TEXT 6.2. FINDING JOB IN BRITAIN

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 359.

In Britain, when a pupil leaves school at sixteen or later he or she must find a job. School leavers without special qualifications will probably visit a 'Jobcentre' or look through local newspaper advertisements. Perhaps there's a big factory in the district, or someone says there is a shortage of clerical assistants in a nearby office. School careers officers can offer advice. But ultimately it is up to the boys and girls themselves to find work.

Graduates from universities and other colleges are in the same position except that they are older and are looking for different kinds of work. Usually they start their search near the beginning of their third (i.e. final) year in college. The professional work many of them want normally requires further specialized training, so the first step is to get a place on a training course - and a grant or some other funds to pay for the course. Probably the first stage will involve some kind of exam and an interview - necessary procedures for choosing which applicants shall be given places on the course which may lead to a job in the end. (Such courses are essential for librarians, computer programmers, social workers, account-ants, planners and many other kinds of qualified workers.) Certain organizations take graduates directly and train them while they are working - for example the BBC. (The BBC is immensely popular with those graduates who are looking for exciting jobs in 'the media'. They will eagerly study newspapers for announcements of vacancies, and apply in their hundreds for any one vacancy.) A committee has to read through the papers and select maybe eight or ten applicants for interview. At the interview they will be asked their reasons for wanting the job, and have to answer questions about their academic career, other activities and - often - questions which seem to have no point but which are intended to reveal their personality and general suitability for the job. From the candidates' point of view, interviews can seem both bewildering and artificial: 'What does he want me to say? What's she getting at? How do I appear to them, and would I be better being more 'natural' - and can I be natural in this artificial situation anyway?' All candidates must have asked themselves such questions. At least in theory the committee is open-minded and each candidate is free to persuade them that he or she is the best choice. It certainly isn't perfect, but since public organizations are obliged to advertise vacancies and interview candidates, the system ensures against the worst excesses of ‘blat'.

Eventually someone will be selected. If the fortunate candidate is not happy with all the conditions of the job (pay, hours of work, pension rights and so on) he does not have to accept it - but once he has signed the contract he cannot leave the job without giving notice (of maybe three or six months) and he cannot be thrown out of the job without notice and without good reason. All the other candidates have to start looking elsewhere.

Today, graduates can expect to make dozens of applications for jobs and get short-listed for interviews two or three times before they find satisfactory work. Some of course know exactly what they want and find the right job first time, but more often graduates can spend months searching, meanwhile earning enough to pay the rent by washing dishes or some other short-term work.

Having found your job, you certainly do not expect to stay in it for life - or even for more than a few years. Whether working in private industry or in the state sector, people assume that if they want more money and more responsibility they must expect to move from one employer to another or from one area of work to another (as in the Civil Service). In Britain very often this will mean moving not just your job but your home - sometimes from one end of the country to the other. There is nothing very strange in this: people have been on the move since the first stone-age man started searching for a larger cave; and British industries have never been static; demand for labour has always been rising or declining and men have gone where the work is.

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