寧缺毋濫求賢才

情景:英國麥凱帝管理咨詢公司,大家正在討論畢業(yè)招聘事宜。

John: So, we need to consider recruitment and internships for this summer. Does anybody want to work the graduate circuit?

Cathy: I don't mind. I quite like going to the job fairs.

John: Really? I always found them a terrible grind.

Cathy: I don't know – maybe I'm just nostalgic for university – but I quite enjoy doing them.Telling people about the firm, all this kind of thing.

Fredrik: Better you than me.

Cathy: Hey, I just like to get out of the office.

John: So, does anybody have any thoughts on what we should be looking for in an intern?

Vanisha: I liked the two we had last year. What was it – Lin and Paul? They were good.

Fredrik: Actually, Lin is applying for our graduate recruitment program this year. I think she's a shoo-in.

Vanisha: Really? Yes, she was excellent. The draft report she did on Bangladeshi power needs was really first-rate. I used it in the presentation I gave to the bank, and they loved it – they all thought I'd done it, actually, and I was too embarrassed to admit it was an intern. But she didn't mind – I brought her dinner afterwards to say thank you.

John: Her coffee was terrible, though. I mean, really, it tasted like it had been made out of mud.

Vanisha: Hee. Well, I guess she'll have an intern to do that for her this time!

John: Do we have any other old interns applying? Paul was only in his second year, wasn't he?

Fredrik: I think so. So, we might see him on the application next year.

John: But we're agreed Lin is a shoo-in?

Vanisha: Oh, definitely. I'd love to have her on board.

Fredrik: So, what are our targets for graduate recruitment, assuming we fill one spot with Lin?

John: Well, we've sketched it out at twelve, but we can be a little flexible on that. There's no need to accept sub-standard recruits just to fill in positions. Equally, we can probably squeeze out another place if we find thirteen really good people. But we're not going to be offering a recruitment package anywhere near as good as five years ago, or even last year, of course.

Fredrik: Is there still a signing bonus?

John: Yes, but cut right down. And no housing allowance.

Vanisha: I think that's a bad idea – we should be offering something to help with the move to London, at least, for those outside. Otherwise we end up restricting ourselves to people from families that can help support them while they are living on a graduate salary in London even more. I mean, no offense to anyone here, but do we really need more people from the Home Counties?

Fredrik: I think Vanisha has a point. We are a bit stacked with – how can I put this?

Cathy: Public schoolboys? And schoolgirls.

Fredrik: Yes. I think we could do with broadening the background of our recruits more. Especially regionally. We're very southern, after all.

John: Hey, I'm from Manchester.

Vanisha: John, you're from Alderley Edge, where all the millionaires and footballers live. I've been to your parent's house, it's massive. Isn't Alderley Edge one of the richest single areas in the UK.

Fredrik: See? We do have to change things.

Vanisha: Definitely. Though we should still be aiming for the top universities. Which reminds me; are we trying to recruit from overseas this year?

John: We have programs at some of the best Indian and Chinese universities this year, as well as the normal schedule in America. I'd like to get at least two recruits from developing countries – those markets are so big. We can probably look at people who've already studied overseas, though; I think we get the best candidates that way.

Cathy: And we should prioritize linguistic skills in general, I think. It's so useful to have somebody fluent on hand, rather than going through local translators.

John: Absolutely, yes. If we could get three people fluent in Mandarin and English, I'd be a happy man.

Vanisha: What else are we looking for?

John: Let's try not to get so many humanities grads this year. I realize that English and History and so on are all very good for presentation and analysis skills and so on, but it would be useful to have some people with a harder science background. I mean, do any of us here even have maths or science beyond the high school level? No? I didn't think so.

Cathy: Well, that all seems good. Let's write this up properly, and we'll begin interviewing people after the 27th.

約翰:那么,我們需要考慮一下今天夏季招聘和實習計劃。有人想負責校園宣講會嗎?

