This project examined the careers of a one percent sample of federal civil servants for the years 1963 through 1977. The areas of employment investigated included economic returns to schooling and experience, factors affecting promotion and turnover, and occupational career ladders. A series of hypotheses and objectives specified at the outset were subjected to multivariate statistical analysis using the official personnel records of more than 68,000 federal employees. The results show that the main conclusions of human capital research in economics and status attainment research in sociology hold for the federal government. However, internal labor market characteristics must also be considered for a full understanding of civil service careers. The findings suggest that mobility between major occupational categories is infrequent in the federal service, and that when it does occur the attributes of origin and destination jobs are not similar. Attribute continuity is greatest for mobility involving a change of grade or detailed occupation without a change of major categories, for employees in mid-career, not new entrants, and for two of the nine attributes considered--knowledge required by the job and its physical demands. The implication for educational practice is that a concern for teaching transferable skills to prepare students for a career of occupational change should not sacrifice thorough mastery of specific subject matters. (Author/KC)