Today we’re featuring a report by guest author P Ray, a regular contributor to E2NZ.

P Ray writes about view tertiary education and employment practices in New Zealand, giving valuable insights on what to expect and tips about how increase one’s chances of success. Many people will find the following information a revelation. It will challenge preconceptions about study and work in New Zealand.

We are grateful for P Ray’s contribution and welcome comments about the issues he raises. All responses must fall within our guidelines.

You
– You can’t build a career at a small company (doesn’t mean you won’t be happy there though)
– You are hired based upon the profits you will generate for the boss. If at all possible, you will be expected to pay your own salary, accept greater working hours for the same pay, or be paid less than the market rate
– You will be paid the minimum you agree to
– You are hired to work, but will be expected to “learn”
– Whether you have “learned” depends on the HR person doing the evaluation. As to their credentials to evaluate in an unbiased manner … ?
– You can only be promoted if the person above you is promoted, leaves, or is fired (of course, the person below you is thinking the same thing) and management wants to internally fill that position
– Unexplained absences of your work colleagues may be due to the fact that they’re taking company-approved management courses, to put them in a better position for promotion than you … even if you are more qualified
– A wage freeze means you are actually being paid less as inflation rises yearly
– Lifelong jobs don’t exist anymore
– Past a certain age you will not be easily employed (say 40s) unless you have an extensive network … who are all competing against you too
– Learn to Google the people you work with or have interviewed with. The less data you find, the more you should beware.
– Corollary: Not all the information you find online is accurate – peoples’ mannerisms on social networks may be a put-on
– Understand that companies now hire you … based on where you worked previously. Apparent under-employment … will not usually result in your talents being later recognised, viz. the former Colorado burger-flipper and promising neuroscientist Ph.D candidate Mr. James Holmes.

This is not the same as being a burger-flipper, then a crew trainer, then working for a City Council – since a promotion previously happened at work … and then the person moved to a job elsewhere.
– You are working with people who either love the job or can’t find a better offer anywhere else
– Those who can’t find a better offer anywhere else will do anything to keep their job … including putting you under a bus
– Realise that some of the job pressures you face, are a result of people either trying to goad you to do something stupid, withholding information to make you look incompetent, telling you lies so that you make poor decisions or pass on the wrong information, or trying to blame you for something they did
– There are many ways for someone to be victimised on the job without laying a hand on them or being verbally abusive (e.g. promotion to position with unreachable targets, sent to a division without targets – hence no performance…)
– Don’t expect to get a higher salary … unless another company gives you a genuine better offer (Nasty 1: In cartel-like situations, a “competing” company offers an ambitious candidate, via e-mail, a higher salary. Candidate then resigns from the company they are with – and the “competing” company retracts their offer … the purpose of a cartel is to keep people compliant; Nasty 2: The job offer comes through but the candidate is sacked from the next company very quickly.)

Companies
– Promotion criteria is usually kept secret
– Corollary: keeping a record of promotion criteria will later get you dismissed by management who do not want to honour their contract (make sure you get a healthy severance package)
– You can only be promoted if the person above you is promoted, leaves, or is fired (of course, the person below you is thinking the same thing) and management wants to internally fill that position
– “Competition” for wages is why a standard wage is applied even when companies demand an extraordinary skill set
– These same companies ask for tax breaks and incentives from government, leverage political connections and exaggerate achievements … meaning they are not competitive – but tell their candidates they are only looking for the best
– If companies do not hire board-registered accountants they may be cooking the books, i.e. understating profits, underpaying staff, overpaying managers/directors
– Companies accepting candidates who have lied on their resume have found a good excuse to part with them in 90 days
– Companies have no obligation to pay the salary listed in their job ads (which in legal terms is “an invitation to treat”) … only the salary in your employment contract.
– Companies know that you are hired with the idea that you now have the ability leave for a “better”(whatever your criteria) job. Hence you have a 90day window to make your leap … or make do with whatever fate happens.
– Don’t expect to get a higher salary … unless another company gives you a genuine better offer (Nasty 1: In cartel-like situations, a “competing” company offers a candidate, via e-mail, higher salaries. Candidate then resigns from the company they are with – and the “competing” company retracts their offer … the purpose of a cartel is to keep people compliant; Nasty 2: The job offer comes through but the candidate is sacked from the next company very quickly.)
– Sign of a bad company: Very few written instructions, but especially after you get blamed for a decision made by others

