To: Song Yang
From: Erin Kelly
Date: October 1, 2001
Re: Job Talk
Hi Song,
It was good to see your practice job talk today. I think you will be able to produce an
interesting and convincing job talk, with some more work. Here are my comments about
how you might improve the job talk in the next draft. I tried to put them in the order that
you would cover them in a talk.
Thank the department for inviting you (just 1 sentence or so, at the beginning).
Focus on the “big picture” – why job training is interesting – at the beginning. As the
group discussed today, there are several ways to present this. I personally think the link
to inequality (mentioned by Professor Hull today) is a good way to interest many people.
Job training should help people improve their skills (human capital) and earn more in the
future. When organizations provide job training, they are investing in workers. This can
be thought of as a form of non-monetary compensation and it is an important one because
it can help workers earn more in the future.
Be sure to explain what you mean by “job training” and acknowledge that it is a broad
concept that will mean different programs / practices in different organizations.
Briefly introduce your dissertation and describe the different parts of it. For example,
just say that your dissertation has 3 empirical sections, a chapter on occupational
differences in training, which you will present today, a chapter on gender difference in
job training, and a chapter on the kind of training the organization provides, specifically
whether it is firm-specific or not.
Briefly introduce your data (1996 NOS, total N, sample from all sectors, what the sample
is supposed to be representative of, organizations as the unit of analysis).
Say you are going to focus on 2 questions: Which organizations provide training?
Among those that provide training, how much do they spend on training? Have a slide
with the questions on job training (your dependent variables) from the NOS.
This will lead you to discuss the idea of core occupation.
Then summarize your contribution.
Then go to the literature review. Make this a bit shorter and “punchier” than you had
today. I like setting up a technical view and a contextualist view. I agree with Professor
Knoke that your whole talk might focus on the question of whether PT workers receive
more training and that you should emphasize your finding that this is the case only in
certain circumstances. This will allow you to conclude that you do need a contextual
view on training, but that previous research has focused on the wrong “contexts” (i.e. on
how managers can be tied to the organization, not on how organizational traits and
connections to the institutional environment shape training decisions).
End with the basic hypothesis that PT workers would be more likely to receive training
and organizations with PT core workers would spend more on training. (In the attached
PowerPoint file, I tried to show how you might graphically show these hypotheses. See
Slide 1.)
Here you might also mention other things that affect job training (like unionization, firm
size, etc.) As Professor Uggen mentioned, you want the audience to know that you know
what other studies have found and you are adding to that knowledge.
Then say that you are going to see whether the occupational differences vary depending
on organizational traits. Explain what you mean by bureaucratization (briefly and
informally define bureaucratization; give an example of a very bureaucratic organization,
perhaps the US Postal Service?; and actually make a slide with whatever questions you
use for that index). Explain why you think that the effect of PT status should be greater
in bureaucratic settings. (Slide 2 shows a bigger gap in likelihood of training and in
money spent on training in these settings.)
Next explain what you mean by HPWP (briefly introduce the idea of HPWP – which
many people will NEVER have heard of; give an example of an organization with
HPWP, perhaps the Saturn plants?; actually make a slide with the questions that you use
to measure HPWP. By the way, why don’t you have an HPWP index instead of the
specific HPO practices in your model?). Explain why you think that the effect of PT
status should be less in HPWP settings. (Slide 3 shows almost no gap in likelihood and
in money.)
Next explain that there are also non-organizational factors that may affect training. In
particular, discuss the idea of organizational citizenship (an institution that Meyer
discusses) and how it might lead to broader access to training for all workers in an
organization. (See Slide 4 – is this what you think will happen?).
I think your analysis is complicated enough that it will be very useful to the audience to
see (with these graphics) what you are trying to investigate.
I also think this order (bur, HPWP, inst) makes more sense because bureaucratization and
HPWP are kind of opposites and both focus on internal organizational factors.
Next turn to your results, but make them as SIMPLE as you can. Tell the audience what
traits increase the likelihood of training; then whether there is a “main effect” of PT
status and whether it is positive or negative; then whether each of your key independent
variables affects the PT effect.
I think your findings are that there is NOT a main effect of PT status. I think this is good.
This shows that other people’s assumptions and findings are wrong, that PT status only
matters in certain conditions. (But how are you supposed to interpret interaction effects
when the “main effect” is not significant…. Think through this carefully.) When does PT
status matter? 1) In highly bureaucratic organizations, as you predicted it would matter
most. This is true for the likelihood of providing training. 2) In organizations with fewer
institutional pressures regarding organization. This finding supports the idea that
institutional pressures lead to broader training; you find that occupational status affects
money spent on training most when institutional pressures are weak.
You may want to show regression tables (or parts of tables) here to prove that you can
interpret them correctly. But it would also be good to have another graphic summary
(similar to your model or to my slides) to help the audience be sure that they understand.
I think it is even interesting that you do not find that HPWP affects job training or the
effect of PT status on job training. If HPWP are as good and innovative as advocates
claim, then workers should be getting more training in those settings. Your findings
suggest that HPWP organizations are not doing more than other organizations, in terms of
training.
The talk I’ve outlined here is not something you have to follow, of course. I just wanted
to show you how you might organize it to be SIMPLE and CONVINCING.
As I said earlier, your work is very strong and I know you will prepare a good talk.
Here are a few other, minor ideas:
 If you decide to focus on PT workers, you will want to change your reference
group to non-PT core jobs INCLUDING managerial core jobs. This means doing
new analyses, but I think it is a good idea to simplify your story for this talk.
 Ron’s question about unionization was interesting. You could think of
unionization as an institutional variable, in one sense. One major function of
unions is to get organizations to treat lower-level workers fairly, as organizational
citizens with a voice in decisions. In other words, unions support the norm of
organizational citizenship in a concrete way. Maybe unionized organizations
have more training for this reason, because unions push organizations to offer
training to workers at all levels. What do you think about this connection?