Boeing Ads Prompt Huge Response Thousands Call At Suggestion Boeing May Be Hiring

The Boeing Co. has been deluged with tens of thousands of calls this week in response to full-page ads in area newspapers urging readers to consider work as assembly mechanics.

“Even if you’ve never touched an airplane, you may have what it takes to join our team,” say the ads that ran in major Puget Sound-area dailies on Sunday and in smaller publications, some targeting ethnic minorities, through the week.

The ad suggested interested people call to find out where they could pick up brochures about the company’s new six-step assessment process for prospective employees.

But the aerospace company isn’t hiring yet - just preparing for the possibility.

The goal is “to have a pool of applicants we have already assessed for assembly work and the ability to be a team-oriented player,” spokesman Bob Jorgensen said.

In the 24-hour period that began at 5 a.m. Monday, more than 77,000 people tried to call the number provided for Boeing’s 24-hour local hotline.

In the next 24-hour period, there were more than 90,000 attempts. The following day, through early Thursday, the number of attempted calls dropped to about 42,500, Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said.

Some frustrated callers programmed computers to repeatedly dial the number, Conte said. Others swamped the main switchboard and other Boeing numbers.

The response was “unanticipated and over-whelming,” he said.

Boeing has filled all 1,040 of its initial interview slots and plans another round with a Feb. 6 cutoff date, Conte said. The company was braced for another surge of calls Friday.

It’s not clear yet how many workers Boeing is likely to hire this year - the company’s 1996 hiring forecast is not due out until mid-February.

But analysts and members of the general public are clearly optimistic that the tide is turning after six years of layoffs.

Airline-industry fortunes are improving after a years-long slump, and new-plane orders are up. Plus the company is still catching up on backlog that piled up during a two-month strike by its Machinists late last year.

The company, which has a world-wide work force of 105,000, laid off 17,500 people last year - more than 12,000 in the Puget Sound area. Attrition usually opens about 5,000 jobs a year.

Boeing is obliged to call back laid-off union members for some jobs, but a union official noted that there are limits.

“You have to keep in mind that recall rights apply only to your previous job title,” said Bill Johnson, president of District 751 of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “In some job titles, they’ve gone through all the (laid-off) union members in that job title.”

Boeing’s new evaluation process was developed after Boeing executives visited Japan several years ago.

It is designed to identify applicants most suited to Boeing’s “working together” environment, and those with the highest aptitude for specific job assignments, Jorgensen said.

The process will not be used for current Boeing employees who want to be considered for transfer or to laid-off assembly workers with recall rights under the Machinists contract.

“This is pre-employment evaluation,” Jorgensen said. “Eventually, this will encompass a lot of different positions. Right now, we’re evaluating (prospective) assembly mechanics.”

Only the first two steps - signing up for a “pre-employment assessment” and scheduling an appointment to take a four-hour battery of tests - are being implemented.

The testing evaluates job candidates in areas ranging from mathematics to reading levels to thought processes. In one segment, applicants view a video of a developing workplace situation, then are asked to pick the most appropriate of four possible responses.

“Our evaluation isn’t intended to tell if you are a good person or a bad person, but to tell if your approach is team-building, not just “Do it my way,”’ Jorgensen said.