研究生英语系列教材综合教程上 unit18 reading focus 文字版精校版.docx

1、研究生英语系列教材综合教程上 unit18 reading focus 文字版精校版TRAITS OF THE KEY PLAYERSDavid G. Jensen1 What exactly is a key player? A Key Player is a phrase that Ive heard about from employers during just about every search Ive conducted. I asked a client - a hiring manager involved in a recent search - to define it

2、for me. Every company has a handful of staff in a given area of expertise that you can count on to get the job done. On my team of seven process engineer and biologists, Ive got two or three whom I just couldnt live without, he said. Key players are essential to my organization. And when we hire you

3、r company to recruit for us, we expect that youll be going into other companies and finding just that: the staff that another manager will not want to see leave. We recruit only key players.2 This is part of a pep talk intended to send headhunters into competitors companies to talk to the most exper

4、ienced staff about making a change. They want to hire a key player from another company. Every company also hires from the ranks of newbies, and what theyre looking for is exactly the same. We hold them up to the standards we see in our top people. If it looks like they have these same traits, well

5、place a bet on them. Its just a bit riskier.3 Its an educated guess, says my hiring manager client. Your job as a future employee is to help the hiring manager mitigate that risk. You need to help them identify you as a prospective key player.4 Trait 1: The selfless collaborator John Fetzer, career

6、consultant and chemist, first suggested this trait, which has already been written about a great deal. It deserves repeating because it is the single most public difference between academia and industry. Its teamwork, says Fetzer The business environment is less lone-wolf and competitive, so signs o

7、f being collaborative and selfless stand out. You just cant succeed in an industry environment without this mindset5 Many peptides and grad students have a tough time showing that they can make this transition because so much of their life has involved playing the independent- researcher role and ou

8、tshining other young stars. You can make yourself more attractive to companies by working together with scientists from other laboratories and disciplines in pursuit of a common goaland documenting the results on your resume. This approach, combined with a liberal use of the pronoun we and not just

9、I when describing your accomplishments, can change the companys perception of you from a lone wolf to a selfless collaborator. Better still, develop a reputation inside your lab and with people your lab collaborates with as a person who fosters and initiates collaborationsand make sure this quality

10、gets mentioned by those who will take those reference phone calls.6 Trait 2: A sense of urgencyDon Haut is a frequent contributor to the aas.sciencecareers. org discussion forum. He is a former scientist who transitioned to industry many years ago and then on to a senior management position. Haut he

11、ads strategy and business development for a division of 3M with more than $2.4 billion in annual revenues. He is among those who value a sense of urgency.7 Business happens 24/7/365 which means that competition happens 24/7/365, as well, says Haut. One way that companies win is by getting there fast

12、er, which means that you not only have to mobilize all of the functions that support a business to move quickly, but you have to know how to decide where there is! This creates a requirement not only for people who can act quickly, but for those who can think fast and have the courage to act on thei

13、r convictions. This requirement needs to run throughout an organization and is not exclusive to management. 8 Trait 3: Risk toleranceBeing OK with risk is something that industry demands. A candidate needs to have demonstrated the ability to make decisions with imperfect or incomplete information. H

14、e or she must be able to embrace ambiguity and stick his or her neck out to drive to a conclusion, wrote one of my clients in a job description.9 Haut agrees. Business success is often defined by comfort with ambiguity and risk- personal, organizational, and financial. This creates a disconnect for

15、many scientists because success in academia is really more about careful, studied research. Further, great science is often defined by how one gets to the answer as much as by the answer itself, so scientists often fall in love with the process. In a business, you need to understand the process, but

16、 you end up falling in love with the answer and then take a risk based on what you think that answer means to your business. Putting your neck on the line like this is a skill set that all employers look for in their best people.10 Another important piece of risk tolerance is a candidates degree of comfort with failure. Failure is important because it shows that you were not afraid to take chances. So companies consi