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Get A Better Job: Multiple choice questions

by Rod Ashley

1. How would you define ‘employability’?

a.    Being ‘job-ready’ in terms of job-specific skills.
b.    Retaining your attractiveness to employers by developing and displaying those abilities and attitudes in demand.
c.    Making a good impression at interview.
d.    Having the basic skills and qualifications to be able to apply for a job.

Answer: b – as defined by William Bridges in his book Jobshift.  The previous Labour government and Jobcentres tended to use (d), NVQs can focus narrowly on (a) and not respond rapidly to changing conditions. (c) alone is not enough.  Employability is explored more fully in Chapter 1 of Teach Yourself Getting a Better Job – and throughout the book readers are given clear steps on how to develop their employability skills.

2. A PEST analysis is a standard evaluation tool in business. PEST stands for:

a. Price, Environment, Suitability and Trade
b. Plane, EuroTunnel, Ship or Truck freight options
c. Political, Economic, Social trends and Technological
d. Paris, Egypt, Stockholm and Turin syndromes

Answer: c
Chapter 2 of the book explains how you can turn this helpful tool to analysing your own or your desired employment sector.

3. Life-mapping is a useful barometer to:

a. Record how you bounce back from disappointment
b. Allow a palm-reader to check your likely longevity
c. Measure by postcode how long people live
d. Prepare your autobiography.

Answer: a
Chapter 3 of the book gives an example and allows you to plot the most significant events in your own life.

4. Which jobs give the greatest job satisfaction?

Sky Arts presenter Brooke Magnanti famously said:  'I miss the job satisfaction of being a prostitute'.

(Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1231415/I-miss-job-satisfaction-prostitute-Brooke-Magnanti-life-Belle-Jour.html#ixzz0nq0GYcJ0)

But there is no overall ranking of the most satisfying job, because there are so many variable factors. Nevertheless, certain aspects of a job do appear to promote job satisfaction. Which are some of these?

a.    Trust
b.    High pay
c.    Freedom to be creative
d.    Encouragement

Answer: Frequently-rated aspects of job satisfaction are a, c and d. The odd one out is b – for reasons explained in Herzberg’s Theory in Chapter 4 of the book. As indicated below:

“Bosses most likely to raise job satisfaction levels were those seen to trust, encourage and support their staff. For instance bosses who, “praise their staff”, “trust others to do a good job”, and “allow others the freedom to be creative” were all much more likely to engender higher feelings of job satisfaction. The same was true of related statements such as “helps others to succeed”, “listens to others” and “rewards good work”.

(From Tony Borkowski Psychologist Insight - Number 8 at www.goodbosscompany.co.uk/pdf/Job%20Satisfaction%208.pdf)

5. Which of these bosses said: “It takes an odd number of people to run a motor industry …. and three is too many”?

a. Henry Ford, Ford
b. Giovanni Agnelli, Fiat
c. Lee Iacocca, Chrysler
d. Colin Chapman, Lotus

Answer: b.
Agnelli inherited the family firm and was well-known as an autocrat.  Some readers may remember the ‘Built by robots’ Fiat adverts of the 1970s, whilst other manufacturers were starting to value team-working skills. These days, as illustrated in Chapters 4 and 5 of the book, team working skills are prized and sought-after. Teach Yourself Getting a Better Job suggests how you can recognise and develop such skills yourself.

6. The acronym SWOT means:

a. Satellite, Wi-fi, Open office and Technology
b. Swing, Wobble, Oscillate and Tremble
c. Specialist With Organizational Talent
d. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Answer: d
This is a well-known organisational tool which can be used also very powerfully for self-evaluation, as shown in Chapter 5.

7. Which of the following is not a job title?

a. Imagineer
b. Transparent wall maintenance engineer
c. IT architect
d. Iconoclast

Answer: d.
An iconoclast is someone who performs iconoclasm — originally the destruction of religious symbols, but these days of established dogma or conventions. S/he is unlikely to be appointed to this role (but as shown in Chapter 6, organizations often need someone who can also question fundamental principles). An imagineer uses cutting edge image processing technology to create stunning effects. As a combination of ‘imagination’ and ‘engineer’ it is not surprising that Imagineering® is a Disney trademark.  A transparent wall maintenance engineer may work in Manhattan’s skyscrapers – in the UK s/he would be called a window cleaner. An IT architect develops the high-level overall logic and technical design of programs or systems. 

8. According to the management writer Meredith Belbin:

a. There are an optimum number of people in any team
b. Some team roles are more important than others
c. Effective teams ensure that there is a range of complementary skills in a team
d. Teams just don’t work.

Answer: c
Chapter 6 outlines the key success factors in a team and encourages you to evaluate your own skill-set.

9. MBTI stands for:
a. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
b. Mercedes-Benz team initiative
c. Management by threat & innuendo
d. Manchester-Birmingham Trade Institute

Answer: a
Chapter 7 explains the significance of this theory of psychological types. An awareness of this is a powerful tool in knowing the sort of job which will be in your comfort zone and what might stretch or stress you.

