Major Delusions
By TALI SHAROT
Published: May 14, 2011
THIS month American college seniors will don caps and gowns. As they await receipt of their diplomas, they will absorb lessons handed to them by the accomplished men and women who deliver commencement speeches. More often than not the speakers will be outliers: rare individuals who made it against all odds. More often than not their message will be “dreams come true ... take chances ... if you try hard enough you will succeed.”
“Don’t know that you can’t fly, and you will soar like an eagle,” Earl E. Bakken, founder of the medical technology company Medtronic, told the University of Hawaii’s class of 2004. “You have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future,” Steven P. Jobs told Stanford’s 2005 graduates.
But in an era of unemployment, financial meltdowns, political unrest and natural disasters, is this message of optimism helpful?
By and large, the answer is yes. Although the graduates are unlikely to be as fortunate as their commencement speakers, evidence from the science of optimism indicates that believing in their optimistic message will nonetheless be a good thing.
We now know that underestimating the obstacles life has in store lowers stress and anxiety, leading to better health and well-being. This is one reason optimists recover faster from illnesses and live longer. Believing a goal is attainable motivates us to get closer to our dreams. Because of the power of optimism, enhancing graduates’ faith in the American dream by presenting them with rare examples as proof may be just what the doctor ordered. Their hopes may not be fully realized, but they will be more successful, healthier and happier if they hold on to positively biased expectations.
Surveys show that students expect to receive more job offers and higher salaries upon graduation than they wind up getting. They anticipate being married till death do them part, though they are acutely aware that statistics say there’s a good chance they won’t be. They underestimate their likelihood of suffering from cancer, heart attack and other misfortunes and overestimate their likelihood of acquiring wealth and professional success. The list goes on and on.
It’s not just the young who embrace positive delusions. Whether you are 9 or 90, male or female, of African or European descent, you are likely to have an optimism bias. In fact, 80 percent of the world does. (Many believe optimism is unique to Americans; studies show the rest of the world is just as optimistic.)
In fact, the people who accurately predict the likelihood of coming events tend to be mildly depressed. The rest of us systematically fail when interpreting the crystal ball.
For many years, scientists were puzzled by the existence of this unshakable optimism. It did not make sense. How is it that people remain optimistic even though information challenging those predictions is abundantly available? It turns out it is not commencement speeches or self-help books that make us hopeful. Recently, with the development of non-invasive brain imaging techniques, we have gathered evidence that suggests our brains are hard-wired to be unrealistically optimistic. When we learn what the future may hold, our neurons efficiently encode unexpectedly good information, but fail to incorporate information that is unexpectedly bad.
That’s why when we listen to Oprah Winfrey’s rags-to-riches story our brain takes note and concludes that we too may become immensely rich and powerful one day; but when told the likelihood of being unemployed is almost 1 in 10 or of suffering from cancer is over 1 in 3 we take no notice.
Such optimistic illusions, with all of their advantages, unfortunately come at a price. Underestimating risk makes us less likely to practice safe sex, save for retirement, buy insurance or undergo medical screenings.
In some cases relatively minor biases can even lead to global disaster. Take the financial crisis of 2008. Each investor, homeowner, banker or economic regulator expected slightly better profits than were realistically warranted. On its own, each bias would not have created huge losses. Yet when combined in one market they produced a giant financial bubble that did just that.
As the Duke economists Manju Puri and David T. Robinson suggest, optimism is like red wine: a glass a day is good for you, but a bottle a day can be hazardous. The optimal solution then? Believe you will live a long healthy life, but go for frequent medical screenings. Aspire to write the next “Harry Potter” series, but have a safety net in place too.
At a time when the economic crisis is deepened by revolutions and tsunamis, cautious optimism may be the most useful message to communicate to graduates — believe you can fly, with a parachute attached, and you will soar like an eagle.
Tali Sharot, a research fellow at the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at University College London, is the author of “The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15Sharot.html?_r=1&hp
Showing posts with label unemployed graduates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployed graduates. Show all posts
Monday, 16 May 2011
Monday, 26 July 2010
Friday, 14 May 2010
Uni degrees: who needs 'em?
Uni degrees: who needs 'em?
May 14, 2010
A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B." So said American singer-songwriter, Fats Domino. He had a point. Putting aside professions such as medicine and law where a degree is essential, much of what is taught at university today isn't useful in the workplace.
A British survey conducted in March by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development revealed 60 per cent of graduates are working in a field unrelated to the degree they studied. And roughly one-in-four said their degree didn't equip them with the skills they needed to thrive at work. The results in Australia would probably be similar, with thousands of people thinking the completion of a degree is the finish line, when in reality it only entitles them to stand at the starting blocks. The real work starts at work.
The most talented senior manager I've ever had was a lady who hadn't spent a day on a university campus. The most hopelessly incompetent executives were those who'd completed not only a degree but also an MBA.
This doesn't imply a degree leads to poor performance. Rather, it just doesn't guarantee success. Not all masterful trainers have a degree in Adult Education. Many of the finest journalists don't have a degree in Communication. And some of the best musicians haven't studied at the Conservatorium.
