3 Government Experts View Job Prospects

Government workers draw decidedly above-average salaries, three government career men declared at last night's job conference on opportunities in government and the foreign service. The forum exploded the popular conception that government workers work a lifetime for the pay of an apprentice dishwasher.

Top annual salary in the civil service division is now $10,330, and that celling if often broken for "specialized jobs," B. B. McCoy, director of the Office of Domestic Commerce, told the audience that jammed Winthrop House Junior Common Room.

Another Commerce Department official, Charles C. Concannon '11, a division chief in that Office of International Trade, added that men who approach the top rauks of federal civil service receive a retirement allowance of from $4800 to $5000 per year.

Tough Competition

Candidates for the State Department face more competition and stiffer requirements than beginners in any other section of government service, Christian M. Ravndal, director general of the Foreign Service said. "We must have the highest type of young man, since the nature of our work must exclude any second raters in our personnel," he said.

Potential State Department men should have a Bachelor of Arts degree and if they are interested in the foreign service division of the State Department they face a battery of "difficult, searching examinations," Ravndal disclosed.

Those who pass the examinations receive specialized training and then are assigned to any sort of post at the discretion of State Department officials. If a young foreign service man is not promoted within a period of eight years, he is removed from the service.

Summer Training Program

A summer student training course for position in the Commerce Department was described by Concannon. Juniors in college may take a relatively easy exam in the spring to get into a three month program during which trainees are paid $675.

Dean Payson Wild of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences introduced the speakers.