Before you begin …
If your students are employed (or have work experience), ask them if they have ever had any experience of working with headhunters and/or recruitment agencies. Ask students to give you an explanation of the difference between the two. Ask them to think about:
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l the way each organisation works
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l the types of jobs they typically deal with.
Suggested answers
The major differences between headhunters and a recruitment agency are in job level and methodology.
Typically, headhunters deal with senior executive appointments including extremely important positions such as a Chief Executive position for a whole region (e.g. USA, Europe, China, etc.). Because of the level of appointments, headhunters use a lot of networking and actively search for suitable candidates.
This will lead them to approach people directly and discreetly to ask them if they would be interested in an opportunity with another company
The work of recruitment agencies on the other hand will include some managerial positions but quite often focuses on manual and office work. Recruitment
agencies tend to collect CVs that have been sent by people looking for jobs and match them up with information about vacancies they have received from companies.
6 a
Go through the instructions carefully with the class. You could point out that this type of task, in which students are asked to pick out the key words and phrases which best summarise the main information, is a useful real-life skill for the workplace. Make sure students understand that they can underline short phrases as well as single words. Students work alone to complete the task and then compare their answers in pairs. Finally, compare students’ answers with those from the Answer key. Some examples of candidate summaries can be found in Exercise 7a.Suggested answers
creative, experience of working in international sales, ambitious, extensive knowledge of the telecoms industry, persuasive communicator, dynamic leader, motivating and creating a winning team, high-level achiever, proven track record, delivering results in new markets
Extension activity 1
Write the following questions on the board:
1 Which phrases suggest action in progress?
2 Which phrase uses a conditional form to make an urgent request more polite?
3 Which phrase uses a conditional form to offer information?
Alternatively, you could dictate the questions. If you do choose to dictate, explain to students that you will repeat the question as many times as they want but you will always repeat the full question, not a part of it. You should also try to dictate the question as it would be spoken naturally (i.e. not slowly and word by word).
Students read the email again to answer the questions in pairs and then feed back to the class.
Answers
1 We are looking …; I am inviting …; we are seeking … 2 I would appreciate it if you could …
3 If you have any questions, please feel free to …
Extension activity 2
Discuss with the class which phrases or complete sentences from the email students could use when writing an email to a headhunter. Explain that whole sentences are also useful, as these can be stored in word processing files for automatic insertion. This is especially true of the last paragraph, all of which could be used (see Suggested answers below).
Suggested answers
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l We are looking to make a new, high-level appointment and I am inviting you to source candidates on our behalf.
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l We are happy to consider people from …
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l Specifically, we are seeking: …
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l I know that you maintain a large database of highly qualified professionals and contacts and I would appreciate it if you could get back to me at your earliest convenience with candidate summaries of anyone whom you might think suitable. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
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l Thanking you in advance.
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l Kind regards,
b
Go through the pattern with the class. Ask students to suggest more phrases for each column, either from the email or from students’ own ideas.Suggested answers
with
a proven track record of delivering results.
qualifications from a professional body.
a background in marketing.
the energy and drive to lead our company in new markets.
c
Students work in small groups to make phrases. If they struggle to come up with five phrases, encourage them to think of at least three. Afterwards, elicit the best phrases from the class.Suggested answers
with experience of working in an international restaurant with the ability to lead a team of kitchen staff
with extensive knowledge of designing exclusive menus with skills in creating original recipes
with experience of preparing meals for VIP and celebrity clientele
Extension activity
Students write an email to a headhunting agency, either for the master chef job or for the job they wrote about in Exercise 5.
7 a
Divide the class into groups of three and assign each student in each group a letter (i.e. Student A, Student B and Student C) so they know which candidate to look at on pages 87–89. Point out that they will need to analyse their candidates carefully, using the criteria in Exercise 4a and the four questions in Exercise 7a.Allow around four minutes for students to analyse their candidates. If you don’t have a multiple of three students, you will need to have one or two pairs, where both Students A and B look at Student C’s candidate after they have analysed their own.
Suggested answers Candidate A
1 MBA, over 10 years in telecoms sector (phone networks), project management, leadership, fluent English
2 New product development, negotiation, PR, creativity/imagination, fluent Russian, marketing qualification
3 Possibly 4 Yes Candidate B
1 Over 16 years in telecoms sector, project management, new product development, leadership, fluent Russian
2 MBA, negotiation, PR, creativity/imagination, fluent English, marketing qualification
3 No, unlikely
4 A lot of telecoms but mostly in research roles Candidate C
1 MBA, project management, leadership, new product development, experience in telecoms sector, fluent English, fluent Russian
2 How many years’ experience in telecoms? negotiation, PR, creativity/
imagination, marketing qualification 3 Possibly
4 Probably – limited telecoms but good commercial background
Note
Some HR and workplace-related vocabulary items:
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l A shift leader is a team leader for a particular shift (e.g. the night shift).
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l The major player in a market is the market leader and the company which has the majority of business.
b
Students work in their groups of three to present their candidate’s strengths and weaknesses and then discuss in their groups which candidates to select for interview (if any).Extension activity
Ask students to read all three candidate profiles to find useful collocations with the verbs take and gain. You can help students by giving the following examples from Candidate A:
gain an MBA = verb + article + noun take a job = verb + article + noun
Suggested answers
gain a position (Candidate A)
gain the confidence of others (Candidate A) gain experience (Candidate B)
gain market share (Candidate C) take responsibility for sth (Candidate A) take a (similar) position (Candidate C) take on a (significant) challenge (Candidate C)