Competing in a global world

[Jinsei]

I have read a number of posts recently about how much more competitive the world has become, and the importance of preparing our kids to thrive and succeed in the global market. I don't doubt the truth of this, but I'm curious to know what people think will help the next generation to compete.

For me, this means focusing on the soft skills such as communication, teamwork and people skills, in addition to the more traditional qualifications etc. Cultural awareness and language skills are also important in my view. And IT literacy is another obvious one.

But I'd like to know what others think. What skills and competencies do you think your kids are going to need in order to succeed in their future careers. And do you do anything to help them acquire/develop these skills? If so, what?

Any routine technical task that can be performed on a computer is at risk of delocalisation.

A man who came here to deliver, might even have been Tesco and ended up taking my business card for his own business advice, has a second business outsourcing professionals in India. he is an Anglo-Indian doing well out of it although I suppose not that well that he can yet give up the Tesco delivery job.

What is happening a bit though is on-shoring - that wages go up in India and China as those nations become richer so it can then become worthwhile having your clothes made in Europe as one clothing manufacturer does so fashions can get in the shops in weeks, not months.

I am not suggesting there isn't a movement to Bric countries but we do not necessarily have to lose out. As wealth does not correlate to happiness I tend not to cry into my pillow that most of the globe is no longer pink and the sun has ceased never to set on the British Empire. Large parts of China, India, Bazil are very very poor and not all the people by any means are well educated. However they are huge markets for the West.

Cameron's new restrictions on business and student visas are very very short sighted and losing Britain business.

I am interested in this idea of 'getting your hands dirty'. I keep telling my DC that jobs aren't all glitz and glamour, they are mostly mundane eg you might need a pilot for take off and landing and if there is an emergency but most of the time the job can be done by auto-pilot.
So, MN jury, how much of your working time is honestly spent doing 'high level' stuff that only someone of your experience could do and what percentage is 'auto pilot' stuff.

I'm not sure that you have framed your question properly, senua, if you will forgive me! For example, someone with a highly-skilled job will be in automatic mode for much of the time because he/she is highly experienced in, say, managing a large company. That doesn't mean to say that his/her skills were not difficult to acquire and valuable because they are rare.

Most of my stuff is fairly high level advice. When I dod something mundane (a fwe weeks ago I wielded the automatic number stamper) I think it's a good reminder of basic tasks.

Most young graduates whether junior doctors, management consultants, lawyers or whatever will do some grunt stuff. It is partly because when you start you nkow nothing. you tend to know even less in some ways than the receptionalist and porters who have been there 20 years. You have to learn from the bottom up before anyone lets you lose on the public.

Most of what I do now nearly 30 years on most people can't do which is reflected in what I charge.

I obviously didn't frame it properly. Let's try again.
How much of your day is spent doing the whizzo stuff that careers advisors bang on about and how much is spent on boring stuff like filing, managing e-mails, sorting out the staff holidays, doing reports that no-one reads, finding someone to unblock the toilets, etc etc etc etc.

Yes, and wielding the automatic number stamper too. Thank you Xenia, that's the sort of thing I mean.

I think that depends to a certain extent on the size of the company you work in. Large companies can afford to have specific departments. I worked in a company where there were different teams (typing pools) for Powerpoint and for Word, for example. And a photocopying department. My DP, in a largeish SME, has a secretary who types Powerpoint presentations for him, does his photocopying and also makes travel arrangements, diary management etc.

I think we have to get our dc and ourselves used to the idea that studying and working abroad for periods of their lives will be the norm and to embrace it. Our education system needs to gear up and match the standards of other countries and not be so inward looking. I will also say our dc will need a stronger work ethic as well so we might all need to be more like the tigermums!

@Bonsoir Actually, it depends on what your role actually is. Nobody could do my powerpoints for me. They aren't marketing blurb (that, I can't write) they are (sometimes) highly technical stuff that only a few people in the world let alone the UK are qualified to write (obviously, sometimes they are a load of bobbins that an intelligent or not so intelligent chimp could produce but we all have days like that, right? ;) ). Our publications people sometimes put the slides into house style but they often muck up the technical content which then has to be redone.

It is really hard to generalise between jobs. I work for myself. I don't have much admin, staff etc so I don't have pointless meetings. People pay me for my advice and the other stuff I do/sell. My oldest who is in her first job somewhere fairly big (in UK) does some routine stuff but it is not what a secretary could do on the whole although I'm sure if they are working through the night as they fairly often do and no one else is around they all pitch in and do what has to be done. She had 450 documents ready for a meeting the other week. I imagine a lot of those were fairly similar but needed someone fairly knowledgeable (her) to get them 100% right. I doubt a secretary could do that. Her boss would not be drafting the 450 but would have overall responsibility for them so presumably checked some of them. Other daughter in similar job they just got a new secretary where she is which will help with some routine stuff but even so as she's also just starting out she will have some fairly junior work to start with.

However if the question was really directed at do people at the top really just do things any old person could do and it's all a bit of con, I would disagree. There are very few people in the UK who can give the advice I did by telephone this morning and ditto the comments about powerpoints - few have the knowledge to put on those slides what some of us can hence we get paid a lot.

