Holding down a top job

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32474, 8 December 1970, Page 7

Holding down a top job

(By HELEN HOWARD)

LONDON.

Have you got what it takes to hold down a top job? In other words, could you be your own boss in an office as well as in your home?

The key is personality, which, according to business experts and staff finders, can unlock more doors than even a diploma. But without the right contacts, it seems, it does not matter if you have top qualifications or all the personality in the world. Now, at long last, a woman is aiming to put matters right She is Mrs BeatriceYates, the principal of a London staff agency. She has just opened what she calls a “special appointments division.” Judging by its success already, there is every indication that similar specialised organisations will soon be springing up all over the world. r “And not before time,” says Mrs Yates. “For far too long girls have missed the

boat as far as the top jobs are concerned. And the problem is made worse because, more often than not, the bosses themselves don’t know how to go about finding girls with the right qualifications.”.. RESEARCH DONE Mrs Yates’s'company- has spent two and a half years of “in-depth” research into the question of whether there is any future for the woman executive. And the answer, apparently, is a resounding yes. The company, in addition to carrying on its normal work of finding staff, will find top jobs for top women in the same way management consultants do for men. It is perhaps hard to imagine that a girl with a university degree should find it a hard job to get work in keeping with her education. But in fact it is happening all the time. “A friend of mine left Cambridge, with a degree, and now she’s doing a very menial job at the British Foreign Office,” says Mrs Yates. “And another girl with a social science degree told me that she and her friends, who also had degrees, found it terribly difficult to get work for which they were obviously qualified.” The reason for this state of affairs, says Mrs Yates, is the inadequacy of careers and appointments boards at schools and colleges. “True, they attempt' to match a girl’s qualifications with a vacancy,” she says, “but that’s only a small part of what should be done. PERSONALITY '“They don’t, for example, take into consideration a girl’s personality, nor do they discuss with a prospective employer just what' type of girl the firm- is looking for, and just what exactly the work entails. .. “That’s were we come in. First we discuss with employers the requirements they’re seeking. Then we put the girls on our files through a very searching interview to find out if they’re capable of doing what’s expected of hem. " < . .-t :

“And believe it or not, it’s not always the girl with a string of qualifications who can land a top job. If a girl has. drive, initiative, confidence, and a sparkling personality, we can often persuade

employers to take them on and train them.” The first thing Mrs Yates’s company advises a girl, if she has not done so already, is to take a secretarial course. “We’ve found that a top secretary’s job in a firm is very often the passport to something even better,” she says. “Many firms allow girls to compete for top jobs, which are only advertised internally, after spending a year or so with them.” The “in” jobs at the moment, says Mr Yates, are in the communicative fields. POPULAR JOBS “Not so long ago, girls flocked to us to try and find jobs for them in leading advertising agencies. Now, the most sought-after jobs are public relations, market research and journalism. Computer programming, too, is in demand. In most cases, women are as good if not better than men. “The accent today is on jobs which carry a great amount of responsibility and jobs which allow freedom of thought and expression. And probably the best girls for these positions are girls with bags of personality. If they have qualifications, as well, they’re laughing.” Apparently, though, many employers are still loath to taking on women for executive positions because of the fear they will soon marry, have children and leave. But, Mrs Yates points out, research has shown that more men under 30 leave or switch jobs than women. She also thinks that much more should be done to encourage women back to specialised work after they have raised families. ' “Because business methods are changing all the time, many women are frightened to return to the sort of work they' once did,’’ says Mrs Yates. “They worry that everything will be so different they will find it hard to pick up the threads.

CLASSES NEEDED “The obvious answer is specialised evening classes over periods of, say, three months where women can become familiar with the new methods. I think there is s very great nedd for this-type of education.” It is a strange fact, too, she goes on, that many employers are reluctant to appoint older women, even though the chances are greater they will stay with the firm.