The following article is the seventh of a series written for the Crimson by W. W. Daly '14, University Secretary for Student Employment, on the various fields of endeavor in business open to college graduates.

It is probable that very few men who use the telephone company service realize the large number of college men who go into the various activities of telephone work every year, or of the definite campaign that has been developed by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company and its associated Companies.

Each year a group of Executives from the New York office of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, representing the New York activities, the New England activities, and the Western Electric Company, visit the arger colleges, including Harvard, and spend the greater part of a week interviewing seniors who may want to go into their business. Every year a number of men do go in; the number of college men is increasing annually, and the opportunities for a definite career are becoming even more and more marked.

The Telephone Company activities are generally divided into three distinct divisions. It may be recalled that in the original article on the Employment Graph, mention was made of the different divisions in a manufacturing business. The Telephone Company shows similar definite divisions, which are known as Plant, Commercial, and Traffic.

The Plant Division handles installation, maintenance, and the general work of installing and maintaining the material which is used throughout the Company. Into this field there go men with engineering or other mechanical training, electrical men, and others whose back ground would fit them for work in a highly technical organization.

The Traffic Department handles the operation of this material; the actual work of calls; supervision of telephone operators, which again is sub-divided into local, toll, and long distance.

The Commercial Department handles relations with customers, billing handling of complaints, making adjustments, and selling the service of the Company through advertising or other media. This includes the sales end of the business.

For technical men there is the Western Electric Company which manufactures much of the material used in the Telephone business. This is strictly a manufacturing company, controlled generally by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company--manufacturing, and producing only telephone equipment.

There is also the Bell Telephone Laboratories which is supported by the different operating Companies, and which does the experimental work in both pure and applied science that is necessary to develop and perfect the different parts of the Company's apparatus.

Men for both of these last named Companies are interviewed and engaged at the same time as the men who will be going into the other less technical branches of the telephone system.

However, it is into the two departments. Commercial and Traffic that many graduates of Liberal Arts colleges go, and in which they may find for themselves a definite career. This career would have certain differences from a great many other businesses. The American Telephone & Telegraph Company and Associated Companies is probably the largest combined organization, and employs the largest number of people of any group in the United States. In many ways it is analogous to the Government. The ultimate salaries, while good, are probably somewhat less than would be the case elsewhere. This is more than compensated for, however, by the very definite permanence which is assured men who succeed with the Company. Business depression and the subsequent unemployment probably affect the Telephone organization less than any other group, for in good times or in bad, the Telephone Company will do business. It is so much a part of our economic and social life that nothing short of a physical or social revolution would have any great effect on the business.

In considering the limitation of salary, it must be that the best jobs in the executive field are filled to a great extent by college men today; in fact, the President of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company is a Harvard man; one of the Vice Presidents is a graduate of Dartmouth.

In addition to the plant, traffic, and commercial departments, there are in the operating companies certain staff departments, such as statistical, purchasing, and accounting, into which men may go, but their particular abilities and specialized training in the company is the important factor.

One other institution might be mentioned, that is the International Telephone Company, an entirely separate organization from the A. T. & T. which has to do with Transatlantic and European telephone business. The International Company is coming to Harvard this year to take on men in much the same way as is the Bell system and offers an opportunity for work and travel in Continental Europe.