Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-27
Choosing Your Career
Communications Means of Achieving Success in
Life Declared to Depend Upon Highest Grade Spe-
cialists as Engineers, laboratory or Traffic Experts
BY CLARENCE H. MACKAY
BY CLARENCE II. MACKAY


V you should be q high-grade spe-
" cialist as an engineer, labora-
tory worker or traffic expert, or
what owen D. Young has called
generalist, II you choose COM
munications as a career.
AS a specialist you will need tech
nical ability and considerable training,
the latter generally including college
course. AS a generalist, with broad
knowledge of the problems of the BUSH
ness and the vision to anticipate and
meet them, you will need background
of education which will equip you to
get on with and to manage people.
Because the art communications
knows no bounds-is cosmopolitan
communications men, to get to the van
in the future should be coSmopolitans,
with the ability to speak several Ian
guageS and having a thorough knowl-
edge of world affairs.
American prosperity, as see 1t, de-
ponds on the sale of surplus products.
While some of these will continue to
go to Europe, the Far East and the
South are our great fields, and we
have to continue to hold our own in
both places In international commune
cations. if you are to do any special
-.
You will find a knowledge Of Spanish
especially helpful Likewise, you should
know economic conditions and the hab-
its and customs of people in other lands.
$500 to $4,000 as Starter.
You can begin your career in the
communications field at a salary Of
from $1,000 to $4,000 a year if you are
qualified by training and education to
enter one of the specialist departments
From there you can change to other
work once you have mastered your own
and in time become a generalist with
a broad knowledge of the business as
a whole.
In these days of gigantic enterprise
ability of high order is needed to man.
age affairs, and this ability you may
develop only by hard work and inten-
sive training, plus a faculty for abb
sorbing the lessons of experience. Re-
member this when you start work In
communications and keep it constantly
in mind.
The telegraph communications field
presents splendid opportunities today
for women as well as for men. More
than so per cent of our own employees
are women. We take special pains in
training them. Promotion is rapid for
the capable ones. They can become
once managers and gain other execu-
tive posts If they have ability.
Perhaps communications men get the
larger share of the romance the art
anords today. A radio station is being
Quilt in Peru, a cable repaired in the
stormy seas OF the North Atlantic, new
Ieiepnone lines laid down the river
Nlle, automatic telephone systems be-
ing installed in China and vast new
projects are constantly being under
taken on our own continent. Such op-
eratlons as far-fung as these furnish
qualify.
If you are able and ambitious the
corporations in the communications
neld Will meet you more than half
way. 1t is to their own interest to
help the capable. The policy of our
company always has been to I'LL va
cancles at the top by moving employees
up.
Personnel executives make a tour
OF the leading colleges Of the country
every year to find those Of you who
snow indications of promise. OF the
thousands interviewed those with out
standing records in scholastic and stu
dent activities get the cali.
Different Paths Taken.
Some become telegraph and telephone
engineers, helping to build new lines
ana maintain the present ones. Others
go into the laboratories to develop i'm.
provemeRtS for the communications
art. Still others become radio and
cable experts.
While such men are specialists In one
sense, In the broader sense they DOS
Sess the fundamental characteristics of
generaliSts. They come to realize the
vast importance of co-ordinated inter-
national communications and are gift
ed with the ability to make their vision
a practically.
In communications. AS never before.
american ideas and ideals are being
exported and foreign ideas and ideals
are being imported from all sections
OF the world over the vast networks of
co-ordinated cable, radio and land lines
winch reach practically every part of
the civilized globe
Without doubt, the business of pro-
Vidlng facilities for this valuable in
ternational trade in ideas, which COM
municationS offers, is one Of the most
important, as our civilization is con-
structed today.
(The next article of this series will
appear tomorrow, being q discussion
OF music by Nine. Galli-Curci.)
Copyright, 1880, by North American News
paper Alliance)