Holt Will Find You Work--In Any Language

Any three people that manage to find 4000 jobs between them within a year might be considered somewhat unusual in the field of employment. Especially when those jobs range from walking dogs to teaching Malayan.

Yet that was the record compiled last year by the Student Employment Bureau, which serves as a clearing-house for all University students with monetary problems, as well as for few graduates.

Now in its third year of post-war operation, the Bureau undertakes to find jobs for everyone that wants one, whether he is in financial need or not and achieving this goal has turned the little office in Weld Hall into one of the most high-powered organizations in College.

The College itself can absorb only about one-fourth of the job-hunters in such positions as dining-hall busboys, lab technicians, and the like. The other three-fourths must find employment with individuals or companies in Cambridge and Boston.

How Does it Work?

This is where John W. Holt, director of the Bureau, comes in, for he acts as leg-men, contact artist, and labor-management mediator for the other 3000 annual jobs. His system is roughly this:

Each applicant fills out a detailed form explaining his special talents, his free hours, his employment preferences, and sundry other details. Then Holt calls upon his store of contacts to find a hob that will fit the applicant's particular idiosyncrasies, or if none is forthcoming, files the application away until a suitable job shows up.

As often as not, job-seekers are not in desperate need for money, but take on some part-time work just to fill their spare time or their wallets. These are the men who bring in such diverse talents that the Employments Bureau has recently had to set up a special Entertainment Bureau to handle their needs.

Taxes A Problem

It is also this type of student who gives Holt the biggest headaches. Many of them turn up their noses at $40 a week jobs for less remunerative ones that will keep them in a lower income tax bracket. Others, who work for the pleasure of it are apt to quit at a crucial moment without telling their employees. Needless to say, this does no good to the reputation of the Bureau.

Nevertheless, the agency racked up an impressive financial record last year. From blood donations alone (one of the subdivisions of the bureau), students pulled down a cool $20,000 and when you add in the income from such things as apply picking, dog walking, and sailing instructions, the total gross well into six figures. Nobody knows the exact amount, for students are shy about telling Holt just how much they ears. Income tax again.

Tri Lingeal Service

Perhaps the most satisfying moment the office had last year came when a woman walked in with a postal card. It was from the concentration camp in Poland where her husband was interned and it was written in Polish. She spoke only French. A quick look through the files and Holt phoned a student language expert, who translated it from Polish to English. A second man was called to put it into French.

The postal told her that her husband had been release from detention camp and was on his way to join her.