People will argue the value lies not necessarily in the curriculum but with what a person becomes as a result of completing the degree. It'll prove they can solve problems! It'll show they can work under pressure! It'll demonstrate they can organise and prioritise! All of that may be true (or not), but those same attributes can be gleaned from other areas, such as the candidates' work experience, the adversities they've overcome, and their character in general.
I asked Shayne Herriott, the president of the National Association of Australian University Colleges, for his thoughts. "Obtaining a university degree is a lot more than what is learnt within a classroom or lecture theatre," he said. "A university degree is a series of challenges testing our ability to learn new and challenging subjects in a new environment surrounded by many distractions that are greatly different from school."
Admittedly, I'm a uni drop out. I had one year left of a Business degree when I realised it was no longer beneficial. I started it when I was in the corporate world. Eager to progress up the career ladder, I was very aware of the preference decision-makers had for resumes that contained a pithy reference to the applicant's degree. Despite being a student with a distinction average, I didn't learn a thing I could apply at work. Instead, I was forced to remember a bunch of management theories developed in the 1970s, all of which I've since forgotten.
These days, many job advertisements list a degree as a prerequisite. Check out the graduate section of the MyCareer site and you'll find job vacancies for a Recruitment Assistant, a Junior Marketing Coordinator, and another in Media Sales. It's uncertain why the lack of a degree is such a deal-breaker for roles where all the learning would presumably be on the job. It seems a degree merely qualifies you for the interview. It gets you in the door. Actually being able to do the job is an altogether separate and unrelated matter.
Rising in prominence is the Mickey Mouse degree, which is a term that disparagingly refers to qualifications of little relevance in the working world. Golf management and surf science are two such obscure examples, as are more common ones such as English Literature and History. How many job vacancies do you see advertised for a historian? Currently on MyCareer: none.
And then there's the aspirational MBA. There was a time when it was regarded as a unique accomplishment. But currently it seems like every ambitious worker's got one, or is at least contemplating the endeavour. A few years ago, I was recruiting for entry-level call centre positions and was floored by the flood of resumes from MBA graduates. It used to guarantee you a job in middle management. Now it guarantees you a period of muddle management.
People who undertake a degree should be applauded. It's a huge commitment, and the intention here isn't to denigrate their achievement. It's more a reflection on the perception of degrees and their supposed relevance in the workplace. Are they really supporting business? I don't think so. Not to a large degree.
http://blogs.theage.com.au/small-business/workinprogress/2010/05/14/unidegreeswho.html
May 14, 2010
A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B." So said American singer-songwriter, Fats Domino. He had a point. Putting aside professions such as medicine and law where a degree is essential, much of what is taught at university today isn't useful in the workplace.A British survey conducted in March by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development revealed 60 per cent of graduates are working in a field unrelated to the degree they studied. And roughly one-in-four said their degree didn't equip them with the skills they needed to thrive at work. The results in Australia would probably be similar, with thousands of people thinking the completion of a degree is the finish line, when in reality it only entitles them to stand at the starting blocks. The real work starts at work.
The most talented senior manager I've ever had was a lady who hadn't spent a day on a university campus. The most hopelessly incompetent executives were those who'd completed not only a degree but also an MBA.
This doesn't imply a degree leads to poor performance. Rather, it just doesn't guarantee success. Not all masterful trainers have a degree in Adult Education. Many of the finest journalists don't have a degree in Communication. And some of the best musicians haven't studied at the Conservatorium.
People will argue the value lies not necessarily in the curriculum but with what a person becomes as a result of completing the degree. It'll prove they can solve problems! It'll show they can work under pressure! It'll demonstrate they can organise and prioritise! All of that may be true (or not), but those same attributes can be gleaned from other areas, such as the candidates' work experience, the adversities they've overcome, and their character in general.
I asked Shayne Herriott, the president of the National Association of Australian University Colleges, for his thoughts. "Obtaining a university degree is a lot more than what is learnt within a classroom or lecture theatre," he said. "A university degree is a series of challenges testing our ability to learn new and challenging subjects in a new environment surrounded by many distractions that are greatly different from school."
Admittedly, I'm a uni drop out. I had one year left of a Business degree when I realised it was no longer beneficial. I started it when I was in the corporate world. Eager to progress up the career ladder, I was very aware of the preference decision-makers had for resumes that contained a pithy reference to the applicant's degree. Despite being a student with a distinction average, I didn't learn a thing I could apply at work. Instead, I was forced to remember a bunch of management theories developed in the 1970s, all of which I've since forgotten.
These days, many job advertisements list a degree as a prerequisite. Check out the graduate section of the MyCareer site and you'll find job vacancies for a Recruitment Assistant, a Junior Marketing Coordinator, and another in Media Sales. It's uncertain why the lack of a degree is such a deal-breaker for roles where all the learning would presumably be on the job. It seems a degree merely qualifies you for the interview. It gets you in the door. Actually being able to do the job is an altogether separate and unrelated matter.
Rising in prominence is the Mickey Mouse degree, which is a term that disparagingly refers to qualifications of little relevance in the working world. Golf management and surf science are two such obscure examples, as are more common ones such as English Literature and History. How many job vacancies do you see advertised for a historian? Currently on MyCareer: none.
