Work & Careers — Part 1
The Celpip Plus team
Written and reviewed against the official CELPIP scoring criteria
What you'll learn: the verb + noun collocations native speakers reach for when talking about getting, doing, and leaving a job — the backbone vocabulary for CELPIP work-related tasks.
Why verb + noun pairs matter first
Work is one of the most common CELPIP topics — it shows up in Writing Task 1 emails, Speaking Task 2 personal experience, and Task 7 opinion questions. Before adjectives or idioms, the highest-value vocabulary is the verb that correctly pairs with a work-related noun. Saying "do a job interview" instead of "attend a job interview" is grammatically fine but sounds slightly off to a fluent ear — and CELPIP raters are listening and reading for exactly that kind of natural pairing.
How these collocations get built
Most verb + noun collocations here follow a life-cycle: you first apply for and land a job, then you take on responsibilities and meet deadlines, and eventually you might hand in your notice or get promoted. Learning them in this rough sequence makes them easier to recall under exam pressure, because you can mentally walk through a career story and the right verb appears with it.
Word bank: core work collocations
| Collocation | Meaning | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| land a job | successfully get a job, often after competition | She landed a job at a downtown accounting firm right after graduating. |
| apply for a position | submit a formal request to be considered for a job | I applied for a position in the marketing department last week. |
| meet a deadline | complete work by the required time | Our team always meets its deadlines, even during busy months. |
| hand in your notice | formally tell your employer you are resigning | He handed in his notice after accepting a job in another city. |
| take on responsibilities | agree to be in charge of tasks or duties | New managers often take on responsibilities they haven't handled before. |
| get promoted | be given a higher position or rank | She got promoted to team lead after two successful years. |
| earn a living | make enough money to support yourself | Many freelancers earn a living without a traditional office job. |
| build a career | develop a professional path over time | He built a career in software after switching from teaching. |
| strike a balance | find a healthy compromise, often between work and life | It's hard to strike a balance between overtime and family time. |
| gain experience | acquire practical skill through practice | Internships let students gain experience before graduating. |
| hit a target | reach an assigned goal, often a sales or performance figure | The sales team hit its quarterly target two weeks early. |
| lose your job | become unemployed, often unexpectedly | Many workers lost their jobs when the factory closed. |
Worked example — Speaking Task 2
Prompt: Describe a job or work experience that taught you something important.
"After I graduated, I applied for a position at a small design studio and, to my surprise, landed a job within a month. In my first year I had to take on responsibilities I wasn't fully ready for, including managing a client account on my own. I remember constantly worrying about whether I would meet the deadline for a major project. It taught me to strike a balance between asking for help and trying to prove myself. By the end of the year, I had gained experience that helped me get promoted to a senior designer role."
This response strings together six collocations from the table without listing them mechanically — each one does real narrative work, which is exactly how CELPIP raters want to see vocabulary used.
Common mistakes
- "Take a job responsibility" instead of take on responsibilities — the phrasal verb "take on" is fixed; dropping "on" breaks the collocation.
- "Do a deadline" instead of meet a deadline — "do" is a default verb many learners overuse; deadlines are specifically "met" or "missed."
- "Give the notice" instead of hand in your notice — a literal translation from languages where "give" covers more ground than English allows here.
- "Earn a career" instead of build a career and earn a living — these two collocations get blended; careers are "built," money is "earned."
Recap
Verb + noun collocations are the foundation of natural work vocabulary because they cover the entire arc of a career — applying, working, succeeding, and sometimes leaving. Practice by picking three collocations from the table and building one true sentence about your own work or study history for each; reusing your own experience makes the pairing stick far better than memorizing the list in isolation.