If you know exactly what you want, the best way to get a job is to get specialized training. A recent survey shows that companies like graduates in such fields as business and health care who can go to work immediately with very little on-the-job training.
That’s especially true of booming fields that are challenging for workers. At Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, for example, bachelor’s degree graduates get an average of four or five job offers with salaries ranging from the high teens to the low 20s and plenty of chances for rapid advancement. Large companies, especially, like a background of formal education coupled with work experience. But in the long run, too much specialization doesn’t pay off. Business, which has been flooded with MBAs, no longer considers the degree an automatic stamp of approval. The MBA may open doors and command a higher salary initially, but the effect of a degree washes out after five years.
As further evidence of companies gradually losing faith in specialized degrees, Michigan State’s Scheetz mentions a pattern in hiring practices. Although companies tend to take on specialists as new hires, they often seek out generalists for middle and upper-level management. “They want someone who isn’t constrained（限制）by details to look at the big picture,” says Scheetz. This sounds like a formal statement that you approve of the liberal-arts （文科）graduates. Time and again labor-market analysts mention a need for talents that liberal-arts majors are assumed to have: writing and communication skills, organizational skills, open-mindedness and adaptability, and the ability to analyze and solve problems. David Birch, manager of the Boston Red Sox, claims he does not hire anybody with an MBA or an engineering degree, “I hire only liberal-arts people because they have a less-than-canned way of doing things,” says Birch.
For a liberal-arts degree, students focus on some basic courses that include literature, history, mathematics, economics, science, human behavior—plus a computer course or two. With these useful and important courses, you can feel free to specialize, “A liberal-arts degree coupled with an MBA or some other technical training is a very good combination in the marketplace,” says Scheetz.
小题1:
What kinds of people are in high demand on the job market?
A．Students with a bachelor’s degree in humanities.
B．People with an MBA degree from top universities.
C．People with formal schooling plus work experience.
D．People with special training in engineering小题2:
By saying “…but the effect of a degree washes out after five years”(Para 2), the author means .
A．most MBA programs fail to provide students with a solid foundation
B．an MBA degree does not help in the future promotion
C．MBA programs will not be as popular in five years’ time as they are now
D．people will not forget about the degree the MBA graduates have got小题3:
According to Scheetz’s statement ( Para. 3), companies prefer people who .
A．have a strategic mind
B．are talented in fine arts
C．are ambitious and aggressive
D．have received training in mechanics小题4:
David Birch claims that he only hires liberal-arts people because they .
A．are more capable of handling changing situations
B．can stick to established ways of solving problems
C．are thoroughly trained in a variety of specialized fields
D．have attended special programs in management小题5:
Which of the following statements does the author support?
A．Specialists are more expensive to hire than generalists.
B．Formal schooling is less important than job training.
C．On-the-job training is, in the long run, less costly.
D．Generalists will do better than specialists in management.