4 . Innovation for Everyone – Career Skills for Life

Invitation to Alumni (校友) Networking Event Organized by University of Warwick and British Council

We are delighted to invite you to an alumni networking event on Tuesday 14 March, 7-9 pm at the Le Royal Méridien Hotel, Shanghai. The event is organized by the University of Warwick and the British Council and is open to all alumni.

Come and join us for refreshments, followed by four short presentations on the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship (创业) skills in your career and the launch of new career initiatives for students and alumni, before spending time networking with friends and other UK alumni over a buffet dinner.

The place for this event is the Le Royal Méridien Hotel, No.789 Nanjing East Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai. The Le Royal Méridien Hotel is located in People's Square in Shanghai and is easily accessed by subway, bus or taxi.

DATE AND TIME
Tue 14 March 2017
19:00 – 21:00 CST
LOCATION
Le Royal Méridien Hotel
No.789 Nanjing East Road
Huangpu District

Shanghai

PROGRAMME

7:00 pm	Registration and welcome refreshments
7:15 – 7:25 pm	“An overview of Graduate Employability (就业能力) among UK-educated Chinese Alumni and British Council Activities to Support Alumni Career Development”, Cathy He, Head of Education Services, British Council
7:25 – 7:35 pm	“The Importance of Career Planning: from the SJTU Viewpoint”, Mr Shen, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Careers
7:35 – 7:45 pm	“The Importance of Innovation Skills Throughout Your Career: An Employer Viewpoint”, John Hung, Managing Partner, China Consumer & Industrial Products Industry and Automotive Sector, Deloitte, China
7:45 – 7:55 pm	“New Resources to Enhance the Employability of Chinese Students and Graduates”, Esther de Perlaky, International Manager, University of Warwick
8:00 – 9:00 pm	Networking and banquet buffet dinner

Free but up to 80 tickets, please register via READ MORE.

1. The main purpose of holding this alumni networking event is ________.

A．to invite the alumni for refreshments

B．to spend time networking with the alumni

C．to help the alumni to launch new career initiatives

D．to share the experience of innovation and career skills for life

2. The people attending the event are most probably those ________.

A．UK-educated Chinese Alumni

B．only from University of Warwick

C．UK-educated Alumni and their friends

D．UK-educated Chinese Alumni and from the SJTU

3. What do the four short presentations mainly talk about?

A．How to improve the employability of the alumni.

B．How to help the alumni find and improve employment.

C．How to enhance the employability in career development.

D．How to make career planning and train the alumni’s innovation skills.

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求回答问题。

Two hundred years ago, a device began to dominate the world of work—the clock. With its arrival, people were paid on the basis of how many hours they worked, rather than their material output, and were required by the owner to turn up for a set shift.

The clock’s authoritarian rule may at last be weakening. Working remotely has brought a greater degree of freedom. A survey across six countries found that flexible working was viewed very positively, improving both people’s work-life balance and productivity. Flexible workers even scored more highly on a sense of “belonging” to their organization than those on a nine-to-five schedule.

It is hardly surprising that workers prefer flexibility. Working a rigid eight-hour schedule is incredibly restricting. Those are also the hours when most shops are open, when doctors and dentists will take appointments, and when repairmen are willing to visit. Parents on a conventional routine may be able to take their children to school in the morning but are unlikely to be able to pick them up in the afternoon. Many families find themselves constantly struggling with schedules and giving up precious holiday time to deal with domestic emergencies.

On reflection, it is not too shocking that home-workers feel they are more productive. After all, few people have the ability to concentrate solidly for eight hours at a stretch. There are points in the day where people want to stare out of the window or go for a walk; these may be moments when they find inspiration or recharge themselves for the next task. When they do this in an office, they risk the boss’s disapproval; at home, they can work when they are most motivated.

Of course, working remotely carries dangers: people may lose all separation between work and home life, and are likely to be stressed. To inject some human contact, companies may embrace a mixed model in which workers go into the office for part of the week. But overall, office-workers’ freedom from time restrictions is to be welcomed. The clock was a cruel master and many people will be happy to escape its dominion.

1. What decided the workers’ pay after the clock appeared?
2. Please paraphrase the underlined sentence in your own words.
3. Please decide which part of the following statement is false, then underline it and explain why.
Working remotely is viewed positively because it brings lots of benefits and it is perfect.
4. As a student, what do you think of remote learning? (about 40 words)

6 . Mind Your"Q's”

Both IQ and EQ are considered important to our career success.    1    Enter adaptability quotient(AQ),a subjective set of qualities loosely defined as the ability to thrive(提高） in an environment of fast and frequent change.