凱茜:我不介意。我很想去招聘會。

約翰:真的?我一直都覺得它們是苦差事。

凱茜:我不知道——可能是因為我太懷念大學了——但是我非常享受做這些。向大家介紹公司,諸如此類的事情。

弗雷德里克:那就你去吧。

凱茜:嘿,我只是喜歡走出辦公室而已。

約翰:關于實習生應該具備什么樣的素質(zhì),大家有什么想法嗎?

瓦尼莎:我喜歡我們?nèi)ツ暾业哪莾蓚€。叫什么來著,林和保羅?他們很不錯。

弗雷德里克:事實上,林正在申請我們今年的畢業(yè)生招聘計劃。我覺得她十拿九穩(wěn)。

瓦尼莎:真的嗎?是的,她很優(yōu)秀。她做的關于孟加拉國能源需求的報告草案真的很一流。在給銀行的報告中我用了里面的內(nèi)容,他們很喜歡——事實上他們都以為是我做的,我太尷尬了都沒敢承認是個實習生做的。但是林不介意——后來我請她吃晚飯表示感謝。

約翰:但是她泡的咖啡不怎么樣。真的,我覺得喝起來像用泥沖的。

瓦尼莎:嘿嘿。但是我猜這次會有實習生幫她泡咖啡了!

約翰:還有別的原來的實習生申請嗎?保羅才上大二是不是?

弗雷德里克:我想是。所以,他可能明年會申請。

約翰:但是我們都認為林穩(wěn)操勝券?

瓦尼莎:哦,肯定地。我很樂意她加入。

弗雷德里克:那么,我們畢業(yè)招聘的目標人數(shù)是多少,假定我們留了一個職位給林?

約翰:那個,我們計劃雇12個人,但是這個可以靈活一點。沒有必要就為了填補空缺職位就接受不合格的應聘者。同樣的,如果能發(fā)現(xiàn)13個特別優(yōu)秀的人才我們也可能再設法擠出一個空缺。但是當然,我們不準備提供五年前那么好的招聘待遇了,甚至都不能達到去年的標準。

弗雷德里克:還有簽約費嗎?

約翰:有,但是削減了很多。另外沒有住房補貼。

瓦尼莎:我覺得那是個餿主意——我們至少應該給倫敦城外的人提供一些補貼幫助他們搬到城里來。否則的話到頭來我們更會雇傭那些拿畢業(yè)生級別的薪水但家里能幫忙住在倫敦的人了。無意冒犯在坐的任何人。但是我們真得需要更多來自“家鄉(xiāng)郡”的家伙嗎?

弗雷德里克:我覺得瓦尼莎說得對。我們有點充滿了——怎么說來著?

凱茜:公學男童?還有女童。

弗雷德里克:是的。我覺得我們可以進一步放寬我們招聘新人的背景條件。尤其是地域方面。畢竟我們南方人太多了。

約翰:嘿,我可是曼徹斯特的。

瓦尼莎:約翰,你可是阿爾德利角來的,那百萬富翁和足球明星扎堆。我去過你父母家,豪華著呢。阿爾德利角難道不是英國最富有的地區(qū)之一嗎?

弗雷德里克:看到了嗎?我們必須改變這種情況了。

瓦尼莎:當然了。不過我們應該仍將重點大學作為目標。這倒提醒了我,今年我們會雇海外員工嗎?

約翰:今年我們在印度和中國一些一流大學有相關計劃,美國一直都有。我想至少雇用兩個發(fā)展中國家的新人——那些市場太大了。但是我們或許可以看看那些曾經(jīng)留過學的人;這樣的話能篩選到最好的候選人。

凱茜:我覺得總體上我們應該優(yōu)先看重語言技能。身邊的人能說一口流利的英語很有用,而不是通過當?shù)氐姆g。

約翰:這是當然。如果能雇到三個普通話和英語都非常流利的人,我會非常高興的。

瓦尼莎:別的能力呢?

