Job Hunting

ONE OF THE MOST disagreeable ordeals for an undergraduate in a liberal arts program is telling an adult one's major and hearing the replay, "Very nice--what are you going to do with that?".

There is, of curse, a graphic and unpleasant response to that question, but a polite student with no career plans has only two ways to answer: the gong way ("I'm planning to parlay it into a billiondollar rubber empire in the South American jungle") or the honest way--"I have no idea."

Career Insights is a new publication devoted to improving the quality of this sort of interchange. Its editors have solicited advice from dozens of successful men and women and printed it up, with lots of recruiting advertisements, in a glossy 100-page magazine (which Harvard's placement office distributed at a recent well-attended exposition.)The result, an introductory note promises," will help you tackle a job search--if that's the next step you've chosen--or just figure out what you want to do.

As it happens, the contents of Career Insights are likely to be of use only to a district group of students--those intent on a life in business. Most of the articles describe the road to success in one area of management o another, most of the advertisements are come-one to join executive training programs.

This bias should come as no surprise, given the magazine's format: Most professions outside the world of finance simply do not lend themselves to tips on how to get in on the job market.("It's just a matter of pounding the pavement and convincing the boss that you want that positional," says post Allen Ginsberg...)

Still, in undergraduates with aspirations outside the realm of Mammon will find it hard not to be a little discouraged by the tone that 'runs through Career Insights, in the most condescending way, executive after executive rationalizes about the value of a liberal arts education on their particular side of the boardroom, "A liberal arts background is important for developing good human management skills," writes one industry chairman. "This is what I call 'human' garment'..."

The corporate controller of another large company offers these ensuring words: "It is not immediately obvious how a liberal arts degrees can benefit an individual pursuing a career in management information services... It is often his responsibility to teach users how to operas their system. This may include preparing easily understood written documentation about the system."

The most depressing pages in C.I., though, are its advertisement. "We're turning outstanding graduates into managers, "boasts one, a little distressingly. "Whatever you want to do in life, you can do at Metropolitan Life," says another. A third has this observation to make:

in the 60's,

The word was love.

In the 70's.

It was peace.

In the '80s,

It's money.

We can help you make it.

In the midst of this desert of corporate Darwinism, there is one oasis: the story of Donald J. Bainton, Bainton stands as living proof that even in the aggressive ranks of business leaders, there is room for a cloudy-headed dreamer with no sense of vocational direction. Career Insights has included his story n a section called "Pathways in Organizations," in which seven executives describe the job opportunities in their "functions," which is businessman's cant for the divisions of a corporation.

Bainton's function is manufacturing, and he writers, "When I came back (from the navy), I thought that my talent, education, and background would probably be more suited to sales than a manufacturing. "So far, so goal-oriented. But he continues, "After interviewing with a number of people in the industry, I became convinced that I could make a greater impact on a corporation through the manufacturing function because few people with my kind of education and skills were involved in the area."

Now a reader is perplexed: just what are Bainton's skills and education suited to, sales or manufacturing? His next recollection only adds to the mystery: "After learning what the basic process of manufacturing was all about, I transferred some years later into the marketing area for a two-year stint."

At this point, one wonders whether Bainton may not be cut out for something a little less complicated than making an impact on corporation. He himself acknowledges that those were years of confusion for him:

The skills of manufacturing management and of sales are closely attuned, except that in this manufacturing environment you rare selling yourself and your leadership abilities instead of selling yourself and your products to a customer. That surprised me...

That will also surprise anyone who grew up believing that selling yourself is quit a different function altogether. But the corporate world is full of surprises. For one, Bainton eventually sorted things out enough to become executive vice president and operating officer of the Continental Group And just the other day, a Literature concentrator it Harvard put down his copy of Career Insights and booked passage to the South American jungle.