2018年BEC閱讀精選及解析(11)

Issues in the recruitment world

In the competitive world of investment banking, good senior executives are not easy to find. So what should the industry's hard-pressed directors do when they need to find senior staff? Increasingly, they decide to call in the headhunters. These are busy and profitable times for the recruitment agencies that dominate the world of executive search and selection.

(0) .....They needed new people to revitalise their operations, and the result has been a boom in the recruitment market. Pinnacle, a leading recruitment agency, has helped various UK investment banks to rebuild their entire senior management teams. It is hard to overstate the significance of this. (8)............

But now everything has changed, and Pinnacle is not the only major player in the field. Some analysts believe that rival recruitment specialists ALT Associates has a larger share of the market. However, there is little doubt that over its 13-year history, Pinnacle and its chairman, Matthew Edwards, have built up an impressive reputation.

Edwards estimates that his company controls between 10 and 15 per cent of the headhunting market for senior investment banking jobs in the UK. (9)............Rather, it is the high-calibre jobs and people that Pinnacle deals with that define the company's success. For example, the company was recently commissioned to find a new chairman for NBS Bank, a vacancy that was one of the most talked about in the banking world.

Most HR directors recognise that headhunters such as Pinnacle play a valuable role in the recruitment process.(10)............Some are concerned that a few companies, including Pinnacle, have too much power over high-level recruitment.(11)............As Tim Davidson, HR Director at Cawfield Bank, explains, They can be kingmakers. These are the people who decide who gets a future and who doesn't. If Edwards forms a view about an individual, it can affect their ability to get a particular job. That view could just have been formed on a bad day.' (12)............ Final decisions in the selection process are always taken by his clients, he says, whoever they are.

The role of headhunters should not be exaggerated. Many companies never use them. But as top executives are hard to find, there will always be a role for people like Matthew Edwards.

A Although others may put it lower, it is important to remember that the company's reputation is not based on market share alone.

B Their chief worry is that the headhunters can now make or break managerial careers.

C According to Edwards, this is a further indication that the way Pinnacle searches for a candidate tends to favour a certain type of manager.

D But this acceptance does not mean they are universally happy, either with the state of the market or with Pinnacle's role within it.

E Until a few years ago, even the biggest companies were unlikely to use headhunters to fill more than one or two jobs a year.

F Edwards objects to this suggestion, claiming that all he does is find candidates and encourage them to apply for a particular post.

G A number of big investment banks recently decided to make changes to their management boards after disappointing end-of-year results.

《Issues in the recruitment world》，招聘世界里的話題。圍繞獵頭公司(headhunter)展開，說明了獵頭公司的發(fā)展和重要性，以及用人單位對獵頭公司的一些疑問。第一段引出話題，說現(xiàn)在正是獵頭公司占領(lǐng)市場的時候。接下來幾段順序介紹了獵頭市場的發(fā)展階段，從起步階段(第二段的內(nèi)容)，到逐步發(fā)家(第三段)，當中列舉了一個獵頭公司的情況加以說明(第四段)，然后第五段介紹了用人單位對獵頭公司的一些質(zhì)疑。最后一段是總的概括。做這種題一定要理清文章的邏輯順序，從整體上把握文章脈絡(luò)。

第八題，第二段的最后一句。第二段是簡單引出獵頭公司的起步，起步階段并沒有多少公司認識到獵頭公司的重要性，就如第八題前面的一句話所說：It is hard to overstate the significance of this。很難高估這個的重要性，也就是說獵頭公司的作用并沒有被完全的認識到。后面的空格應(yīng)該相應(yīng)的填入獵頭公司不太被重視的句子。E選項正好滿足這個特點：直到幾年前，甚至最大的公司都不可能一年利用獵頭公司來填補一兩個職位。