Unit 06 Recruitment

Unit 06 Recruitment

1a Vocabulary:

Insert the following words in the gaps in the text below.

Applicant, application, application form, apply, candidate, curriculum vitae or CV

(GB) or resume (US), employment agencies, interview, job description, job

vacancies, references, short-listed

Many people looking for work read the (1) job vacancies advertised by

companies and (2) employment agencies in newspapers or on the Internet. To

reply to an advertisement is to (3) apply for a job. (You become a (4) candidate

or an (5) applicant.) You write an (6) application, or fill in the company’s (7)

application form, and send it, along with your (8) curriculum vitae and a covering

letter. You often have to give the names of two people who are prepared to write

(9) references for you. If your qualifications and abilities match the (10) job

description, you might be (11) short-listed, i.e. selected to attend an (12)

interview.

1b Discussion

When employees ‘give notice’, i.e. inform their employer that they will be leaving

the company as soon as their contract allows, in what order should the company

carry out the following steps?

A) either hire a job agency (or for a senior post, a firm of headhunters), or

advertise the vacancy

B) establish whether there is an internal candidate who could be promoted (or

moved sideways) to the job

C) examine the job description for the post, to see whether it needs to be

changed (or indeed, whether the post needs to be filled)

D) follow up the references of candidates who seem interesting

E) invite the short-listed candidate for an interview

F) make a final selection

G) receive applications, curricula vitae and covering letters, and make a

preliminary selection (a short-list)

H) try to discover why the person has resigned

I) write to all the other candidates to inform them that they have been

unsuccessful

1. H) Try to discover why the person has resigned.

2. C) examine the job description for the post, to see whether it needs to be

changed (or indeed, whether the post needs to be filled)

3. B) establish whether there is an internal candidate who could be promoted (or

moved sideways) to the job

4. A) either hire a job agency (or for a senior post, a firm of headhunters), or

advertise the vacancy

5. G) receive applications, curricula vitae and covering letters, and make a

preliminary selection (a short-list)

6. E) invite the short-listed candidate for an interview

7. D) follow up the references of candidates who seem interesting

8. F) make a final selection

9. I) write to all the other candidates to inform them that they have been

unsuccessful

1c Case study: Job applications p42

Which of the following extracts from different CVs (resumes) or application

letters do you think would help the candidate to get an interview, and why?

What employers like most is professional experience. Relevant experience is,

of course, the most desirable, but not everyone has the possibility to do

traineeships in companies. Failing that, work experience of any kind is a definite

advantage. Even if you have only spent three weeks during a summer holiday

filling the shelves in a supermarket it is work experience, and demonstrates that

you can get up and go to work at 8 o’clock everyday for three weeks, hence

extract 4. Some students may object to the way extract 4 is written, and suggest

writing ‘stock management’ instead of ‘shelf filling’; I am unconvinced.

Travel, we say, broadens the mind, but if you’ve only ever traveled and never

had a holiday job it doesn’t look good. Extract 5 is supposed to be a parody, but

there seems to be one student per class who selects it as the best! American

culture seems to require more self-confidence than in much of Europe or Asia,

but there remains a distinction between self-confidence and arrogance. ‘Your

company would have a great deal to gain from employing me’ is way over the

top.

Languages are usually an advantage for international business, although it

depends on the job and the country. Swiss employers put this in second place,

after work experience, and this is probably true of many countries. Lively

students might well object to the way in which extract 2 is written. Indeed, they

might object to the way all the paragraphs in this exercise are written.

Many companies are suspicious of people who seem only to have studied,

and prefer people with a wide range of experience and interests to those with

brilliant exam results but nothing else. But it depends on the job: high finance

and R&D might require more evidence of brains than, say jobs in selling (though

this, too, is a subject for discussion). Students are very often prejudiced against

those who get very high exam results, and may scoff at extract 7. If so, ask them

how they feel about using a doctor, dentist, lawyer, architect or engineer who

may have passed his or her degree with a mark of only 60% --- i.e. getting 40%

wrong!

Many employers expect to find a correlation between the amount of time

and effort devoted to study and exam results. Hence low marks should be

justified by extra-curricular activities. For a job that involves working closely with

other people, evidence of having been a successful team-member, as in extract 1,

is generally an advantage. But being a successful individual performer, as in

extract 8, also shows determinations, self-discipline, and so on. Apart from sports

and hobbies, work in student associations, etc., is usually well thought of.

Extract 3 is appalling. Modesty and self-deprecating humor might be

admired in some countries (such as England), but are not what is called for in job

applications. Americans and Germans, for example, would almost certainly

regard the writer of extract 3 as a complete idiot. A hobby like collecting phone

cards does not make one an ideal candidate for a job in a telecoms company. It

often reveals a shy, ingoing person, which is not ideal for a job in sales, public

relations, and so on. Students may have something to say about this --- or at

least be prepared, as with extract 7, to parade their prejudices!

An appealing photograph is seldom a disadvantage, but they are rarely

included in job applications in the USA.

2b Listening p46

is Gill Lewis not especially proud of having been British Businesswoman of

the Year back in the 1970s?

Because there were hardly any businesswomen at the time (so there was

virtually no competition).

does she mean when she says that during that period she was a great

disappointment to the media?

The media expected her to explain the secret of being a successful

businesswoman, and she replied that it was no different from being a successful

businessman.

exactly does she define the traditional roles of men and women over

millennia (thousand of years)?

The man is the hunter and gatherer (i.e. the food provider) while the woman is

the mother and home provider.

Lewis lists at least three areas in which women finishing business studies

now have advantages that no previous generation has had, in terms of their

husbands (or partners), employers, and their fellow students. What are they?

Men are now more prepared to share the responsibility for bringing up children;

employers are now aware that if they want to hire competent women they are

going to have to make some allowances; and their fellow students are better

prepared to treat them as equals.

do you think she means when she says that ‘employers are going to have

to make some allowances’?

To make allowances here means to accept that women have to be treated

differently from men, i.e. given maternity leave, and perhaps occasional time off

to look after their children in emergencies, and so on.

is her objection to affirmative action programs?

Where there are affirmative action programs, people will automatically assume

that a woman only got a particular job because she’s a woman, not because

she’s competent.

New Words in this unit 06

Applicant, application, application form, apply, candidate, curriculum vitae or CV,

employment agency, headhunter, interview, job description, job vacancy,

reference, resume or resume, short-list