Every profession will require adaptability and flexibility.Say you are an accountant.Your IQ gets you through the examinations to become qualified.Your EQ helps your connect with an interviewer,land a job,and develop relationships with clients and colleagues    2    

All three quotients are somewhat complementary,since they all help you solve problems and therefore adapt.An ideal candidate possesses all three,but not everyone does.    3    While there is no definite method of measuring adaptability like an IQ test,companies are changing their recruitment(招聘）processes to help identify people who may be high in it.

Natalie Fratto,a vice-president at Goldman Sachs,suggests three ways AQ might show in potential candidates:if they can picture possible versions of the future by asking"what if questions;

if they can unlearn information to challenge presumptions;and if they enjoy exploration or seeking out new experiences.

    4    First,limit distractions and learn to focus so that you can determine what adaptations to make.Second,ask uncomfortable questions to develop courage and normalize fear. Third,be curious about things that fascinate you by having more conversations rather than Googling the answer,something that reduces your ability to solve difficult challenges.

Over the next three years,120 million people in the world's largest economies may need to be reskilled because of automation,according to a 2019 IBM study.    5    The ability to learn, change,grow,experiment will become far more important than subject expertise.

A．AQ is now increasingly being sought at the hiring level.

B．One good thing about AQ is that experts say you can work to develop it.

C．We may not all be comfortable with the pace of change-but we can prepare.

D．This is because an algorithm(算法）can do these tasks faster and more accurately than a human.

E．But today,as technology redefines how we work,the skills we need to thrive in the job market are developeing too.

F．Having IQ but no EQ would leave you struggling to embrace new ways of working using your existing skills.

G．Then,when systems change or aspects of work are automated,you will need AQ to accommodate this innovation and adapt to new ways of performing your role.

7 . Collaboration at work is generally seen as a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers want from MBA graduates found that the ability to work in a team, to work with a wide variety of people and to build, maintain and expand a network of people were three of the top five skills that managers wanted.

But managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork, which help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal, with the dangers of “groupthink”, when some don’t point out the faults of a plan to fit in with others. When people are aware of the views of others, there is a tendency for them to follow, as participants are reluctant to look foolish by deviating from the majority view. The same effect   may lead to stock-market bubbles.

Modern communication methods mean that collaboration is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail, messaging groups or mobile calls. But does that improve or worsen performance?

A new study by Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore and David Lazer, three American academics, tried to answer this question. They set a logical problem (devising the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities). Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other’s views only intermittently (间歇地).

The survey found that members of the individualist group reached the best solution more often than the constant collaborators, but had a poorer average result. The intermittent collaborators found the right result as often as the individualists, and got a better average solution.

When it comes to idea generation, giving people a bit of space to find a solution seems to be a good idea. Occasional collaboration can be a big help; most people have benefited from a colleague’s wise advice to avoid a particular course of action.

Close teamwork may be vital in the lower reaches of a group, but at the top, someone has to make a decision. At this stage, intense collaboration may be less helpful. Fashion houses with co-creative directors are rated as less creative by industry experts than brands that were individually led. Co-led teams of Himalayan climbers are more likely to suffer deaths than those with single leaders. Experts think that co-leadership “creates uncertainty over who is really in charge”. The battles between Sandy Weill and John Reed when they were co-chief executives of Citigroup in the late 1990s were infamous. Less than 5% of companies in the Fortune 500 have used a co-CEO structure since 1989. In short, collaboration may be a useful tool, but it doesn’t work in every situation.

1. What does the underlined word “deviating” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Suffering.	B．Differing.
C．Varying.	D．Ranging.

2. In the new study conducted by three American academics, ______.

A．constant collaborators had the poorest average solution

B．all subjects had the chances to visit a variety of cities

C．individualists found the right result the most often

D．occasional collaboration promoted performance

3. From the last paragraph, we can learn that ______.

A．fashion houses were more likely creative with a single authority

B．Himalayas climbers work together to avoid potential deaths

C．Sandy Weill and John Reed were not so creative leaders

D．successful companies have one Chief Executive Officer

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．What is collaboration?	B．When does collaboration work?
C．Why collaboration is highly valued?	D．How to callborate with others in a team?

8 . An interview is a discussion with someone in which you try to get information from them.     1     There are three basic sub-types of interview: structured interviews, unstructured interviews and semi-structured interviews.     2     Incidentally, “respondent” and “informant” are words that are sometimes used instead of “interviewee”.

A great deal is provided by this personal contact: you are another human being, and interviewees will respond to you, in bodily presence, in an entirely different way from the way that they would have reacted to questionnaires that came through their letterboxes or to emails.     3     Most people want to help and give their opinions, and they will usually be energized to help by your physical presence.

