Unit 1 - Careers

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Unit 1 - Careers

• January 17, 2014

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Business brief

• Despite the growth of outsourcing and
  tele-working by freelancers working from home
  communicating via the Internet, most professional
  people still go to what is recognizably a job in
  a building that is recognizably an office. The
  average length of time that people spend in a
  particular job, has remained unchanged (at about
  seen years) for two decades.
• From the point of view of the human resources
  department (HRD) of a large company, managing
  peoples careers can still be seen in the
  traditional activities of selection procedures
  and recruitment, managing remuneration (how much
  people are paid) and working with department
  managers on performance reviews. The HRD will
  also be involved with training and professional
  development of the companys staff.

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• A companys HRD may also be involved in making
  people redundant. Redundancies may be the result
  of an economic downturn with reduced demand for
  the companys goods or services, but they may
  follow a decision by a company to delayer (to
  reduce the number of management levels) and
  downsize. It may offer outplacement services,
  advice to people on how they can find another
  job, perhaps after some retraining.
• A manager made redundant in this way may become a
  portfolio worker, offering their services to a
  number of clients. But there are also reports
  that many such managers describe themselves as
  consultants when in fact they would prefer to be
  working in a salaried job in an organization like
  the one they have been forced to leave.
• Freelancers have to maintain their degree of
  employability by keeping up with the latest
  trends and skills in their profession or
  industry. While for many salaried employees, the
  environment they work in allows them to keep
  their skills up to speed.

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Warmer Suggest different stages in a typical
career.

• Career ladder
• go to school
• go to university
• get qualifications in
• get a job in a company
• move to another company
• retire
• etc.

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Overview

• Discussion Discuss ideas about careers
• Language work
• Vocabulary Words that go with career
• Language review Modals 1 ability, requests and
  offers
• Texts
• Listening An interview with the head of a public
  relations company
• Reading Response to an advertisement for women
  tube drivers
• Skills Telephoning making contact
• Case study
• Fast-Track Inc Choose the best candidate for the
  job of sales manager
• Writing memo

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Choose a job you love and you will never have to
work a day in your life.

• Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher.
• Work in pairs and ask each others opinions
• Much work can be boring and/or stressful
• Most people enjoy working in organizations for
  the contact with colleagues, pleasure of
  teamwork, etc.

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Discussion How to encourage new ideas?

• Discuss the points in each section in groups and
  have a spokesperson to give your views.
• Our viewpoints are as follows
• 1.

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Vocabulary Career moves

• Key to section A
• 1. c 2. a 3. b 4. e 5. d
• Key to section B
• 1. have 2. take 3. make
• 4. climb 5. offer 6. decide
• Key to section C
• 1. a training course
• 2. progress
• 3. a part-time job
• 4. a mistake
• 5. a pension
• 6. an office job

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Listening Human resources and recruitment

• Colette Hill, who runs a public relations
  company, advises clients on human resources and
  recruitment.
• Section A Decide the three most important
  qualities for you group and discuss the findings
  with the whole class.
• Key to section B
• 1. need to be able to get on with people
• 2. need to be adaptable (adaptability)
• 3. need a sense of humor
• Section C turnover money from sales
• 1. a, b, d
• 2. a, b, c, f

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Reading Female train drivers

• Section C Scan the article without trying to
  understand everything at the first attempt.
• a. readers who applied for the job
• b. the time at which London Underground drivers
  have to get up
• c. the annual salary of London Underground
  drivers
• d. the number of weeks holiday they get
• e. one of the reasons London Underground is keen
  to recruit more women
• f. the number of female drivers on the London
  Underground now
• g. the percentage of drivers who are women now
• Key to Section D
• 1. one/single
• 2. advantages salary of ?27, 650, eight weeks
  holiday
• disadvantage getting up early
• 3. that the train in on time
• 4. because they think women can break bad news
  (such as delays) more sympathetically to
  passengers

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Language review Modals 1 ability, requests and
offers
Modals are verbs like may, might, can, could,
etc. They dont change with different persons
(e.g., I can, you can, he can). ?Go to page 118.

• Key to section A
• 1. Can I get you anything? - offer
• 2. Could I confirm your contact details? -
  request
• 3. Can you use this software package? - asking
  about ability
• 4. Can you speak any other languages? - asking
  about ability
• 5. Could you tell us more about your present job?
  - request
• 6. Could you tell me your current salary? -
  request
• 7. Would you let us know your decision as soon as
  possible? - request
• 8. When can you start? - asking about ability
• 9. Would you like some more coffee? - offer
• Key to section B
• a6, b3, c7, d1, e2, f9, g5, h4, i8
• Section C
• spreadsheets programs that show and calculate
  figures in tables, such as MS Excel and Lotus 123

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Skills Telephoning making contact

• Key to section B
• Conversation 1 Christophe Boiteaud phones about
  a job advertisement in a magazine called Careers
  Now. He wants Carmen Diaz to send him an
  application form for the job. They callers do not
  know each other.
• Conversation 2 Jacques from Intec phones Andrea,
  but she is not there. He leaves a message to say
  that he will not be at a training course. Jacques
  implies that speaker B knows who he is, even if
  they do not know each other personally.
• Conversation 3 Dave phones John, whom he knows,
  to get the fax number for Workplace Solutions
  because he cant get through on the phone.
• Key to section C
• 1. Id like to speak to
• 2. Thank you. Hold on.
• 3. Ill put you through.
• 4. Hello. Is that Carmen Diaz?
• 5. Speaking.
• 6. Yes, Im phoning about your advert
• 7. Could you give me your name and address?

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Skills Telephoning making contact

• Key to section D
• 1. Could I speak
• 2. Im afraid
• 3. take
• 4. message
• 5. This is
• 6. Could
• 7. tell
• 8. make
• 9. call
• 10. back
• 11. on
• Key to section E
• John How are you?
• Dave let me haveengaged.
• John here.
• Dave catch
• John No problem.

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Case study Fast-Track Inc.

• Company Fast-Track Inc.
• Activity
• Training videos and management training courses
• Based in
• Boston, US, with a subsidiary in Warsaw, Poland
• Recent sales performance and reasons for this
• Poor (30 percent below target) because sales reps
  not motivates, high staff turnover, previous
  manager - no clear strategy, only a few contracts
  with senior managers at client companies, only a
  few contracts with senior managers at client
  companies
• Nature of new sales position
• Developing sales and increasing numbers of
  customers, managing sales team - move motivated,
  dynamic, effective
• Number of candidates 3
• Qualities required
• Natural leader energetic, enthusiastic and
  determined confident, outgoing strong sales
  ability organizational and interpersonal skills
  good academic background and experience numeric
  and admin skills languages must like traveling
  on business

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Case study Fast-Track Inc.

• Stage 2 The candidates profiles
• Work in groups to analyze the written information
  about all the candidates. A spokesperson will
  take notes of the key points for each candidate
  and compare their relative strengths/weaknesses.
• Then listen to the interview extracts and make
  your choice.

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Case study Fast-Track Inc.

• Stage 3 Writing
• Write up the decision of the meeting in memo form
  as if you were the head of the interviewing team.
• You have to
• say who was chosen.
• describe briefly the strengths of the candidate.