Civil Service Seeking 'Select Group' for Washington Jobs

The federal government has launched an "aggressive program of job recruiting" differing radically from traditional civil service procurement, Samuel T. Adams, Director of Personnel of the U.S. Bureau of the Budget, declared last night in the first of this year's Conference on Careers. The Junior Management and Social Science Assistant examinations are the nub of this program, and are designed "to find a select group" with high public service potential.

Successful JMA and SSA candidates school apply on their own initiative for positions in specific departments, and once placed are promoted within six months or "advised to work elsewhere." The majority of successful candidates, he added, have risen rapidly since the program's inauguration three years ago.

State government is "closer to the people, more responsible to the people, and more controlled by the people" than the federal, challenged Perkins Bass, LL.B. '38 and member of the New Hampshire legislature. Though unfortunately the federal government "has pre-empted many state service," state politics offers interesting experience and satisfaction. The virgin attitude against "dirty polities" is precisely what produces "incompetent, inefficient public officials."

Professional training in law, public health, or the sciences offers opportunities for quick advancement in "narrow" areas of government service, advised Charles R. Cherington '35, associate professor of Government. Graduate education in the social sciences as offered by the Littauer School, trains "generalists" and leads to advantageous government placement, while area training in foreign affairs, as provided by the Regional Studies Program, has also led to placement and rapid advancement. Cherington frowned, however, on the specialist schools of public administration which teach such subjects as budget compilation.