And then there's the aspirational MBA. There was a time when it was regarded as a unique accomplishment. But currently it seems like every ambitious worker's got one, or is at least contemplating the endeavour. A few years ago, I was recruiting for entry-level call centre positions and was floored by the flood of resumes from MBA graduates. It used to guarantee you a job in middle management. Now it guarantees you a period of muddle management.
People who undertake a degree should be applauded. It's a huge commitment, and the intention here isn't to denigrate their achievement. It's more a reflection on the perception of degrees and their supposed relevance in the workplace. Are they really supporting business? I don't think so. Not to a large degree.
http://blogs.theage.com.au/small-business/workinprogress/2010/05/14/unidegreeswho.html
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Is it better to have a degree and no job, or no university place?
March 17, 2010
Is it better to have a degree and no job, or no university place? It's not a good time to be a student - or to want to be one.....
It sometimes feels like only a wunderkind has a chance....
Eleanor Rushton, who has all the requisite As and A*s writes below about life as a graduate in these difficult times. It's a depressing, moving piece, and makes me glad that I'm no longer 22 (like her), or 17, 18, 19, 20, or 21 for that matter. Despite my advancing years (no zimmer frame as yet, thank goodness), and despite sometimes wishing to be younger, it can't be great to be leaving school or university now. The jobs aren't there, and neither, sadly, are the university places.Over the next few years, universities are going to have to change. They're being forced to by the recession, and the huge demand for places. Too many talented students are not being offered a university place at all. Won't something have to give?
So what's it like to graduate now? It's not a good time to be a student, is it? And it's not a good time to want to be one, either....
Eleanor (whom you can see in the picture) graduated from New College, Oxford last year with a degree in English. Here's her personal view of the times we are in.
"The difficulty of finding new work in the recession is well documented. ‘Finding new work’ implicates those who are already in the job market; the casualties of mass job-cuts and redundancy. The situation looks even bleaker for those without much on their CVs yet. Graduates, fresh from university and raring to kick-start their careers, are finding that jobs are simply not there for them.
I graduated in June ’09 and only a small handful of my friends have managed to secure employment, at least in their chosen fields. A huge number have opted for post-graduate study instead. This is not due to rejuvenated interest in academia so much as the desire to avoid the black hole of unemployment for as long as possible. The academic field is one where they have proven themselves, at least a bit, while few have much to distinguish them from the legions of other degree-holders flooding the job market.
The average student, who has moved straight from school to university, will not have much solid work experience and many who do ,have impressive weeks here and there will be lacking in employment experience. It sometimes feels like only a wunderkind, who managed to juggle their Oxbridge degree with running a successful internet company, interning at the UN and helping on the Obama campaign has a chance.
Post-graduate study is not an option for everyone however. Quite apart from required academic credentials, the expense of courses means they are only feasible for those who gain funding, be it from public bodies or parents eager (and able) to help. Many are having gap-years in order to raise the funds for a post-grad course and some of my highest-flying friends have applied to overseas universities. Given the free flights, holidays-cum-open-days and generous salaries on offer, I do not blame them!
There is also another bomb set to explode this year. It now looks as though thousands of would-be students will not even have university, let alone post-graduate study, to help them ride out the recession.
The Times reported today that ‘analysis shows that at least 50,000 more sixth-formers with good grades will fail to get on a course this autumn compared with last year’. Since top-up fees came in, the benefits of going to university have had to be weighed against the massive debts it will incur: my own personal total is gaining on £21,000.
In 2010 this decision will be taken out of the hands of many. Forced cuts in numbers, and in whole courses, have erased thousands of potential places. I was tucked safely away at university for the first year of the recession and, even in this dire job market, at least I can blame any gaps in my CV on the fact that I graduated when I did. For the thousands of seventeen and eighteen year-olds who cannot hide out for a few years, ‘pre-packaged’ options are scarce.
Overshadowing all this is the problem of degrees now being worth less anyway, due to sheer numbers, lower entrance requirements and ‘soft’ courses.Post-grad courses are becoming tools to help us stand out in the crowd, which could well result in a similar devaluation. This qualification inflation might actually mean that waiting to go to university, as UCAS chief executive Mary Curnock Cook has suggested, could start to mark you out again.
University cannot be, this year at least, the go-to option that it certainly was for me. Is it better to have a degree, that still does not bag you a job, or no university place? It is hard to say what the ideal situation is for anyone of my age but it is clear that we are all going to have to think of some weird and wonderful ways to set ourselves apart, degree or no degree."
Read School Gate:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2010/03/is-it-better-to-have-a-degree-and-no-job-or-no-university-place-its-not-a-good-time-to-be-a-student-.html
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Schools are churning out the unemployable
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7034975.ece
Schools are churning out the unemployable
Harriet Sergeant
The latest unemployment figures are a shocker. Eight million adults are “economically inactive”. That means one in five people of working age does not have a job. A new and expanding group, poignantly described as “discouraged” workers, have even given up looking.
They are right to be discouraged but wrong that there is no work. A report out on Friday points out that a fifth of firms and a quarter of employers in the state sector are still hiring — despite the recession. Except they are taking on migrant workers — not our home-grown “discouraged” variety.