約翰:我們今年不要雇那么多文科畢業(yè)生了。我知道英語歷史等對報告和分析能力等等非常重要,但是雇傭一些理科背景更厲害的人也很重要。我的意思是,我們在座的幾位有誰的數(shù)學或理科水平比高中水平高嗎?沒有?就知道沒有。

凱茜:好吧,一切看起來都很順利。我們把這些適當?shù)赜涗浺幌?然后27號之后就開始面試。

Links

Home Counties家鄉(xiāng)諸郡

指倫敦周邊的幾個郡,包括赫特福德郡(Hertfordshire)、艾塞克斯郡(Essex)、肯特郡(Kent)、薩利郡(Surrey)、白金漢郡(Buckinghamshire)等等,這些地區(qū)和平寧靜,風景優(yōu)美,交通便利,并且比較富裕。

Alderley Edge阿爾德利角

位于柴郡的阿爾德利角是英格蘭的十大豪宅區(qū)之一,聚集了眾多名流,尤其是曼聯(lián)球員。

Public school公學

公學專指英國的私立精英學校,實行完人教育,學費十分昂貴,教學質(zhì)量非常高,社會影響深遠。“公學”不表示是由政府設立,而表示學校公開招生,并不限定某種宗教、種族或地區(qū)的學生。

英國公學歷史悠久,注重人文教育,提供普通中學所沒有的古典與宗教課程,培養(yǎng)了眾多社會精英,是全世界富家子弟夢寐以求的學府。

此外英國一般的私立學校稱為independent school,公立學校稱為comprehensive school。

Notes

1. apply for

意為“申請、請求”。

例句:He applied for a passport.

他申請護照。

Can I apply for a library card?

我可以申請圖書館卡嗎?

2. shoo-in

意為“十拿九穩(wěn)的取勝者、必勝者”。

例句:He is an apparent shoo-in for a top administration post.

看起來,他十有八九會到政府擔任要職。

Diana is a shoo-in to win a scholarship.

黛安娜獲獎學金十拿九穩(wěn)。

3. on board

意為“在船/火車/飛機/汽車上 ”,文中意為歡迎林加入公司。

例句:When all passengers were on board, the train pulled out of the station.

所有乘客都上車后, 火車開出了車站。

Are meals served on board?

機上供應餐點嗎?

4. sketch out

意為“概述、草擬”。

例句:He sketched out what he had said.

他概述了他說的話。

Sketch out what you intend to do.

把你要做的事概括地敘述一下.

5. squeeze out

意為“擠出、榨出”。

例句:She squeezed juice out of the lemon.

她從檸檬里擠出檸檬汁。

Lady Kew could squeeze out a tear over a good novel too.

寇女士對一本令人愉快的小說也能擠出淚來。

6. restrict to

意為“將……限制到、將……限定到”。

例句:He restricted himself to five cigarettes a day.

他約束自己每天只抽五支煙。

Speed is restricted to 30 mph in towns.

市內(nèi)車速每小時不得超過30英里。

7. aim for

意為“力爭……;計劃、打算”。

例句:He aimed for her leg.

他企圖抓住她的腿。

We aim for a 10% saving in fuel.

我們的目標是節(jié)省10%的燃料。

8. on hand

意為“在手邊、在附近;在場”。

例句:We have plenty of money on hand to pay for the snacks.

我們手邊有很多錢可以買零嘴。

He had to make do with what was on hand.

他只好用現(xiàn)有的東西將就應付。

Mr. Blake's secretary is always on hand when he appears in public.

布萊克先生在公開場合露面時, 他的秘書總在場。

9. grads

Graduates的簡寫,畢業(yè)生。

例句:Grads from our school are working all over the island.

我們學校的畢業(yè)生在全島各地工作。

10. write up

意為“全部寫出”。

例句:We have finally finished the research work. Now we must write it all up.

我們終于完成了調(diào)查報告, 現(xiàn)在我們要把它撰寫成文。