The Choosy Class of '65

"Jobs are easier to come by than they were just a few years ago," says Herbert Tidwell, 21, a business-administration student at U.C.L.A. "You don't have to be in a hurry to take this one or that one." Though such a notion seems contrary to last week's Labor Department report that unemployment rose in February from 4.8% to 5% of the labor force, it reflects the prevailing sentiment among this year's record number of 650,000 college graduates. Never before have the collegiate job hunters been so hunted themselves.

In the keen competition to recruit the best brainpower on campus, U.S. corporations for some years have been offering successively bigger salaries, better benefits and brighter promises of fast promotion. Pay offers this year are up another 2 1/2% to 4% , to an average $6,375 for seniors in nontechnical fields and $7,560 for engineers and other technicians. Last week, with the recruiting season reaching its peak, most of the Grade A or B collegians already had several feelers or firm offers.

The Magic Words. The choosy class of '65 is attracted most by management-training jobs in such expansive fields as chemicals, oils, autos and consumer goods. " 'Management' is one of the magic words," says Dr. Frank Endicott,

Northwestern University's placement director. "The others are 'personnel' and 'public relations.' " Among the hottest jobs are computer-bred positions in market research, finance, and economic analysis, which often open rapid routes to the top.

Banks, especially the few that offer overseas posts, are more popular with the students than in past years, thanks to more vigorous recruiting. They still have a long way to go to match the lure of such glamorous industrial giants as Ford, IBM, Honeywell and A.T. & T. Jobs with management-consulting firms are more "in" than ever on campus. Railroads and insurance companies are "out" because they are regarded as too stodgy. Selling jobs continue to suffer from a lowly doorbell-ringing image.

For the venturesome, Wall Street is a magnet. Its elite law firms typically pick only ten or twelve men a year, work them mercilessly, and pay $7,800 to start. Those who survive may become $35,000-a-year junior partners in ten years. Starting pay is about the same in such cities as Chicago, Atlanta and San Francisco, but rises more slowly. Some Los Angeles law firms are recruiting with promises of $20,000-a-year junior partnerships in three or four years. On Wall Street, brokerage houses pay less than law firms, generally $6,000 for beginners; salaries normally rise about $1,000 a year, and by the time a man is 35 he can expect to be earning at least $20,000 in salary and bonus.

About two-thirds of the major U.S. corporations now stake some of their recruits to advanced degrees. Bell Labs, RCA and other companies offer a combination work-study program. The recruit puts in two days a week at the company, studies three days at a nearby university, and collects $6,000 to $10,000 a year. For just taking a temporary job at Hughes Aircraft last summer, Engineering Student Fred Luconi was staked by the company to a fifth year at M.I.T.--with no strings attached.

Businessmen Below. So many seniors are eager to study longer that the corporation's toughest competitor for talent is the university itself. Nationally, 19% of all seniors go on to graduate school; the percentage is much higher in leading schools--47% at U.C.L.A., 66% at Brandeis, 67% at Harvard and Yale, and 86% at Amherst and Columbia. Graduate work lets students avoid the draft and put off the decision of what job to take. The longer students stay in school, the more likely they are to go into teaching or government instead of business.

Harvard's placement directors have noted another phenomenon: the brightest students avoid business. Those at the top of last year's class preferred research or teaching, and most of the men who planned commercial careers stood below the middle of the class.

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