The managing director of a medium-sized IT company explained why. High-flyers — Oxford and Cambridge graduates — are still as good as any in the world. His problems come when he tries to recruit middle management. Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools. On paper they looked “brilliant students”. Each had three As at A-level and a 2:1 degree. He shook his head. “There’s a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work.”
This was obvious even before the interview began. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, “Good morning.” The rest “just ambled in”. When he asked them to solve a problem, only 12 had come equipped with a notebook and pencil.
The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their “lackadaisical” attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to “engage in business” was “incredibly” disappointing and “at 5.30 on the dot they left the office”.
This year the managing director has joined the 20% of companies recruiting overseas. “We are an English company but we have no English staff. It’s just too much trouble,” he said.
It is the same story with employers at every level in the UK. Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, put it bluntly. Too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education “without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job”. He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. “On-the-job training” cannot act as a “bandage or sticking plaster” for “the failure of our education system”.
A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems. More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations.
This goes a long way to explain why, of the 1.7m jobs created since 1997, 81% have gone to foreign workers. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agrees with Leahy. UK citizens are on the dole because of “issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation”. It is a pity it has not passed that insight on to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils.
We have children who can barely read and write scoring high marks in their Sats because it makes the school, and therefore politicians, look good. We have exam boards competing to offer the lowest pass mark because it allows heads to fulfil their GCSE targets. We have pupils pushed into easy subjects at A-level — which excludes them from applying to a top university — because it benefits the school. And we have universities that offer a 2:1 degree, as the IT company director put it, to “anyone who bothers to sit down and take the exam”.
On top of that is the attitude of the staff themselves. I was visiting schools to discover why so many black Caribbean and white working-class boys were failing. One reason soon became obvious. Their teachers, middle class themselves, failed to pass on those very values that had allowed them to progress in life.
They viewed inculcating attributes such as lucidity, spelling, grammar, punctuality and manners as “patronising”. They feared anything that smacked of the didactic. “I am not a teacher. I am a facilitator,” said one teacher primly. The head of another school insisted she was a “head learner” rather than a headmistress.
Joseph P Parkes is clear who he is and it is definitely not a head learner. Father Parkes is the president of Cristo Rey, a Catholic coeducational school in East Harlem, New York. His mainly black and Puerto Rican pupils come from single-parent homes; many have fathers in prison. But he is determined that no one is going to turn them down for a job.
His school operates an ingenious work-share scheme with some of New York’s most prestigious companies and charities. Once a week pupils put on their identity cards, go down to Wall Street and enter another world — of law firms and investment banks.
From the age of 14 they join a team of five pupils each performing clerical work one day a week. They know their salary pays “a big chunk” of their education. As one young man said: “They treat me like an adult.” Parkes explained: “It encourages them to take school seriously.”
How seriously I saw for myself when Parkes addressed morning assembly. We stood in rows, teachers patrolling on either side, straightening a shoulder here, checking a tie there. The talk was entitled First Impressions. “Now what kind of first impression have you made on our visitor from the UK here?” asked Parkes. “Have you shaken Miss Sergeant by the hand and looked her in the eye?” he demanded. Seventy pairs of eyes immediately engaged me. “Have you greeted her?” “Good morning,” they all chanted enthusiastically.
He held up a sheaf of papers, printouts of emails. The previous day, he had set them the task of applying for a job interview on the internet. First, had they researched the company? He summoned one boy to the front, who listed his company’s interests fluently. Parkes nodded approval, then turned back to us. Now then, how many had tracked down the right address for the email? Who was dispatching their precious job application to the man in the post room? Everyone laughed.
No detail seemed too small for Parkes. Had they spelt names correctly? He waved the papers accusingly. Some of the students had addressed their emails to him: “You were not following directions. You have got to learn to follow directions.” He selected three or four sheets. “And some of you have an email address that is inappropriate for a job application. Put yourself in the company’s shoes. Are you really going to give an interview to JosetheNiceGuy, FastandFurious@Hotmail” — the boy next to me blushed — “or Cristo Rey Hottie?” The pupils erupted. Finally, the head demanded: “What happens when you are not proactive?” “You are being a procrastinator,” they shouted back.
Parkes knows that his school is the only chance these young people have. Education has to make up for their background and the lack of those values that ensure success. He knows they are totally dependent on him for their future. If employers like the managing director are to recruit in England again, it is a lesson that our state schools will have to learn.
Schools are churning out the unemployable
Harriet Sergeant
The latest unemployment figures are a shocker. Eight million adults are “economically inactive”. That means one in five people of working age does not have a job. A new and expanding group, poignantly described as “discouraged” workers, have even given up looking.
They are right to be discouraged but wrong that there is no work. A report out on Friday points out that a fifth of firms and a quarter of employers in the state sector are still hiring — despite the recession. Except they are taking on migrant workers — not our home-grown “discouraged” variety.
The managing director of a medium-sized IT company explained why. High-flyers — Oxford and Cambridge graduates — are still as good as any in the world. His problems come when he tries to recruit middle management. Last year he interviewed 52 graduates — all educated in state schools. On paper they looked “brilliant students”. Each had three As at A-level and a 2:1 degree. He shook his head. “There’s a big difference between people passing exams and being ready for work.”
