Careers

During the term parties of boys paid three careers visits. The first was to The Yorkshire Insurance Company, mainly to see their new computer and data processing equipment. This company, along with many others, offers extremely interesting careers in programming such equipment. This work should attract boys interested in dealing with problems—it seems to be a cross between advanced mathematics and chess. The work would appeal to a quieter type of person who is perhaps less interested in meeting a wide range of people. In the case of an insurance company, some knowledge of insurance would have to be gained first, and it might be that the candidate would find that one of the many good openings in insurance might appeal to him more. During our visit we saw machines calculating premiums from information supplied on punched cards. Perhaps as laymen we were most impressed by receiving copies of the silhouette of York Minster, the trade mark of the "Yorkshire", "drawn" as a result of a programme fed into the machine.

The second visit was to M. Harland and Son Ltd., Specialising Printers, of Hull. This company is looking for lively candidates to train particularly for the sales side, and this would be a fine opportunity for those with drive, but perhaps not very strong academic qualifications.

The third visit was to the Ford Motor Company. This was a most interesting and exhausting visit, particularly as we had spent a somewhat short night in sleepers, in order to be at Dagenham early in the morning. The whole party was very impressed by the wide variety of careers, both technical and non-technical, offered by the company. One of the most impressive features was that we found that many men were working in spheres other than those for which they had been trained, and this particularly applied to the non-technical men. This emphasised the fact

that a professional qualification, or a degree, or a combination of the two, provides a very wide variety of choice to the candidate for an industrial

career. This case of working in some other field than that for which the

man has been trained is more common in industry than is probably

generally believed.

Full reports of the visits to Harland's and Ford's appear later.

During the holidays I was privileged to be invited to attend a Unilever

Final Selection Board as an observer. This gave me some idea of the care with which large industrial organisations select their potential man-

agers. The Board I attended was to select for the Unilever Junior Trainee

scheme and all six candidates are still at school. These candidates had already survived two hurdles. The first hurdle is a pre-selection stage when a short list is drawn up from a very large number of applicants, according to their paper qualifications and the statements they have made on the very comprehensive application form. The second hurdle is the

Preliminary Selection Board which follows a similar pattern to the Final

Board.

The Final Selection Board consists of two selectors, who are Managers

in constituent companies of the organisation, and they are advised by two psychologists from an independent institute. The chair is taken by the Director of personnel services, who is assisted by a member of the personnel department. During the day the candidates are subjected to a series of group tests followed by personal interviews with the advisers

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and then with the selectors. Finally, in the evening, the whole Board meets and discusses each candidate most carefully in order to assess his potential value to the organisation. Only one of the six candidates was successful in this particular case, and it seemed to me that what carried him through were the fallowing factors: — (i) His breadth of interest and knowledge. (ii) His ability to grasp a situation and to discuss it clearly, with full mastery of the relevant facts. (iii) The ability to argue with others without antagonizing them— an obvious requirement necessary in any manager.

It was interesting that the candidate with the highest intelligence rating was not seriously considered because he gave no evidence of making full use of his talents and lacked the breadth of interests and knowledge referred to above.

It may worry possible candidates to know that if they apply for such a scheme their chance of being offered a place may be very small, and they may wonder what happens to those who fail such a Board. In this case one other candidate was to be offered direct training with a constituent company of the organisation, though he may not have accepted this. I have since heard that many small companies are only too ready to employ candidates who have done well enough to reach a Unilever Final Selection Board. However, others may not be completely turned down at this stage. In fact, one of the remaining four was advised to take up a place at University as they felt that he was not mature enough for a training such as they would give him They pointed out to him that he could be considered again as a graduate trainee without prejudice, and it may be that the wider experience of University would make all the difference in his second attempt.

VISIT TO M. HARLAND & SON LTD.

To many people a career in the printing industry might at first seem dull and lacking in opportunity, but those who visited the works of M. Harland and Son, of Hull, discovered what an interesting and lucrative industry it can be. The company is a family business, and is one of the more progressive printing firms in the country, and amongst other things prints 90 per cent of the theatre tickets in the country.

The company has two factories, one inside Hull printing on sheets of paper, and the other, a newer one, on the outskirts of the city, printing on rolls. It was the latter factory that we first visited. After being suitably impressed by the directors' cars, we were taken into the Works Manager's office where we were shown the layout of the factory. We then had lunch in the canteen, and were again impressed. The factory was built recently, being "tailored" to suit the needs of the firm, and because of this a system known as "forward planning" has been evolved, whereby the raw materials enter the works at one end and go through progressive stages, ending up with the finished product. Incorporated with this idea, is a system of division into various units of production. We were shown new machines, techniques and processes, all of which increased our admiration of the firm.

At the old factory in the city, Harland's print on sheets, on the lower floors, but, what is more remarkable, assemble much of their own machinery on the top floor. Incidentally, we noticed that some machines 14