2. 职称英语
  3. Read the article below about careers in children’s book publishing and the q

Read the article below about careers in children’s book publishing and the q

游客2025-05-17  2
问题     Read the article below about careers in children’s book publishing and the questions on the opposite page.
    For each question(13-18), mark one letter(A, B, C or D)on your Answer Sheet.
                            Leading from the top
        Catherine Bauer looks at career development in children’s book publishing
To get on in the world of children’s book publishing one needs to be ’bright, nice and not ambitious’. Those are the words of a 37-year-old manager thinking about leaving the industry. Managers in other industries would, by that age, be striving towards greater leadership challenges and rewards, while Human Resources departments would be doing all they could to prevent hungry competitors from getting hold of experienced and talented employees. Maintaining successful corporations and happy shareholders is, after all, dependent on using the talents and experience of one’s staff, not on being nice.
Career progression in the children’s sector of publishing seems to be determined almost by luck rather than a proper career structure or assessment of employees’ competencies. Sarah Carter, for example, started her career as an assistant in the customer service department at William Davis Publishing. She only became aware of a vacancy in public relations because her department was on the same floor as the publicity office. ’I had already been promoted to manager in my department, but realised that any career development there would be limited. I decided to move sideways into PR, which was also where I felt my skills were more suited. I was lucky a position came up within the company.’
Across the publishing houses, staff training or development is generally dependent on the approach taken by your immediate boss. Virginia Coutts, editorial director at Prodigy Publications, says, ’This is fine, if you happen to have one who is effective. When I started at Prodigy I worked for Roger Gibbons. I was in children’s fiction, but he also gave me some work on picture books and non-fiction, and that meant I gained experience in a range of areas. He also made sure that new people didn’t come in, train and then move on. And it wasn’t a question of being here for three years or so before you got promoted.’
Not everyone has a similar experience with their manager, but this is not surprising when one considers that few managers have themselves had any structured training. Mark Harlock, marketing manager at T R Publishers, says, ’My job change into management was completely unsupported - my requests for training took months, and by the time they were approved the need had passed. Yes, you learn on the job, but how much more constructive for all involved if it happens in a structured way. Surely this would speed up the learning curve?’
However, there are changes in the air. At Little Feet Publications, Barbara Foster has been overhauling the company’s training and career structure so that all employees have regular appraisals. ’We are ahead of our competitors here at Little Feet, but even we are only beginning to scratch the surface. So far there’s been little opposition to the appraisals, but there’s still loads to do and the results will not become clear for a few years yet.’
Perhaps the industry should consider itself lucky to have so many dedicated managers who have, through a combination of chance and determination, successfully developed their careers in publishing. Clearly it now needs to review what is being done to develop, train and reward the next generation of bosses. Above all, the industry has to find more people with entrepreneurial spirit and push them into demanding roles rather than make them serve their time at a junior level. But such changes can only come from the very top. [br] In using the words ’scratch the surface’(line 30), Barbara Foster means that her actions
选项 A、have started something that will take a lot of work to complete.
B、have revealed big problems that she could not have foreseen.
C、may turn out to be unpopular with some employees.
D、may cause disputes with other publishers.
答案 A
解析
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