Employment Disputes
– Not all employment disputes even make it to industrial court
– Before a case makes it to court the minister of human resources has to approve it
– In practice, the staff of the ministry sign it. They could be bribed and the case thrown out unless outside media interest makes this very difficult
– In most mediations, ex-employees are made aware of how much justice would cost against the assets and might of a company that would be brought to bear
– Do the lawsuits even pay out to the amount agreed to initially? How did Kristy Fraser-Kirk do against Mark McInnes and David Jones in her AUD37million sexual harassment case?
– Most resolutions to employment disputes, take years: and ruin the reputation of the complainant EVEN IF THE EX-EMPLOYEE WINS

Education
– Not all degrees are created equal
– Double degrees contain halves of 2 different specialisations: e.g. A double-degree Mathematics/Engineering graduate, has not taken 720 points of study units (2 REAL degrees). They have only actually taken 360 points – the cost of 1 degree – and not all in those 2 subjects either, as they must take “out-of-faculty” papers too(even a person aiming for a specialist degree, must take electives which are out-of-faculty, however for that person it has less of an effect on overall learning since by proportion, they are taking fewer subjects unrelated to their degree).
– Want to disprove that? Where do they get twice the lecturers/papers and finish twice the assignments … in half the time and cost (normally, 2 B.Sc degrees = 3+3 years = 6 years)?
– Beware of candidates who don’t list the subjects that they took to gain their degree … or who disproportionally took many 1st year subjects to get it (some good ones are Academic English, Introductory Computing, Starter Mathematics … which are sometimes not counted as electives!)
– A student with multiple majors/double degrees can opt-out of taking the harder papers in each specialisation … and is in uninformed public eyes considered more competent than a specialist!
– The only overt placements for most universities are in Engineering and Earth Sciences. Other openings require “being chummy” with faculty
– If management degrees actually worked, why haven’t many of those people (proportional to those that graduate with such degrees) started businesses of their own (prior to becoming previously employed) that became huge?
– You are taught either by people who love teaching, or who couldn’t find work anywhere else (The exception are … consultants who teach – but they are RARE)
– No syllabus gets completed in full or on time
– Not every student gets told about learning resources which are available: it’s a case of them what controls the information, gets what others are also entitled to.
– Just because a qualification is easy … doesn’t mean the person is any good at it. Some people studying to become teachers (that I know), have said that they viscerally HATE children. Yeah, for some people … education doesn’t add character.
– Being “graded on a curve” is a dishonest practice: You earned the marks – no more and no less, mind – based on correct reasoning and proper calculation along with correct selection. Not to make the lecturer look good (“Everybody gets a prize” means there is something seriously wrong with the assessment).
– Speak to the student union (and NOT the International Student Centre) if you feel marking and assessment irregularities/victimisation are taking place. In other countries (my experience was in Asia) and cultures, very likely the emphasis on education, “respect for authority”, near-zero independent student unions … comes with the nasty side effect that lecturers and how they mark are not to be questioned, even when they blatantly disregard quality work and will not justify their marks. In this case, any support that you get via “student unions”, has the “appearance” of impartiality – but they are sponsored by college management and you will NOT be given a fair hearing. In such countries, people want those positions to pad their resumes with an office where they effectively do nothing (plus they’re afraid of being marked down too, as retaliation by the “challenged” lecturer) … yet seek to be regarded in the same way as their Western counterparts.
– Universities in China and India and elsewhere may be graduating thousands upon thousands in the STEM fields … but think about the previous lines before believing that all their graduates were properly assessed. Whistleblowers are severely punished, whether in public universities or private colleges. In countries where teachers gain “face” in terms of percentages and numbers of students passing … there is a great incentive to unfairly pass people who should have been held back. For those countries, failures make the lecturers look bad … and the college has to answer questions from parents, jeopardising their income stream.
– These same colleges in Asia emphasise rote learning (as the lecturers need not justify their marking, remember?), 8 hour days (very few breaks), (sometimes)6 day study weeks, 100% attendance or you cannot take your exams (to build the idea that the lecturer is infallible), and re-marking … DONE BY THE SAME LECTURER, with that person setting the questions and marking (no panel of educators for that). The same lecturer usually teaches 6 different papers, and says they are very interested in research (yet never seems to get anything published), and loves to wave the stick of “collective punishment” if a single student questions marks awarded – that person will then be set upon and conspired against by the other students in the course who do not want their own marks reviewed (or possibly reduced) for not cooperating with the lecturer to put down a “rebel”/”upstart”.
– This happens in Asia even with TWINNING courses with overseas universities … complaints to them about irregular course delivery by the local partner (e.g. assignments not returned, marks not justified, can’t view the student’s own marked answer script) get met with “We can’t do anything about how our partner does the assessment”.
Google “Ian Firns” “Rugimbana” for an example of this (Rather than victimise one whistleblowing student, pass everybody regardless of academic misconduct!). http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/08/1094530693563.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/06/30/1119724757184.html
– So why are there still jobless graduates in those countries? And why don’t people from overseas turn up to Asia in numbers for that kind of learning (since it is of such “high quality”) … unless the truth is, far too many locals there respect the APPEARANCE of education, but very few respect the INTEGRITY of education?
– In a course there (which was supposedly equivalent to the A-Level standard — yes, I did sit my A-levels later), I was told to lie on my physics lab reports about my findings … by the teacher. His words? “It will make me look bad if your results are different from others, even though your measurements are what you observed”.
– In other words, my experience in Asian higher education looked like: if you want to get through the course, you will ignore wrongdoing and victimisation, and completely agree with your lecturers in everything they do.
– The above horror stories that I went through in Asia, is completely different to how things were done in NZ for my experience in a technical/STEM course at university level (I did not take my primary or secondary education in NZ). Which is why I can somewhat understand “foreign cab drivers who are doctors” … people are aware that corners are being cut overseas for some qualifications in STEM subjects. Did those foreign cab drivers gain their qualifications from universities on the Times Higher Education Supplement list?
– Soundbite to close off this section: “Asia teaches you to work hard; proper overseas Western education, teaches you to apply what you’ve learned intelligently”.

