Mark, as far as we are concerned Cluny is our town and is, therefore, not rural. It is a small town.
The students wear long grey coats which they decorate in their own individual styles.
Rural town then.
That would be rather silly. One very good thing in France is that everyone does the same Bac depending on which sĆ©rie they are in. In GB everyone with a clue about education knows the different exam boards arenāt the same and results donāt mean the same thing.
Jane, just wait a minute and Mark will teach you to suck eggs 
3 Likes
Being rude now. Is that Cambridge thing ?
I think the greatest entrepreneurs in life did not have much of an education. They also suffer from something I suffer from. If I want to make money, I would employ them.
1 Like
So that would give you say 50 or 100 applicants all on a level playing field. Then what will you do, put them all in a hat, shut your eyes and pick out a winner? Choose the one with the nicest smile?
If recruiters canāt look at academic results, proven aptitude, track record etc, itās going to make their job very difficult. You canāt interview 50 or 100 candidates in sufficient depth to make a proper assessment of them all.
An experienced recruiter will be able to form an initial impression of candiates from reading their CVs and lettres de motivation/covering letter, and then they refine that impression at interview. Itās not like being an Oxbridge graduate is going to be an advantage in every case because employers may consider that over qualified for certain positions, which is as bad as being under qualified. But a person is inevitably shaped by their background and education and IMHO itās a bit silly to pretend theyāre not.
I would never employ a great self-made entrepreneur, self-made entrepreneurs make lousy employees, the qualities needed are totally different. In fact they are so insubordinate and disruptive they are unemployable. Can you imagine Alan Sugar as a line manager, doing his job and respecting company policy and never overstepping his mark? No, because he wouldnāt want to work for anyone else.
Iām not saying Iām a great entrepreneur but I was never employee material. Some people are and some people arenāt. I was too self-centred/pig-headed/insurbordinate/arrogant/call it what you like, I just didnāt like being a cog in a big wheel, I couldnāt get any satisfaction from it somehow. Iām happy self-employed, I would never have been happy as an employee.
1 Like
Well that is just daft. There is (generally!) a massive difference between people who have just come out of 6th form and those who have had a university education.
2 Likes
Not in my experience.
It is funny because my work experience and philosophy actually comes from a French guy (quite old now) who set up a very successful business in the UK who I worked for. The business got bought and then destroyed by the company that bought it out. Largely because of their recruitment practices. Employing graduate idiots. Believe me that is true.
Anyway, at a very late age he started it all again (in a very difficult industry) and he is doing well. I dare say there are not many Oxford or Cambridge grads working in the company.
Anyway, my company my rules. You all start on a level playing field. That is the way it is. Other companies can do what they like in terms of recruitment.
My wordā¦ this thread is going round and aroundā¦ sometimes it makes senseā¦ other times it is daft (in my opinion) ā¦ but at least it is good for a laugh 
I am absolutely thrilled to learn that College is just as good as Universityā¦ since I am the only one of my siblings who never made it to University 
In later life, I did go to College as a Senior Student on a Grantā¦ to refresh my knowledge and capabilities, in order to get back into employment ā¦after Motherhood bored me to tears. Mind you, I did give my beloved daughter 7 years of full-time attentionā¦but, phewā¦enough of that.
Here in the rural/ town area of France where I liveā¦ families workā¦ both Mums and Dadsā¦ and the kids wait in the āguarderieā until collected by parents, family/friends or child-minders. For the school holsā¦ grandparents/extended family take on the responsibilityā¦or, once again, childminders. This all seems to work very well.
2 Likes
So in real life what does your company do, how many people do you employ and how do you really recruit them?
Re teaching your granny to suck eggs, (and I am trying as hard as I can not to be or sound snotty here), I donāt think you necessarily realise how very patronising you sound explaining the world to us, from your (in my view) rather solipsistic, parochial and lacking in nuance point of view.
