related articles.

Questions people ask

What level of Vietnamese do I need for an interview in Vietnam?

It depends on the role. A job that deals with Vietnamese colleagues or clients every day usually needs working fluency. A role in an international team may use English with Vietnamese for small talk. Job advertisements often state the language level, and HR will test it in the first call. If the advertisement is unclear, ask.

What if I choose the wrong pronoun?

You will not lose the job over it, and most interviewers will correct you gently or simply keep going. The usual repair is to listen to what the interviewer calls you and mirror it: if they call themselves anh and call you em, you call them anh and yourself em. The mistake to avoid is using bạn or con with an older interviewer.

Can I interview in English instead?

Some companies run interviews in English, especially for international roles, and you can ask HR which language to expect. Even then, a few Vietnamese phrases at the beginning and end, such as the greeting and the thanks, are noticed and appreciated.

What do gross and net mean when talking about salary?

Vietnamese people use the English words gross and net. Gross is the amount before tax and insurance, and net is what arrives in your account. Ask 「Con số này là gross hay net ạ?」 and also ask whether bonuses are included.

What is a thirteenth-month bonus?

It is a common bonus equal to about one month of pay, paid at the end of the year or around Tết. Whether a company offers it, and how it is calculated, differs, so ask HR and look at the contract.

How long is the probation period, and what about notice?

The probation period and notice both depend on the contract and on Vietnamese labour law, and they differ by role. Ask HR in the interview using the phrases in the grammar section, and read the contract before you sign.

Before your next interview

Before your next interview, practise the first thirty seconds: the greeting, your name, and one sentence about your work, all with em and anh or chị. Then play one round of Falling Stars to warm up the vocabulary.