Student Employment Office Starts Summer Job Campaign By Sounding All Fields of Work--Prospects Discouraging

The following article was written for the Crimson by J. M. Swigert '28, of the Student Employment Office.

The Student Employment Office has recently undertaken an eleven weeks job-finding campaign which is the most carefully organized program of its kind in the recent history of the office. With the cooperation of the Alumni Placement Service a list of executives has been compiled representing the leading companies in every important employment field in the vicinity of Greater Boston. All of these men are being visited according to a schedule which provides for an average of twelve calls a week. The campaign will end April 16. At that time employment conditions in 131 different companies, representing a cross-section of the entire business field, will have been investigated.

This eleven weeks plan represents but one phase of the effort which the Student Employment Office is making to find summer work for Harvard students. Unfortunately, advance indications as to the results are discouraging. In the business field employees are still being discharged, and the approach of the slack summer season is likely to increase rather than counteract this tendency.

The prospects, however are more cheerful in the inter-companion, hotel, and camp fields. Over 2000 circular letters have been mailed to prospective employers, and from these there has been an unusually high percentage of returns.

Even so it is apparent that only a small portion of those seeking summer work can be placed. Last year 1357 students registered for summer work, and of these 371, or 27.3 per cent were placed. This was the highest number and percentage of summer placements on record. From these figures it is apparent that hardly more than one out of every four men registering this year will secure work through the office.

Under such conditions it is imperative that every effort be made to give the jobs to the most needy men. Some applicants this year have expressed surprise that they should be asked whether they will need to earn money this summer in order to return to Harvard in the fall. They did not believe that any men at present were as desperate as that. Our interviews reveal, however, that from a third to a half of the men registering will have to earn from one hundred to four hundred dollars in order to come back in the fall. Hence the importance of this question in the interviewing formula seems obvious.

Must Please Employer

In distributing jobs this summer the office must give preference, wherever possible, to the men whose education depends upon their earnings. In all cases, however, the employer must be pleased, even though in order to do this a less needy man may be given the job.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that no man should depend solely upon the Student Employment Office for a job. Students who need summer work should try to find it themselves, independently of any employment office. Business men place a premium upon individual initiative.

Men who are recommended by the Student Employment Office to summer camp directors and hotel managers should display a similar aggressiveness, and describe their qualifications fully through immediate and direct correspondence with these officers