Please donāt take what I have said badly, I donāt think you are a bad person and my opinion is in any case no skin off your nose, but please try to imagine that there are people here who have perhaps a different or wider experience of the world than you do, for all sorts of reasons, and perhaps donāt be so dogmatic and didactic 
Do you by any chance have Aspergerās, Mark? You mentioned a condition lots of entrepreneurs have that you also have, lots of entrepreneurs are dyslexic but dyslexia doesnāt have a knock-on effect on humour and what is implicit in text. Please forgive me if so, I am trying to be as clear as possible, not seeking to be offensive.
1 Like
By doing so you gave her one of the best gifts in life. That is what a physiotherapist once said to us. I do think that is very true.
You are not the first person to say that. I have given you a few clues of why I come across like that. It is not intentional. People like me have to debate and debate hard. It is the way it is.
Oh Markā¦ youāve given the game awayā¦ you āhave to debate and debate hardāā¦
for heavenās sake please stop debating and settle for an interesting discussion 
Most of us on the Forum just like to exchange useful information and (hopefully) help others along the wayā¦(well, thatās my take on things)
2 Likes
My daughter studied Law at a respected UK university. She graduated with a first class degree. None of the Law firms she applied to work for would have put her on a level playing field with someone else with a lesser degree, a similar degree in a different subject and certainly not someone who had just left a sixth form college. Why would they?
Re two working parent families. One of my cousins is in your age group. Her and her husband own a large house in a beautiful village in a forest close to Paris where they live with their three school age children. They enjoy a high standard of living including a long summer break and a week skiing together. To finance this life style they both work. My cousin is the main earner as she has an excellent position within an international company supplying vehicle parts worldwide. She is usually away from home for a least two nights a week as well as on Wednesday afternoons. They employ someone to help with their household. If any of the boys do need to come home on a Wednesday afternoon that would be covered as are the evening meals on the days she is not there. Christophe her husband canāt boil an egg and would burn a pizza. They are like any upwardly mobile young family in any European country doing what they need to do to to live their chosen lifestyle. Her siblings both live nearby, one is self employed as a medical consultant and the other works in one of the local pharmaceutical companies. They are not disadvantaged by being French or by having to earn a living in France. I have asked them if they had ever considered working in the UK (they are all bilingual) and all three have replied in the same way, why on Earth would they consider that, they are French and their lives are in France.
Oh, I forgot, I know nothing.
3 Likes
Do you by any chance have Aspergerās, Mark? You mentioned a condition lots of entrepreneurs have that you also have, lots of entrepreneurs are dyslexic but dyslexia doesnāt have a knock-on effect on humour and what is implicit in text. So Iām thinking Aspergerās: please forgive me if it is so, I am trying to be as clear as possible, not seeking to be offensive.
Many people are on the spectrum, including many of my closest university friends, it doesnāt have to mean an inability to see that others may have a different experience of the world than you, even if it is an āacademicā, abstract understanding rather than an empathetic one.
I have chronic dyslexia. I canāt use a pen and I have never read a book. Well forwards that is. I read them backwards. I would not have done very well at school in France. LOL.
People who have severe dyslexia will challenge and seem confrontational but like I said it is not intentional. What you write seems OK to you, but others see it differently. Very difficult to describe.
It is better face to face believe me.
This debate would never have got this far had I not taken my morning off to cheer it up a bit and it was so hot outside. So thank me and the meteo.
1 Like
One of my daughters is severely dyslexic, went through the French system and is now on her MA course in Germany reading history, she evidently doesnāt experience her dyslexia as you do yours. It has cost her a great deal of sweat and tears though.
Nobody is getting at you as a person, you donāt have to be so defensive and chippy just because another personās experience of the world and the conclusions they come to as a result are not identical to yours.
3 Likes
Confrontational sells on a forum. If it cheers it up and gets people talking and throwing ideas about then why not. What is right and what is wrong is not really important, if it gets people talking. You just have to debate your corner. If you lose the debate and turn on someone then that is not so good. If it turns nasty then it is the mods job to step in and sort it out.
There is a French forum in the world wide wilderness that banned all its confrontational members and it has died a sorry death.
I have started two āniceā threads recently 
2 Likes
To a non-native english speaker part of this ādiscussionā sounded more like arguing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNkjDuSVXiE
3 Likes