1 Choose the alternative that means the same as the word(s) in italics.

a) ... but nothing I had learnt there provided an answer to

... (line 3)

i) gave

ii) decided

iii) removed

b) ... the person being promoted above others ... (line 6)

i) given a job with the same importance as before

ii) given a job with less importance than before

iii) given a job with more importance than before

c) ... unspoken rules ... (lines 9-10)

i) rules that employees did not know about

ii) rules that employees knew about but that they never

talked about

iii) rules that employees knew about and talked about

d) ... the way his or her career actually developed, (line 14)

i) in fact

ii) right now

iii) presently

e) I realised that I needed to learn these rules fast to be...

(line 14)

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i) succeeded

ii) achieved

iii) understood

f) ... or risk being left behind, (line 16)

i) perhaps not succeed as well as others

ii) perhaps not work as hard as others

iii) perhaps not leave work when others left work

2 A company employee does these things, a)-e). Match each thing to one of the five unspoken rules in paragraph 2.

a) I realised that a client had a good sense of humour, so I put some jokes in a proposal that I was writing for him.

b ) I thought I had good dress sense, but one day a colleague told me that my clothes were not suitable for the office.

c) In a performance review, my manager told me I was not ambitious enough to succeed. And I told her that she was too aggressive.

d) One day I realised that the company was not growing very fast, so I started looking for a job somewhere else.

e) When I joined the company, I followed the rules even if I thought they were stupid. Then, when I got promoted, I started to change them.

Over to you

Do you agree with the advice in the article? Why or why not? Is any of the advice useful for succeeding in your organisation? Can you think of other rules that are useful:

a) in your organisation?

b) in organisations in general?

TEXT VIII. CHOOSING THE RIGHT STAFF

Before you read

Use a dictionary to match the words with the correct definition.

1 to employ a)an organisation which produces or sells goods or services

2 staff b)all the people who work for an organisation

3 a skill c) to find new people to work for you

4 to recruit d)to pay someone to work for you

5 a business e)a person who tries to get a job

6 a candidate f)something a person does well because they have learned and practised it

Reading

Read this article adapted from FT.com and answer the questions.

The right person for the job

How does a small business become a big business? A company can't grow unless it employs the right staff to do important jobs. It is easy for companies to make mistakes and recruit the wrong people for important jobs. Sally Thomson is the managing director of Thomson Norton Consultants in Surrey, England.

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The company's annual turnover is £500,000. The company needed a new project manager to work with important clients. It took a long time to advertise the job, check applications and interview and test candidates. Finally Ms Thomson chose the new project manager - but the person left after only six weeks.

How can employers recruit the right staff? Perhaps existing staff have got the right skills for a new position in the company. For example, a marketing person can have good financial skills. The ideal person for the job could already be working in your company.

From FT.com

1 Read the article again and answer the questions.

a) What is Sally Thomson's job title?

b) Which company does Sally work for?

c) Where is the company?

d) What job did the company advertise?