Resume
– People not listing the subjects they took at university do not provide the information needed to assess their competence
– If you can’t find the person’s name listed on the online rolls, be wary
– corollary: Not everyone gives their full/real name at interviews or even to their friends. I’ve noticed many people in NZ have middle names that they never disclose publicly (kind of like Dungeons and Dragons’ concept of “truename” – grants you magical powers against that person … of course, NZ now appears a lot more unfriendly now that you know this if you didn’t previously…)
– Corollary: beware of any university that does not have a searchable database of graduates, no fixed address or that has previously advertised high pass rates
– Some subjects aren’t taught at university (since they’re tougher than what Bachelor courses teach) … but are too complex to learn “on the job” … eventhough there is this idea that companies “teach” people (do you believe their trainers have a deep grasp of the company “crown jewels/Intellectual Property”? Then they could definitely set up a competitor or leave for better pay elsewhere)
– Corollary: A great student, isn’t necessarily a great teacher: I learnt better from other sources than from the Ph.D tutors assigned to my subjects. In my opinion the tutor position was just something to tide them over financially until they’d finished their research.
– Some people list multiple qualifications at a ludicrous pace, e.g. a B.Sc in 2010, then another in 2011. Do you think a single 3 year degree can be completed in 1 year, considering that the subjects would clash, given their amount (between 18 – 36 papers depending on points per individual paper)? Not to mention the assignments to be completed (at least 72)? That’s more than one assignment due per week in a year.
– University rankings are not based on how well or how applicable subjects are taught. They are based on Research output. Given that more people do their Masters’ and Ph.D’s in Social Sciences and the Arts than hard Sciences (and to be internationally recognised you must publish in English … and also up to 90% of studies in Psychology are said to be poorly controlled), it’s not a wonder why some countries with huge populations have universities at the top of the list.
– Proper hiring practices involve looking through university prospectus, candidate interviews (not testing, as that requires the use of an unbiased tester or is used as a psychological tool to get a person to accept a lower salary or to demoralise people), verifying credentials with the awarding authority and contacting referees). Think about whether companies do this with regards to hiring candidates for plum positions (Yahoo’s previous hiring of Scott Thompson as CEO who didn’t have a proper degree(and lied about it), indicates a defective hiring process)Final thoughts: There is no perfect job out there, work to become outcome- independent of other peoples’ opinion and influence, keep track of daily happenings at work, be careful of those you work with who want you to “speak your mind”, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business”, the more you can do for yourself – the more you can do for others and the less job-hunting you need to do, blow your own trumpet – because others won’t do it for you, you’d better know the bad and good news early.

Final thoughts

There is no perfect job out there, work to become outcome- independent of other peoples’ opinion and influence, keep track of daily happenings at work, be careful of those you work with who want you to “speak your mind”, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business”, the more you can do for yourself – the more you can do for others and the less job-hunting you need to do, blow your own trumpet – because others won’t do it for you, you’d better know the bad and good news early.

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