Recruiter Describes CIA Posts To Kennedy School Students

A representative of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) urged Kennedy School students to seek full-time and summer jobs at the CIA at "general information sessions" at the school last week.

Charles R. Pecinovsky, a personnel representative at the CIA's Boston office, handed out application forms and described CIA job openings at the meeting, which more than 50 students attended, Norman K. Smith, assistant dean and director of career and student services, said yesterday.

About 12 of the students have forwarded resumes to the CIA since the meeting, Pecinovsky said yesterday, adding, "There will be some others who're getting their stuff together" to send to the CIA.

He said there is more interest than last year in CIA employment among K-School students, but noted applications from individual schools fluctuate widely from year to year.

Pecinovsky has scheduled the annual information session at the school for the last three or four years, he said, adding that the CIA "emphasizes recruitment at all the major universities," Dale L. Peterson, an agency spokesman, added that the CIA has 11 or 12 recruitment offices nationwide.

The agency's request for the meeting is not unusual, Smith said, adding that recruiters "generally come to us" to schedule group sessions. The State Department, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Communications Commission have distributed information at the school this year, he added.

"What we're basically looking for on campuses is people to work on the analytical side" rather than case officers doing "clandestine" work abroad, Peterson said.

The two K-School graduates who took CIA jobs after graduation last year took such "policy analyst" positions--one as a "management intern" and another as an "intelligence analyst," Smith said. He declined to identify the two, who were graduated from the school's Masters of Public Administration program for mid-career executives.

"The CIA keeps the U.S. informed about what's happening around the world, not just the clandestine stuff. I doubt anyone who's gotten out of the Kennedy School is playing 007 at the CIA," Smith said, but added, "Who knows what's going on in that organization."

Pecinovsky said he stressed to the students who signed up for the meetings that "they'd be entering a very competitive labor market" for the CIA posts.

Herb A. Heddin, who will graduate from the K-School in June, said yesterday that the job requirements Pecinovsky outlines--which sometimes require "extensive travel"--dissuaded many students, including himself, from applying. "A lot of people were just satisfying their curiosity" by attending the sessions, he said.