4. The Career Ladder

Getting a job

When Paul left school he applied for (= wrote an official request for) a job in the accounts department of a local engineering company. They gave him a job as a trainee (= a very junior person in a company). He didn't earn very much but they gave him a lot of training (= organised help and advice with learning the job), and sent him on training courses.

Note: Training is an uncountable noun, so you cannot say 'a training'. You can only talk about training (in general), or a training course (if you want to refer to just one). Here you can use the verbs do or go on: I did/went on several training courses last year.

Moving up

Paul worked hard at the company and his prospects (= future possibilities in the job) looked good. After his first year he got a good pay rise (= more money), and after two years he was promoted (= given a higher position with more money and responsibility). After six years he was in charge of (= responsible for/the boss of) the accounts department with five other employees (= workers in the company) under him ( = under his responsibility/ authority).

Leaving the company

By the time Paul was 30, however, he decided he wanted a fresh challenge (= a new exciting situation). He was keen to work abroad, so he resigned from his company (= officially told the company he was leaving his job; you can also say 'he quit the company') and started looking for a new job with a bigger company. After a couple of months he managed to find a job with an international company which involved (= included) a lot of foreign travel. He was very excited about the new job and at first he really enjoyed the travelling, but...

Hard times

After about six months, Paul started to dislike the constant moving around, and after a year he hated it; he hated living in hotels, and he never really made any friends in the new company. Unfortunately his work was not satisfactory either and finally he was sacked (= told to leave the company/ dismissed/given the sack) a year later.

After that, Paul found things much more difficult. He was unemployed (= out of work/without a job) for over a year. He had to sell his car and move out of his new house. Things were looking bad and in the end Paul had to accept a part-time job (= working only some or the day or some of the week) on a fruit and vegetable stall in a market.

Happier times

To his surprise, Paul loved the market. He made lots of friends and enjoyed working out in the open air. After two years, he took over (= took control of) the stall. Two years later he opened a second stall, and after ten years he had fifteen stalls. Last year Paul retired (= stopped working completely) at the age of 55, a very rich man.

5. World of Jobs

We spend great part of our lives at our jobs, so choosing a right career is one of the most important decisions you will make in your life. Many students finish high school and begin college without a clear idea of what they want to do in future. Part of the problem is the size of the job market itself. With so many kinds of jobs (2000) how can you tell which will interest you? Some of occupations are already overcrowded. In old industries there may be little need for new workers, while new and growing industries will offer jobs now and in the future. Therefor, it is extremely important to explore your choice of occupations from every angle, collect as much information as you can. But above all you must evaluate yourself. Find out where your interests and talents lie.Postponing a decision is an error people make. «I’ll get started tomorrow or next week, or next year,» — many people think. These people refuse to face the problem, hoping it will go away. But if you don’t take the first step now, how can you plan for the future, how can you take the right way? Such people miss many opportunities. First start with yourself, make a list of your interests, talents and abilities. Most people have a lot of these, but at the beginning they are undeveloped and may not seem outstanding. By concentrating on a few, or on one you may surprise yourself at how good you can get. The interest inventory that follows covers the major fields in which most people find careers: science, art, social service, business, sales and so on. Sometimes we say that someone we know is ‘a square peg in a round hole’. This means that person we are talking about is not suited for the job he is doing. Unfortunately, many people in the world are ‘square pegs’. But to be a ‘square peg’ is not a real problem, a real problem for millions of people is to be unemployed. Unemployment especially hits poor and working class families the hardest, not because this people are more likely to be unemployed, but because they don’t have financial resource to fall back on. Unemployment exists primarily for two reasons: first — the existence of millions of unemployed people tends to present most of those working from asking for higher wages since they can be replaced easily, second — in their search for profits, corporations are interested in finding the cheapest labor. As for our country more than 10% of our people are unemployed. There is no lack of work force in Russia, but at the resent moment the need for professional workers is increasing. Old industries are overcrowded and it is hard to get new education for people whose age is 35-40 years. The problem of unemployment is also connected with the economic crisis in our country. And I think when this crisis comes to an end the problem of unemployment will not be so urgent.