Evening star., 1935-06-16

~ of 500 letters written by college
graduates who were applying for
Jobs. Believe it or not, 4l0 of them
had misspelled words. A number of the writers
did not give their addresses, and few ac-
tually did not sign their names! l am not
exaggerating, and they tcere college graduates.
If this represents the way college graduates
go at the job of job-finding, it can only be
imagined how high school graduates hunt jobs
and what kind of letters they write.
As another example, one of the great per-
sonne directors told me recently that he had
read more than $4,000 letters of application,
and only one was the kind of letter he would
write if he were applying for job. A leading
director of personnel in New York City - a
man responsible for the hiring and firing of
10000 employees - informs me that his de-
partment regularly interviews more than
$1,000 people every year who want jobs Each
person is carefully told how to fill out a short
printed application blank: and again. believe
it or not. more than $4,000 of these $4,000
persons fill out the blanks incorrectly. Yet
many of them are high school and college
graduates.
About million young men and women
now being graduated from our high schools
and 10000 more from our colleges will soon
be looking for jobs. Yet there are several mil
lion persons of all ages and degrees of educa-
tion already engaged in this same great
treasure hunt. and unless your Uncle Joe or
Cousin Ben has store or factory still running
it is going to require all your courage and
energy and ingenuity to land job.
Here are some tips and suggestions which
the leading psychologists, vocational coun-
sellors department executives, personnel di
rectors and technical writer's have given me
as to the best way to hunt job. These tips
represent the combined experience of the most
expert studentsof job placement in the country.
They all agree that the first thing to do is
to get the following four wrong notions out of
your head:
Wrong Notion No - That good scholar
ship records in high school and college are
of no help. Records show that business men
are everywhere preferring those graduates
who did we'll in their school studies Some pre-
fer those who ranked in the upper half and
upper quarter of their classes.
Wrong Notion No. q That high scholar
ship records and abstract intelligence are the
only requirements. If you have good PERSONAL
ity qualities, the ability to get along happily
with others and to deal with hard problems of
human relations, you stand better chance
than those who have merely high records in
studies but lack these qualities of personality.
T Wrong Notion No. - That you are "cut
/ out" for some particular vocation and can
find out just what this is by some sort of
mental test, and that. if you do not get this
kind of job, you cannot succeed at anything
else. Mental tests have great value but this
notion about them is bosh. In fact, mental
tests themselves show that every person with
ordinary horse sense can succeed at great
many Jobs. Your question should not be,
lust what am cut out for?" but what
occupations can fit myself for2'
Wrong Notion No. a. That there are only
so many jobs, and when these are filled no
more are to be had. In many lines this is not