I think that depends to a certain extent on the size of the company you work in. Large companies can afford to have specific departments. I worked in a company where there were different teams (typing pools) for Powerpoint and for Word, for example. And a photocopying department. My DP, in a largeish SME, has a secretary who types Powerpoint presentations for him, does his photocopying and also makes travel arrangements, diary management etc.

Totally depends on the company culture. I worked for a very big; very well known, very well respected global company and everyone was expected to pitch in. Top top management had secretaries for travel etc. but everyone did their own photocopying, went to fetch their own printing from a central printing station etc. It was run on a very lean managaement model, no business class travel as a rule, no secretaries, no excess. They got away with it because it is a field that is perceived as 'glamourous' and they have Oxbridge grads fighting for places on their grad scheme. They rarely take non Oxbridge or equivalent. Anybody not willing to pitch in would not last long.

iseenodust Trades is something DH and I will not discourage our DC's to go into. I have an uncle who is a joiner, a close family friend is a gardener, my friend from school is a hairdresser and another family friend is a builder - insulation. They are all worth millions.

They all love what they do and they own the business. Apart from my friend who is a hairdresser, they are all now in their 50's so their worth is an accumulation of all the hard work they put into their business. Also, they all left school at 16 and started their businesses in their late 20's with around 10 years of experience. I notice that none of these are jobs that can be outsourced. You can't make flower arrangements in India and fly them to the UK, you can't cut someone's hair in China and you can't outsource the repair of a home. It is the same with medicine, nursing and to a certain extent, law.

I don't know if I want our DC's to go into corporate life. We have done ok from it but I think in the future the rewards are going to be less. DH is shocked at the salaries he sees the new kids coming in at. His assistant is excellent and DH had to fight tooth and nail to keep her salary the same this year.

@want I broadly agree. ISTR from your previous posts in various threads that we are in the same sector. I'd be quite sad if my DCs went into the same field to be brutally honest. None of my top level colleagues are encouraging their kids to follow our path either, lucrative though it currently may be. I guess what we want ultimately is for our DCs to have choices.

at 'global world'

Proofreading?

Yes, it has always been global. Galileo got in a bit of trouble for asserting as much.

Yes Meta I have noticed the same thing. My mentors daughter is a nutritionist and his son works in television. The others tend to be doctors or lawyers with a few of the girls going into teaching. The pay is low considering the hours worked and study undertaken to get qualified.

Generally in the UK we have had this snob thing about the professions. We had the aristocracy who thought it awful if people worked (you lived on your investments). Then next tier down were the proper professions - medicine, law and the church which weren't quite as nasty as being "in trade", then those in industry - all those Yorkshire accented rich mill owners and then all the workers/ servants etc below them. May be that in part explains the attraction of some to professions over going into Unilever to work as a graduate trainee. Or may be not at all.

Yes, I was reading a book written in the 1920s and the local lady of the manor just about fraternised with the vicar on occasion, but certainly not the doctor.

Even now there are class distinctions. Have you ever met a posh person working in the public sector? I never have. They always seem to be doing something "hobbyish" such as small own business (which occasionally turn out to be successful) or perhaps estate agency. The abler ones are gambling in the City.

Anyway, global schmobel - I don't think we can predict the future in these turbulent times. Dh says he wished he'd thought of founding a lifts (as in elevators) company instead of farting around in meedjery jobs. You look around London, nay, the world, and realise that Mr Lift must be doing very well indeed.

gramercy the media and publishing are full of the nouveau pauvre .

I was on a graduate scheme for an investment bank. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on. The graduate scheme was not much different from their old scheme where they took 16 years olds. 52 of us started in 2004 and no one from our intake remains at that bank and more than half of us have left the industry. I don't see such high turnover with professions such as medicine, law or the church. Given the choice between a profession and going into a graduate program, such as the one provided by Unilever, I would go into a profession every single time.

The thing is, the "glam" jobs, in media, marketing, politics, Formula 1, Royal Ballet, fashion, music etc. are invariably taken by those for whom it is not so much a profession as a hobby.

I remember being told as a new grad that in women's magazines, salaries are directly inversely proportionate to the perceived glamour of the title. So, if you are a junior editor on Vogue you can expect an unpaid "internship" or at very best about £15K but the "chav mags" (derogatory industry term for Bella and Take a Break et al) pay a decent wage.

After graduating from an elite university, my brother applied for a post as parliamentary secretary for a lesser MP. Got through to the last round, then discovered the post was unpaid. So, that type of job which leads to loads of networking opps is by necessity only available to those whose parents already own a flat in London and are willing to support their offspring for another 3 years. My brother was disgusted, declined and went off and got a well paid management grad job with a supermarket.

greythorn that's why the country is as it is. There is no meritocracy. Just nepotism.

By Royal Ballet, I obviously meant the behind the scenes stuff! Marketing, etc. Not the dancers!

Ah greythorne the tyranny of the internship.
Another way to ensure the rich stay in power.