10. Which of the following song titles might describe someone who has developed high-level, marketable employability skills?:

a. I don’t like Mondays: The Boomtown Rats
b. I did it my way: Frank Sinatra
c. Things can only get better: D:Ream (Tony Blair’s theme tune of the 1997 election)
d. Back on the Chain Gang: The Pretenders

Answer: Likely to be c. Answer b might indicate a bit of a maverick.

11. Which of the following creatures best describes you in your attitude to work?:

a. Donkey - Hard-worker
b. Owl - Stays up till the job is done
c. Lark - Arrives early
d. Dog - Faithful

That’s up to you, but it’s useful to know your strengths and, if all of them, possible weaknesses.

12. Which of these creatures best describes your current boss?:

a. Dinosaur - Out of place in today’s world
b. Chameleon - Constantly changing, unpredictable
c. Iguana - Freezes in inaction except when the going gets hot
d. Grasshopper - Jumps all over the place and difficult to pin down

That’s up to you, but it’s useful to know his / her strengths and weaknesses and how these impact on your own effectiveness.

13. The Pareto 80/20 Rule is widely used in many aspects of organizational and business management.  It means:

a.    80 percent of output is produced by 20 percent of input.
b.    80 percent of outcomes are from 20 percent of causes
c.    80 percent of contribution comes from 20 percent of the potential contribution available
d.    All of the above.

Answer: d
In fact there is no specific definition but the generic principle considers the relationship between input (effort) and output (results). Chapter 7 of the book considers aspects of time-management to help you identify high pay-off activities and low pay-off activities.

(There is useful coverage of the Pareto Principle at: www.businessballs.com/quotes.htm#pareto_principle_pareto's_law )

14. If you have acted as a mentor to others, which role best describes the role you took on?

a. Sherpa - Carrying the load, but pointing out landmarks, perspectives and points
of interest
b. Petrol-pump attendant - Filling up the empty tank with the required grade of fuel
c. Lion-tamer - Cracking the whip and ruling by fear and punishment
d. Gardener - Nurturing growth

Answer: d. is clearly the most enlightened and learner-focused.

15. Many organizations find that a useful planning tool for managing change is:

a.    Foundation Function Assessment
b.    Financial Focus Analysis
c.    Force Field Analysis
d.    Feldman Front-line Action

Answer: b
Chapter 8 of the book shows you how this tool works so that you can depersonalise the issues and make a rational decision about your future.

16. Who said the following words?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? ….. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

a. Nelson Mandela
b. Marianne Williamson
c. Margaret Thatcher
d. Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Answer: Tricky one this. They may have all spoken them, but it was b. Marianne Williamson, a US writer, who wrote them in: A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).

Mandela did use part of the quotation in his Inauguration Speech in 1994 and the words are often wrongly attributed to him. Margaret Thatcher is famous for mis-quoting St Francis of Assisi on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street.

17. Which one of following quotations was not by a British or American politician?

a.    "Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed."
b.    "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
c.    "Never give up, never, never give up."
d.    “Unless you try something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

Answer: d. The US theologian, Dr Ronald E Osborn. 
The other quotations were by: a, Abraham Lincoln; b, Thomas Jefferson and c. Winston Churchill.

18. Questions to ask at end of an interview. It depends upon the nature of the interview, but unless you have already gained the information, which of these questions might be appropriate to ask?

a. Given the changing nature of the business, how do you see this role developing over the next three years?
b. …. and the total amount of paid leave is?
c. What opportunities are there for professional development?
d. How much did you say I’d be paid?

Answer: a. and c. sound more positive and interested in the job itself. Questions b. and d. simply sound as if you are interested in money or time when not working. As the only questions to ask, they would not create a good impression. (Whilst these are important factors, they should be established before the interview.)

19. Which are the stressful jobs to avoid?

Just as there are so many variable factors in determining satisfying jobs, the same is true of stressful jobs. However, three of the jobs listed below frequently appear in the ‘Top 10’ stress list.  Which are they?

a.    Librarian
b.    Prison Officer
c.    Social work
d.    Teaching

Answer: b, c and d. Each of these requires constant interaction with other people, sometimes in challenging situations. But again, for all jobs, there are some factors which promote stress.

 “The main themes that seemed to reduce job satisfaction related to their boss’s lack of
communication and general ineffectiveness. For instance bosses “who fail to communicate their priorities”, or who “waste time” and “fail to look ahead” were very unlikely to improve the job satisfaction of their staff. Bosses who “made unreasonable demands” or who “humiliated others” were also very unlikely to improve job satisfaction ratings.”

(From Tony Borkowski Psychologist Insight - Number 8 at www.goodbosscompany.co.uk/pdf/Job%20Satisfaction%208.pdf)

Chapter 8 of the book gives an account and a link to some very useful research and advice on stress management.

20. The Johari Window is a visual representation of:

a. What is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by others – ‘open area'
b. What is unknown by the person about him/herself but which others know ‘the blind area'
c. What the person knows about him/herself that others do not know – ‘hidden area’
d. All the above – plus what is unknown by the person about him/herself and is also unknown by others – ‘unknown area’

Answer. d
The Johari Window (named after Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, 1955) is a very useful tool for gaining self-knowledge.
 
(More detail can be found at www.businessballs.com/johariwindowmodel.html). The thrust throughout Teach Yourself Getting a Better Job is also to develop this self-awareness to enhance your own employability.



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