This was obvious even before the interview began. Of the 52 applicants, half arrived late. Only three of the 52 walked up to the managing director, looked him in the eye, shook his hand and said, “Good morning.” The rest “just ambled in”. When he asked them to solve a problem, only 12 had come equipped with a notebook and pencil.
The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their “lackadaisical” attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to “engage in business” was “incredibly” disappointing and “at 5.30 on the dot they left the office”.
This year the managing director has joined the 20% of companies recruiting overseas. “We are an English company but we have no English staff. It’s just too much trouble,” he said.
It is the same story with employers at every level in the UK. Sir Terry Leahy, the chief executive of Tesco, put it bluntly. Too many children have been leaving school after 11 or 13 years of compulsory education “without the basic skills to get on in life and hold down a job”. He said 5m adults were functionally illiterate and 17m could not add up properly. “On-the-job training” cannot act as a “bandage or sticking plaster” for “the failure of our education system”.
A CBI survey revealed that literacy and numeracy were not the only problems. More than 50% of employers complained that young people were inarticulate, unable to communicate concisely, interpret written instructions or perform simple mental calculations.
This goes a long way to explain why, of the 1.7m jobs created since 1997, 81% have gone to foreign workers. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agrees with Leahy. UK citizens are on the dole because of “issues around basic employability skills, incentives and motivation”. It is a pity it has not passed that insight on to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
The DWP has made it clear: work is where the inflated claims for our state education finally hit the buffers. At every stage we have a system in which the expediency of politicians and the ideology of the educational establishment take precedence over the interests of pupils.
We have children who can barely read and write scoring high marks in their Sats because it makes the school, and therefore politicians, look good. We have exam boards competing to offer the lowest pass mark because it allows heads to fulfil their GCSE targets. We have pupils pushed into easy subjects at A-level — which excludes them from applying to a top university — because it benefits the school. And we have universities that offer a 2:1 degree, as the IT company director put it, to “anyone who bothers to sit down and take the exam”.
On top of that is the attitude of the staff themselves. I was visiting schools to discover why so many black Caribbean and white working-class boys were failing. One reason soon became obvious. Their teachers, middle class themselves, failed to pass on those very values that had allowed them to progress in life.
They viewed inculcating attributes such as lucidity, spelling, grammar, punctuality and manners as “patronising”. They feared anything that smacked of the didactic. “I am not a teacher. I am a facilitator,” said one teacher primly. The head of another school insisted she was a “head learner” rather than a headmistress.
Joseph P Parkes is clear who he is and it is definitely not a head learner. Father Parkes is the president of Cristo Rey, a Catholic coeducational school in East Harlem, New York. His mainly black and Puerto Rican pupils come from single-parent homes; many have fathers in prison. But he is determined that no one is going to turn them down for a job.
His school operates an ingenious work-share scheme with some of New York’s most prestigious companies and charities. Once a week pupils put on their identity cards, go down to Wall Street and enter another world — of law firms and investment banks.
From the age of 14 they join a team of five pupils each performing clerical work one day a week. They know their salary pays “a big chunk” of their education. As one young man said: “They treat me like an adult.” Parkes explained: “It encourages them to take school seriously.”
How seriously I saw for myself when Parkes addressed morning assembly. We stood in rows, teachers patrolling on either side, straightening a shoulder here, checking a tie there. The talk was entitled First Impressions. “Now what kind of first impression have you made on our visitor from the UK here?” asked Parkes. “Have you shaken Miss Sergeant by the hand and looked her in the eye?” he demanded. Seventy pairs of eyes immediately engaged me. “Have you greeted her?” “Good morning,” they all chanted enthusiastically.
He held up a sheaf of papers, printouts of emails. The previous day, he had set them the task of applying for a job interview on the internet. First, had they researched the company? He summoned one boy to the front, who listed his company’s interests fluently. Parkes nodded approval, then turned back to us. Now then, how many had tracked down the right address for the email? Who was dispatching their precious job application to the man in the post room? Everyone laughed.
No detail seemed too small for Parkes. Had they spelt names correctly? He waved the papers accusingly. Some of the students had addressed their emails to him: “You were not following directions. You have got to learn to follow directions.” He selected three or four sheets. “And some of you have an email address that is inappropriate for a job application. Put yourself in the company’s shoes. Are you really going to give an interview to JosetheNiceGuy, FastandFurious@Hotmail” — the boy next to me blushed — “or Cristo Rey Hottie?” The pupils erupted. Finally, the head demanded: “What happens when you are not proactive?” “You are being a procrastinator,” they shouted back.
Parkes knows that his school is the only chance these young people have. Education has to make up for their background and the lack of those values that ensure success. He knows they are totally dependent on him for their future. If employers like the managing director are to recruit in England again, it is a lesson that our state schools will have to learn.
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Whose recession is this, anyway?
Whose recession is this, anyway?
For some people, bargain prices and new workplace advantages make the economic downturn a time to profit.
By Catherine Holahan, MSN Money
Stephen Lasher reads all the dire economic forecasts declaring this recession the most worrisome since the Great Depression. But life doesn't seem so bad to Lasher. In fact, his horizons have never looked brighter.
