Reading
JOBS AND CAREERS
READING
TEXT 1
Pre-reading tasks
1. What do you think are the most vital steps that a young person should take? Arrange them in order of importance: finding a husband/wife: getting a profession; establishing oneself in business; finding a suitable job.
2. Which of the adjectives fit when job-hunting is discussed?
Nerve-racking, taxing, stimulating, tedious, frustrating, rewarding, exciting.
3. Match the words in Column A with their definitions in Column B.
| A | B | |
| A | Rut | 1. a business that makes its money by arranging for people to meet others or to learn about the products of others |
| B | Ambition | 2. a deep narrow track left in soft ground by a wheel; to be in a fixed and dull way of life |
| C | Audition | 3. to examine closely |
| D | Pathetic | 4. strong desire for success, power, riches |
| E | To scrutinize | 5. a test performance requested of a singer, actor, etc., by the people from whom he/she hopes to get employment |
| F | Agency | 6. a piece of written information about someone's character, ability, when he/she is looking for employment |
| G | Reference | 7. causing a feeling of pity or sorrow |
Reading
In the excerpt Monica Dickens describes how she felt when going to her first job interview. Read this excerpt and find the author's position as far as the following statements are concerned: Begin your statements with: I think that's true ..., I'm not really sure ..., I am quite convinced ..., I have to sort it out ..., I doubt it very much ... .
a. It is absolutely necessary to be adequately trained for every profession or trade.
b. It is pretty hard for a youngster to find out what he/she wants to become.
c. It is easy to go through a job interview.
d. It is advisable to look modest when going to a job interview.
From One Pair of Hands
by Monica Dickens
I felt restless, dissatisfied, and abominably bad-tempered. Something had to be done to get me out of this rut.
In a flash it came to me: "I'll have a job!"
Since leaving school I had trained rather half-heartedly for various things. I had an idea, as anyone does at that age, that I should be a roaring success on the stage.
"Try something once," said my parents, so off I went, full of hope and ambition, to a London dramatic school. I hadn't been there more than two weeks before I and everybody else in the place discovered that I couldn't act.
The next possibility was dressmaking. I dismissed that, too, at once. That didn't seem quite my style. So I turned to cooking.
I had no idea what job I should apply for, so I decided to go to an agency. I clapped on my mildest hat and rushed out of the house in search of it. I was wildly excited, and as nervous as if I were going to a stage audition. Finding the place quite easily I swung breathlessly through a door.
The dingy atmosphere of the office sobered me, I sat meekly down on the edge of a chair. The woman at the desk opposite scrutinized me for a while, then I realized that she was murmuring questions at me. I answered in a hoarse whisper, because all of a sudden I started to feel rather pathetic. I felt even more pathetic when she told me that it would be difficult to get a job without experience or references. I wondered whether I ought to leave when the telephone rang. Then I heard her say: "As a matter of fact, I've got someone in the office at this very moment who might suit." She wrote down a number and my spirits soared as I took the slip of paper she held out to me saying: "Ring up this lady. She wants a cook immediately."