Employment: hot issues

the most effective methods of motivation?
What are the major factors to consider when choosing a job?
Does running your own business have more advantages than being employed by a company?
How can one maintain the right work-life balance?

the helm of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg juggles the tasks of monetizing the world’s largest social networking site while keeping its users happy and engaged.

any of us in this room today, let’s start out by admitting we’re lucky. We don’t live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited. And if you’re in this room today, most of us grew up in a world where we had basic civil rights, and amazingly, we still live in a world where some women don’t have them. But all that aside1, we still have a problem, and it’s a real problem. And the problem is this: Women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. The numbers tell the story quite clearly. 190 heads of state—nine are women. Of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women. In the corporate sector, women at the top, C-level jobs2, board seats—tops out at 15, 16 percent. The numbers have not moved since 2002 and are going in the wrong direction. And even in the non-profit world, a world we sometimes think of as being led by more women, women at the top: 20 percent. We also have another problem, which is that women face harder choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. A recent study in the U.S. showed that, of married senior managers, two-thirds of the married men had children and only one-third of the married women had children. [. . .] So the question is, how are we going to fix this? How do we change these numbers at the top? How do we make this different? I want to start out by saying, I talk about this—about keeping women in the workforce—because I really think that’s the answer. In the high-income part of our workforce, in the people who end up at the top—Fortune 5003 CEO jobs, or the equivalent in other industries—the problem, I am convinced, is that women are dropping out. Now people talk about this a lot, and they talk about things like flextime4 and mentoring and programs companies should have to train women. I want to talk about none of that today, even though that’s all really important. Today, I want to focus on what we can do as individuals. What are the messages we need to tell ourselves? What are the messages we tell the women who work with and for us? What are the messages we tell our daughters? Now, at the outset, I want to be very clear that this speech comes with no judgments. I don’t have the right answer. I don’t even have it for myself. I left San Francisco, where I live, on Monday, and I was getting on the plane for this conference. And my daughter, who’s three, when I dropped her off at preschool, did that whole hugging-the-leg, crying, “Mommy, don’t get on the plane” thing. This is hard. I feel guilty sometimes. I know no women, whether they’re at home or whether they’re in the workforce, who don’t feel that sometimes. So I’m not saying that staying in the workforce is the right thing for everyone. My talk today is about what the messages are if you do want to stay in the workforce, and I think there are three. One, sit at the table. Two, make your partner5 a real partner. And three, don’t leave before you leave. [. . .] U

rights.
The speaker works for a website.
30% of people in parliament in the world are women.
The speaker has a daughter.
The speaker believes women underestimate their own abilities.
The speaker believes that more pressure is put on girls to achieve highly.
The speaker argues that women shouldn’t make decisions about their professional life too early.

· Behavioral economist
The dismal science of economics is not as firmly grounded in actual behavior as was once supposed. In "Predictably Irrational," Dan Ariely told us why.

Dan Ariely depressed?
A:His boss was unimpressed with the presentation he had worked so hard on
B: The merger and acquisition were canceled and he would no longer be promoted
C: His PowerPoint presentation was lost the night before he was supposed to show it
D: The presentation he had put so much effort into would go unwatched
What is the Sisyphic condition (also known as the Sisyphusian condition)?
A: The condition by which Sisyphus was finally freed from his torture
B: A condition in experiments that test how workers achieve happiness
C: A condition in experiments that test how workers respond when the meaning of their task is diminished
D:The act of diminishing financial compensation for a task in an experiment

was the correlation between the love of Legos and the amount of Bionicles people built?
A:The people who loved Legos built more Bionicles because they gained more internal joy from it
B:The people who loved Legos less built less Bionicles because they got less enjoyment from it
C:The people who loved Legos less built more Bionicles because they saw the task purely as work
D:There was no correlation between the love of Legos and the amount of Bionicles people built
In the second experiment, how did the subjects in the second condition (ignored) respond?
A:The ignored subjects responded similarly to the subjects in the acknowledged condition
B:The ignored subjects responded almost as badly as the subjects in the shredder condition
C:The ignored subjects responded at a point almost exactly in the middle of those in the acknowledged and shredder conditions
D:The ignored subjects began cheating as the experiment progressed

eliminating the instructions for some of the subjects?
A:Evaluators were more likely to buy the origami made without instructions because they were aware of the extra effort put into making them
B:The subjects with instructions liked their origami more than those without instructions because their results were less ugly
C:The subjects without instructions grew jealous of those with instructions completing the same task
D:The subjects without instructions liked their origami even more than those with instructions because of the extra effort they had put in

engineers, what could the CEO of the software company Dan Ariely visited have done to make them less depressed about their project being cancelled?
What is the relationship between IKEA furniture and cake mixes?
What is Dan Ariely's comparison between Adam Smith and Karl Marx? Do you agree that Adam Smith was more correc

Climbers make a huge effort, and put up with a lot of pain, to get to the top of a mountain.
a find
b accept
c avoid
2. There are things in life that are more important than money: facing challenges; feeling proud of what we do; having a sense of identity; creating something,
a my appearance
b an ID card
c ‘who I am’
3. In my work, my motivation comes from helping people to learn a useful skill.
a reason for working
b salary
c.problems
4 I take pride in working with a team of talented editors
and designers and other writers.
a have no experience of
b have a hard time
c get satisfaction from
5 It’s necessary for people to feel some kind of personal
connection with what they do.
worry about
interest in
ability to do

of talented editors and designers and other writers.
a. have no experience of
b. have a hard time
c. get satisfaction from
5. It’s necessary for people to feel some kind of personal connection with what they do.
a. worry about
b. interest in
c. ability to do

verbs. The first letter has been given.
Developing transferable skills
If you want to h__ a successful career, you may have to start by doing work for no pay. An internship without pay is an opportunity to develop your ‘transferable’ skills. These Include the ability to p__tasks, to d_____ with conflict and other difficult situations, and to g ___ and p_____ information. Working, attending classes, and socializing with people from other countries helps you to u______ and d__ with cultural differences. When you a_____meetings and s_____ on the phone, then you
develop transferable communication skills that you’d need
to _____________almost any job. Completing a course
shows that you _____________ technology and know
how to use it.
And there’s one more transferable skill that should always
try to develop: the ability to ” h _____________ fun.

job is
whether you would need any qualifications
whether it would be easy to find work
and say why you would enjoy this job in particular.
Unusual Topic:
Describe an occasion when you had to do something meaningless
Tell about
When and where you were
What you had to do
Why what you did wasn’t meaningful
How did you feel about this occasion?

in a boutique … I enjoy it … I like working with customers … unfortunately it’s only temporary work but one of the perks of the job is I get a discount on the clothes …
Do you have any career plans yet?
Yes … I’d like to be my own boss one day … I’m interested in programming and I’d like to create apps for myself or for other companies … I know being self employed would be a challenge but the idea of doing a nine-to-five job doesn’t appeal to me at all …

available who should be given priority, young people or older people with more experience?
Things are so different these days … a few years ago older employees would often take early retirement or go onto part-time contracts and there were always opportunities for younger people but now jobs are so scarce … I think younger people need to be given the chance whenever possible …
What are the advantages of having your own business rather than working for someone else?
Well … unfortunately being an employee at the moment is very stressful … people have very heavy workloads … they’re always under pressure to meet deadlines … running your own business isn’t easy … but I do think it would be far more satisfying