Last year, the 33-year-old Columbia Business School grad landed a great job at media company NBC Universal. Now his spending money stretches further than before, thanks to retail store sales. Last month, he closed on his first home: a one-bedroom waterfront condo in a complex with a gym, pool and doorman.
"I am feeling good," Lasher says. "The housing prices were out of control before. . . . Now I was not only able to get a good price, but I was also able to get a mortgage interest rate well below what I thought would have been possible."
Lasher's neighbor James Tortorella agrees that the recession has afforded him some opportunities. He bought his condo in November. "I found a great deal," says Tortorella.
Scoring a bargain condo
So the economic crisis isn't hurting all Americans.
True, the combination of plummeting home prices, steep stock declines and rising unemployment has proved disastrous for many, particularly those new to the job market or nearing retirement. Nationwide, unemployment reached 6.7% in November, according to a Dec. 5 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate jumps to more than 11% when the bureau adds workers who have ceased looking for employment and former full-time employees forced to reduce their hours.
No jobs for grads?
But the same weakness in the economy has helped others, providing many young and midcareer professionals with new purchasing power and giving some a boost up the corporate ladder.
"Middle-career people have the opportunity to do things they were never given exposure to before," says Kathleen Downs, a recruiting manager at Robert Half International, one of the world's largest business staffing and consulting firms. As companies trim their staffs, she explains, midcareer people get an earlier shot at jobs once held by more-expensive, more-experienced workers.
"It's a good time to be positioning themselves," she says of the younger workers.
For people with relatively secure jobs and cash in the bank, it's also a good time to shop. The Consumer Price Index, a measure of the average price of common household goods purchased by urban consumers, fell 4.4% in the past three months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In that period, transportation costs fell more than 26% because of steep fuel price declines. Apparel dropped prices 2.4%. Year over year, the S&P/Case-Schiller home price index is down 16.6%, according to data released Nov. 25.
Lasher -- and doubtless many like him -- see the price declines as a welcome dose of reality, placing homeownership, vehicle purchases and even blue-chip company stock within reach of a new generation.
"I personally was waiting for a market correction," he says.
Price drop puts homes within reach
Welcome, indeed. A year ago, Lasher was ready to give up on the idea of owning a home near his New York City job. The going rate for one-bedroom condominiums near the city was simply too high.
"I thought I was going to have to move farther away from New York City," Lasher says.
But as the housing market got worse, things got better for Lasher. In recent months, condominiums on the New Jersey side of the river, once prohibitively expensive, began to look affordable. Lasher watched as prices fell about 25% from their peak.
He had been renting an apartment near the New Jersey commuter ferry on the Hudson River, but in November, he pounced on a one-bedroom condo at The Hudson Club, a waterfront complex overlooking Manhattan and just a short walk to the ferry. He locked in a fixed-rate mortgage at 5.875% interest. Lasher isn't discussing precisely what he paid, but here's an idea: a two-bedroom condo in the same complex is now listed for sale at $569,000.
"I don't expect 20, 30 or 40% increases," Lasher says of the condo's value. But he is confident that the purchase price makes his unit a good investment for the future.
Lasher knows he and his peers are not immune to the effects of recession. Some business school buddies who went into the banking business have been laid off.
The national statistics confirm that midcareer professionals have not escaped the downturn unscathed. Unemployment for people ages 25 to 34 rose to a 10-year high of 6.9% in November. That's up from 4.7% a year earlier. Employees ages 35 to 44 also saw record, albeit lower, unemployment rates: 5.4% in November, compared with a 3.5.% rate 12 months earlier. Those figures don't include the more than 33,000 additional job cuts announced this December.
As companies lay off more-senior employees, many midcareer workers are forced to assume additional management responsibilities without receiving pay increases.
"What we are not seeing is the pay increases that would often come in a very strong economy," says Robert Half's Downs.
It may be quite a while before those pay increases return. Consumer spending rose just 2.6% in 2007 from the previous year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released Nov. 25. Though spending kept pace with inflation, growth was significantly weaker than the 4.3% seen a year earlier. And consumer confidence is still near record lows, though it has risen slightly from its worst levels, according to The Conference Board. A majority of consumers still rate business conditions as "bad" and jobs as "hard to get."
Hard to gain entry at this level
That's how Andy Fisher sees the situation. Fisher is a New York University senior majoring in journalism and history. He thinks his future employment prospects are far less certain thanks to the downturn. Entry-level journalism and publishing jobs seem scarce, he says.
"I am currently in an internship, and, if anything, they are firing, not hiring," Fisher says. "The chances of getting a job at the publishing houses I had hoped to work for seem pretty slim."
In terms of unemployment rates, the recession is hitting recent and soon-to-be college grads hardest. Nearly 11% of 20- to 24-year-olds were unemployed in November, according to the statistics bureau. That's up from 8% a year ago. The increase is due to hiring freezes at major companies and slowdowns at large employers such as Google. It doesn't help to have a glut of older, more-experienced workers in the marketplace willing to downsize careers in return for a steady income.
"It is pretty safe to say that all levels of hiring have slowed," says Michael Erwin, a senior career adviser for online job site CareerBuilder.com.
