High-Tech Recruiting

In Washington next month, several high-technology companies will attempt to recruit students, using, appropriately enough, high-tech methods. Business People Inc. of Minneapolis will set up large-screen TVs at 30 of the top schools for technical education, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. Then, in a Washington studio, recruiters from such companies and Government agencies as Sperry, Tektronix, Combustion Engineering, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Security Agency will make their pitches via satellite to the assembled seniors. The students, perhaps 4,000 to 7,000 of them, will be able to ask questions of the industry and Government representatives, although the officials will not be able to see them. Says David Aberman, executive vice president of Business People: "The companies can get their message out to literally thousands of candidates nationwide."

The new method does have its limits. It serves only as an effective way of allowing companies to introduce themselves to students. Jobs will still be offered, and accepted, only after low-tech, face-to-face interviews.