If you take the trouble to schedule a visit, you can be more or less guaranteed of a response. Most importantly, though, you will be able to relate to interviewees while you are talking to them.     4     You will be able to watch their behaviour which will give you important clues about how they feel about a topic. Because of the primacy of the personal contact, your appearance and tone are important—how do you want to be seen? As “one of us”? As a person in authority? As an observer? …Or what?     5     However you decide to present yourself, it is good practice of course to try to put the interviewee at ease before the interview begins — to talk about the weather, about your journey, about anything that will break the ice.

A．This is a ready-made support for you.

B．Its nature varies with the nature of the interviews.

C．You will be able to hear and understand what they are saying.

D．Your decision should influence the way that you look, sound and behave.

E．The information may be facts or opinions or attitudes or any combination of these.

F．Each involves the interviewer in fact-to-face contact or telephone contact with another person.

G．You will be using these clues to make informed guesses about what the interviewees might really mean.

9 . The volunteer work experience is a great way to give back to the community.    1    . Choosing the best volunteer work experience is largely related to your interests and your future career goals. You may want to choose to volunteer someplace where future internships (实习) or paid positions might be available. You should consider where volunteers are most needed in your community.    2    .

As you are considering the volunteer work experience you want to get, you might start by considering your interests and where you hope to take your career. If you really enjoy working with kids and want to become a teacher, volunteering in an after-school or tutoring program can be a great place to start.    3    . Those looking for environmental work experience will also find a number of environmental nonprofit organizations. They look for volunteer help, ranging from preparing letters and answering phones to actually going out: and assisting in clean-up days.

    4    , you should begin calling organizations in your area to learn about volunteer chances. Some will require a certain number of hours, which may be relevant if you have a busy schedule. Otherwise, simply tell the organization that you want to volunteer and ask what they might need help or assistance with,    5    . Let them know what you can do, and then they might be better able to match you up with volunteer opportunities.

A．It also improves your job skills

B．If you don’t know how to hunt for a job

C．Certain skills can help you get volunteer chances

D．You should find a larger organization in the community

E．Such nonprofit organizations can really need volunteers

F．If you like animals, animal rescue centers can be your best choice

G．Once you’ve narrowed down the type of volunteer work experience

10 . GOING TO UNIVERSITY is supposed to be a mind-broadening experience. That statement is probably made in comparison to training for work straight after school, which might not be so encouraging. But is it actually true? Jessika Golle of the University of Tübingen, in Germany, thought she would try to find out. Her result, however, is not quite what might be expected. As she reports in Psychological Science this week, she found that those who have been to university do indeed seem to leave with broader and more inquiring minds than those who have spent their immediate post-school years in vocational (职业的) training for work. However, it was not the case that university broadened minds. Rather, work seemed to narrow them.

Dr. Golle came to this conclusion after she and a team of colleagues studied the early careers of 2,095 German youngsters. The team used two standardized tests to assess their volunteers. One was of personality traits, including openness, conscientiousness（认真）and so on. The other was of attitudes, such as realistic, investigative and enterprising. They administered both tests twice—once towards the end of each volunteer’s time at school, and then again six years later. Of the original group, 382 were on the intermediate track, from which there was a choice between the academic and vocational routes, and it was on these that the researchers focused. University beckoned for 212 of them. The remaining 170 chose vocational training and a job.

When it came to the second round of tests, Dr. Golle found that the personalities of those who had gone to university had not changed significantly. Those who had undergone vocational training and then got jobs were not that much changed in personality, either—except in one crucial respect. They had become more conscientious.

That sounds like a good thing, certainly compared with the common public image of undergraduates as a bunch of lazybones. But changes in attitude that the researchers recorded were rather worrying. In the university group, again, none were detectable. But those who had chosen the vocational route showed marked drops in interest in tasks that are investigative and enterprising in nature. And that might restrict their choice of careers.

Some investigative and enterprising jobs, such as scientific research, are, indeed beyond the degreeless. But many, particularly in Germany, with its tradition of vocational training, are not. The researchers mention, for example, computer programmers and finance-sector workers as careers requiring these traits. If Dr. Golle is correct, and changes in attitude brought about by the very training Germany prides itself on are narrowing people’s choices, that is indeed a matter worthy of serious consideration.

1. Which of the following can best replace “beckoned for” in Paragraph 2?

A．Examined.	B．Attracted.
C．Organized.	D．Recognized.

2. What can we learn from the research?

A．The degreeless have not changed in personalities.

B．Going to university is a mind-broadening experience.

C．Working straight after school narrows people’s minds.

D．College students pride themselves on their education.

3. According to the last two paragraphs,          .

A．college students enjoy a very good public image

B．the undergraduates have changed significantly in attitude

C．the degreeless are much better at dealing with challenging tasks

D．people show less interest in investigative jobs due to vocational training

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the finding?

A．Concerned.	B．Optimistic.
C．Unclear.	D．Sceptical.