The recent grads who do land jobs find the process is taking longer. On average, recent college grads are searching an additional six weeks before securing a job, compared with last year, according to a recent CareerBuilder study. Erwin recommends that students set to graduate in the spring begin looking for jobs now. He suggests graduates be prepared to accept positions in fields other than their preferred field, for less pay than they may have targeted previously.
Fisher is weighing whether he should switch to a different career.
"It's pretty troubling," he says. "I basically just have to hope that somebody will pay me for something and keep myself marketable to as many different fields as possible."
'Experienced' translates as 'expensive'
One bright side for younger workers who obtain jobs is they are less likely targets for layoffs. The same can't be said of older workers. In this recession, businesses facing cuts are more likely to buy out or fire expensive, experienced workers whose total compensation, including salaries and health care costs, is more material for the bottom line.
"One way that people try to trim down their work force is by buyouts -- it is usually a first resort for companies trying to shed workers," says Andrew Eschtruth, the communications director at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research.
Buyout offers can present tough decisions for older workers whose retirement savings have been depleted. Many older workers now think they have no choice but to remain on the job and try to rebuild their resources, says Steve Sass, the associate director at the Center for Retirement Research and a co-author of "Working Longer: A Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge."
Sass suggests that even conservative investors -- those who had only 30% of their nest egg in the stock market -- are now contemplating losses of 10% to 15%.
"If you had to save to cover that loss, it is enormous, and it is pretty onerous," Sass says. "If you had to work to overcome that, you're talking another year and a half to two years."
The unemployment rate for workers ages 55 to 64 rose to 4.6% in November. That may sound OK compared with the rates affecting younger workers, but it's a 70% increase for that group from a year ago.
"Previous recessions tended to hit younger workers hard and not so much for older workers," says Richard Johnson, a principal research associate for retirement issues at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. "But what we're seeing this fall is a rather steep increase in the unemployment rate for those 55 and older and those 65 and older."
Employment professionals are all about opportunity, so they try to put a positive spin on all this. They suggest that, for now, employers are in the driver's seat, able to lay off workers and keep salaries down. But their leverage will vanish when the economy turns around, and the leverage will pass to employees who have added responsibility during the downtown with no significant increase in salary. When that happens, it's time to ask for a fat raise, they say.
"There is some light at the end of the tunnel," CareerBuilder's Erwin says.
Produced by Darragh Worland
Published Dec. 5, 2008
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/Whose-recession-is-this-anyway-msnmoney.aspx?page=all
For some people, bargain prices and new workplace advantages make the economic downturn a time to profit.
By Catherine Holahan, MSN Money
Stephen Lasher reads all the dire economic forecasts declaring this recession the most worrisome since the Great Depression. But life doesn't seem so bad to Lasher. In fact, his horizons have never looked brighter.
Last year, the 33-year-old Columbia Business School grad landed a great job at media company NBC Universal. Now his spending money stretches further than before, thanks to retail store sales. Last month, he closed on his first home: a one-bedroom waterfront condo in a complex with a gym, pool and doorman.
"I am feeling good," Lasher says. "The housing prices were out of control before. . . . Now I was not only able to get a good price, but I was also able to get a mortgage interest rate well below what I thought would have been possible."
Lasher's neighbor James Tortorella agrees that the recession has afforded him some opportunities. He bought his condo in November. "I found a great deal," says Tortorella.
Scoring a bargain condo
So the economic crisis isn't hurting all Americans.
True, the combination of plummeting home prices, steep stock declines and rising unemployment has proved disastrous for many, particularly those new to the job market or nearing retirement. Nationwide, unemployment reached 6.7% in November, according to a Dec. 5 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rate jumps to more than 11% when the bureau adds workers who have ceased looking for employment and former full-time employees forced to reduce their hours.
No jobs for grads?
But the same weakness in the economy has helped others, providing many young and midcareer professionals with new purchasing power and giving some a boost up the corporate ladder.
"Middle-career people have the opportunity to do things they were never given exposure to before," says Kathleen Downs, a recruiting manager at Robert Half International, one of the world's largest business staffing and consulting firms. As companies trim their staffs, she explains, midcareer people get an earlier shot at jobs once held by more-expensive, more-experienced workers.
"It's a good time to be positioning themselves," she says of the younger workers.
For people with relatively secure jobs and cash in the bank, it's also a good time to shop. The Consumer Price Index, a measure of the average price of common household goods purchased by urban consumers, fell 4.4% in the past three months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In that period, transportation costs fell more than 26% because of steep fuel price declines. Apparel dropped prices 2.4%. Year over year, the S&P/Case-Schiller home price index is down 16.6%, according to data released Nov. 25.
Lasher -- and doubtless many like him -- see the price declines as a welcome dose of reality, placing homeownership, vehicle purchases and even blue-chip company stock within reach of a new generation.
"I personally was waiting for a market correction," he says.
Price drop puts homes within reach
Welcome, indeed. A year ago, Lasher was ready to give up on the idea of owning a home near his New York City job. The going rate for one-bedroom condominiums near the city was simply too high.
"I thought I was going to have to move farther away from New York City," Lasher says.
But as the housing market got worse, things got better for Lasher. In recent months, condominiums on the New Jersey side of the river, once prohibitively expensive, began to look affordable. Lasher watched as prices fell about 25% from their peak.
