You have several alternatives if you are a graduate of a vocational or technical high school. You can try to secure an apprenticeship in a metalworking plant; successfully completing it will ensure your future as an all-around machinist. However, you may not be able to do this or you may have no desire to go through a long and arduous learning period. In that case, you ought to first try to take advantage of the contacts your school and teachers probably have with local industry. Most vocational and technical high schools maintain a more or less formalized employment service for their students. Since they are training skilled help for industry, they must keep in contact with actual conditions in the field. In fact, most of these institutions have advisory boards composed of leaders from both management and labor who help to keep the schools' courses of study in line with the current needs of the occupations. In this way, your teachers and advisors are kept aware of employment needs and can help you in finding a job somewhere in the community where you can make a start in your trade.
Many of these schools, too, operate what are usually called cooperative or work-study courses. The usual procedure here is to find jobs in industry for the senior-term or last-year students who go to school and work alternate weeks. This method gives students practical, industrial, paid shop experience for one week and class work in the related and academic subjects on alternate weeks. This pattern may vary in particular localities. If you have had the benefit of this experience, you have already made some industrial contacts and perhaps found a shop where you can get started full-time when you graduate.
Suppose, however, you have graduated from a school that does not offer these opportunities and you cannot secure a job. There are several things you can then do. The first, of course, is to watch the want ads in the daily newspapers of your town and apply for those jobs that seem to fit your capabilities. If you asked to write a letter of application to any of those ads, make sure your letter is standardized in form, properly addressed, legibly written or neatly typed, and contains the requested information. You might make up a standard form letter for yourself containing a brief introductory statement of your personal qualities, including such data as age, marital standing, and a chronological account of your education and special training, as well as a list of your experience and qualifications as a machinist. The last paragraph should state briefly why you think you could fill the job adequately. End the letter with the standard closing. Including a stamped, self-addressed envelope might be helpful.
At the same time, you should register with the local office of your state employment service. The various states, in cooperation with the federal government, operate 1,800 full-time local employment exchanges and more than 2,000 part-time offices throughout the United States. These agencies do much more than merely list job openings. They also offer an expert vocational guidance service of which you should take advantage to make the best possible use of your training and background. For veterans, preferential treatment is the rule. If you have some slight physical disability, you might also get special assistance. All in all, it would be decidedly to your advantage to make use of this efficient and free service.
There also are many reputable, private employment agencies that have good contacts with industry. It might help you to register with one of these. Of course, if you are placed in this way, you will be charged a fee which will vary in accordance with the local customs and laws.
These methods do not exhaust all the possible job approaches. For example, you can apply directly to the employment offices of all the machine shops in your vicinity. If you are really determined and have sufficient stamina, you might go through the telephone directory and list all the machine shops by neighborhood groups, and then systematically call at each for a personal interview.
What has been said so far can apply in some degree to any of you, whether you have acquired your basic machine skills in a vocational high school or by any of the other methods. Let's list the possible job approaches as follows:
- Consulting want ads in the newspapers.
- Answering want ads with a letter and resume.
- Placing situation wanted ads in the newspapers.
- Using the employment services of the institution where you received your training.
- Making personal calls at all available shops.
- Using the services of the public and private employment agencies and offices.
- Using the business connections and acquaintances of friends and relatives.
- Using union hiring halls.
- Contacting trade associations and their local chapters.
CIVIL SERVICE
When you are canvassing the field for a start as a machinist, do not overlook the possibilities presented by the civil service, whether it be federal, state, county, or city. This idea may surprise you. Many people think of civil service as a white-collar occupation, but it takes workers of many diverse trades to help operate and maintain our various governments. For instance, the federal government builds and services warships at Navy yards where, under civil service, such trades personnel as welders, shipwrights, machinists, and electricians are employed. Big cities, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, operate and maintain great transit systems, bridges, parks, fleets of trucks, and shops which require the services of numerous mechanics, all under civil service.
Entrance into a civil service job is by competitive examination. As a beginning machinist you would probably have to file for the helper or apprentice category. You would probably be required to take a written technical test on the fundamentals of the machine shop trades and a performance test on which you would have to do some machine operations on a part, working from a blueprint. A thorough physical examination is also usually given. Successful applicants are placed on a list in accordance with their marks and, as a rule, are appointed as vacancies occur. Advancement in civil service depends on competitive examinations also, with seniority on the job counting high.
The one great disadvantage of civil service work is the danger of getting into a rut. It can be like a featherbed into which you sink and become so comfortable that you may in time lose any initiative or desire for ventures on your own in private industry. However, an alert and ambitious person will not allow this to happen, and many persons have spent happy and useful lives serving the government.
To find out about government employment, inquire at your local civil service commission. You can also write to the United States Civil Service Commission, Washington, DC, for a pamphlet titled How to Get a Job with the U.S.A. and other free information. Many large cities have newspapers or periodicals devoted entirely to civil service affairs. Get copies of such newspapers and follow them up. A career in civil service may be the answer for you.
