full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper: The best career path isn't always a straight line

Unscramble the Blue Letters

HT: When we started to share the idea of suqgilgy careers with people, we were surprised by how much it stuck. It seemed to give pleope something that perhaps they didn't even know that they needed, a way of describing both their experiences and their aspirations. Someone even told us that they took our book, which has a big squiggle on the front of it, into a job interview, as a way of describing their ceearr so far. But we underestimated one big problem: the legacy of the ladder is all around us. It's in the companies that we work in and the conversations that we have. It sounds like being asked in a job interview, "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" It's the uncomfortable question of how we rwared and motivate people who do a graet job but don't want to be promoted. And it's the unfairness of our learning being unlocked by the level that we reach in an oaartgoziinn.

Open Cloze

HT: When we started to share the idea of ________ careers with people, we were surprised by how much it stuck. It seemed to give ______ something that perhaps they didn't even know that they needed, a way of describing both their experiences and their aspirations. Someone even told us that they took our book, which has a big squiggle on the front of it, into a job interview, as a way of describing their ______ so far. But we underestimated one big problem: the legacy of the ladder is all around us. It's in the companies that we work in and the conversations that we have. It sounds like being asked in a job interview, "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" It's the uncomfortable question of how we ______ and motivate people who do a _____ job but don't want to be promoted. And it's the unfairness of our learning being unlocked by the level that we reach in an ____________.

Solution

  1. organization
  2. people
  3. great
  4. reward
  5. career
  6. squiggly

Original Text

HT: When we started to share the idea of squiggly careers with people, we were surprised by how much it stuck. It seemed to give people something that perhaps they didn't even know that they needed, a way of describing both their experiences and their aspirations. Someone even told us that they took our book, which has a big squiggle on the front of it, into a job interview, as a way of describing their career so far. But we underestimated one big problem: the legacy of the ladder is all around us. It's in the companies that we work in and the conversations that we have. It sounds like being asked in a job interview, "Where do you see yourself in five years' time?" It's the uncomfortable question of how we reward and motivate people who do a great job but don't want to be promoted. And it's the unfairness of our learning being unlocked by the level that we reach in an organization.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
career possibilities 4
squiggly careers 2
career ladders 2

Important Words

  1. asked
  2. aspirations
  3. big
  4. book
  5. career
  6. careers
  7. companies
  8. conversations
  9. describing
  10. experiences
  11. front
  12. give
  13. great
  14. idea
  15. interview
  16. job
  17. ladder
  18. learning
  19. legacy
  20. level
  21. motivate
  22. needed
  23. organization
  24. people
  25. promoted
  26. question
  27. reach
  28. reward
  29. share
  30. sounds
  31. squiggle
  32. squiggly
  33. started
  34. stuck
  35. surprised
  36. time
  37. told
  38. uncomfortable
  39. underestimated
  40. unfairness
  41. unlocked
  42. work