He had been renting an apartment near the New Jersey commuter ferry on the Hudson River, but in November, he pounced on a one-bedroom condo at The Hudson Club, a waterfront complex overlooking Manhattan and just a short walk to the ferry. He locked in a fixed-rate mortgage at 5.875% interest. Lasher isn't discussing precisely what he paid, but here's an idea: a two-bedroom condo in the same complex is now listed for sale at $569,000.
"I don't expect 20, 30 or 40% increases," Lasher says of the condo's value. But he is confident that the purchase price makes his unit a good investment for the future.
Lasher knows he and his peers are not immune to the effects of recession. Some business school buddies who went into the banking business have been laid off.
The national statistics confirm that midcareer professionals have not escaped the downturn unscathed. Unemployment for people ages 25 to 34 rose to a 10-year high of 6.9% in November. That's up from 4.7% a year earlier. Employees ages 35 to 44 also saw record, albeit lower, unemployment rates: 5.4% in November, compared with a 3.5.% rate 12 months earlier. Those figures don't include the more than 33,000 additional job cuts announced this December.
As companies lay off more-senior employees, many midcareer workers are forced to assume additional management responsibilities without receiving pay increases.
"What we are not seeing is the pay increases that would often come in a very strong economy," says Robert Half's Downs.
It may be quite a while before those pay increases return. Consumer spending rose just 2.6% in 2007 from the previous year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures released Nov. 25. Though spending kept pace with inflation, growth was significantly weaker than the 4.3% seen a year earlier. And consumer confidence is still near record lows, though it has risen slightly from its worst levels, according to The Conference Board. A majority of consumers still rate business conditions as "bad" and jobs as "hard to get."
Hard to gain entry at this level
That's how Andy Fisher sees the situation. Fisher is a New York University senior majoring in journalism and history. He thinks his future employment prospects are far less certain thanks to the downturn. Entry-level journalism and publishing jobs seem scarce, he says.
"I am currently in an internship, and, if anything, they are firing, not hiring," Fisher says. "The chances of getting a job at the publishing houses I had hoped to work for seem pretty slim."
In terms of unemployment rates, the recession is hitting recent and soon-to-be college grads hardest. Nearly 11% of 20- to 24-year-olds were unemployed in November, according to the statistics bureau. That's up from 8% a year ago. The increase is due to hiring freezes at major companies and slowdowns at large employers such as Google. It doesn't help to have a glut of older, more-experienced workers in the marketplace willing to downsize careers in return for a steady income.
"It is pretty safe to say that all levels of hiring have slowed," says Michael Erwin, a senior career adviser for online job site CareerBuilder.com.
The recent grads who do land jobs find the process is taking longer. On average, recent college grads are searching an additional six weeks before securing a job, compared with last year, according to a recent CareerBuilder study. Erwin recommends that students set to graduate in the spring begin looking for jobs now. He suggests graduates be prepared to accept positions in fields other than their preferred field, for less pay than they may have targeted previously.
Fisher is weighing whether he should switch to a different career.
"It's pretty troubling," he says. "I basically just have to hope that somebody will pay me for something and keep myself marketable to as many different fields as possible."
'Experienced' translates as 'expensive'
One bright side for younger workers who obtain jobs is they are less likely targets for layoffs. The same can't be said of older workers. In this recession, businesses facing cuts are more likely to buy out or fire expensive, experienced workers whose total compensation, including salaries and health care costs, is more material for the bottom line.
"One way that people try to trim down their work force is by buyouts -- it is usually a first resort for companies trying to shed workers," says Andrew Eschtruth, the communications director at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research.
Buyout offers can present tough decisions for older workers whose retirement savings have been depleted. Many older workers now think they have no choice but to remain on the job and try to rebuild their resources, says Steve Sass, the associate director at the Center for Retirement Research and a co-author of "Working Longer: A Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge."
Sass suggests that even conservative investors -- those who had only 30% of their nest egg in the stock market -- are now contemplating losses of 10% to 15%.
"If you had to save to cover that loss, it is enormous, and it is pretty onerous," Sass says. "If you had to work to overcome that, you're talking another year and a half to two years."
The unemployment rate for workers ages 55 to 64 rose to 4.6% in November. That may sound OK compared with the rates affecting younger workers, but it's a 70% increase for that group from a year ago.
"Previous recessions tended to hit younger workers hard and not so much for older workers," says Richard Johnson, a principal research associate for retirement issues at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, D.C. "But what we're seeing this fall is a rather steep increase in the unemployment rate for those 55 and older and those 65 and older."
Employment professionals are all about opportunity, so they try to put a positive spin on all this. They suggest that, for now, employers are in the driver's seat, able to lay off workers and keep salaries down. But their leverage will vanish when the economy turns around, and the leverage will pass to employees who have added responsibility during the downtown with no significant increase in salary. When that happens, it's time to ask for a fat raise, they say.
"There is some light at the end of the tunnel," CareerBuilder's Erwin says.
Produced by Darragh Worland
Published Dec. 5, 2008
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/StockInvestingTrading/Whose-recession-is-this-anyway-msnmoney.aspx?page=all
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