SEATAC – Upstairs at the Hilton, more than a thousand people waited Thursday for scheduled interviews for some of 3,000 open jobs at the Boeing Co.
Down in the parking garage, hundreds more started lining up at 3 a.m. in hopes they could meet with a hiring manager for just a few minutes.
Those managers worked a waiting room just like a doctor’s office – calling out names and clutching files as they sought their next appointment.
“This place is a zoo,” said Matthew Wise, a Kent man who interviewed for two jobs on Thursday. “It’s going to be a long four hours.”
But even with the confusion, it was much more fun to be hiring people than laying them off, said Mumtaz Malik, a senior manager on Boeing’s 7E7 team in Everett. “It’s an exciting time, actually.”
Boeing expected to interview about 1,100 people Thursday during a daylong job fair at the SeaTac Hilton conference center. So many candidates requested interviews that Boeing recruiters had to schedule some to come in today, said Barbara Murphy, a company spokeswoman.
The openings were mainly for engineering and technical jobs on the 7E7 program in Everett or the Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft program for the U.S. Navy in Renton. But the company also is hiring to fill a range of openings in defense and commercial airplane programs, Murphy said.
Overall, Boeing has 11,000 openings nationwide that it hopes to fill by year’s end. About 3,000 of those are in the Puget Sound region. These hires are in addition to workers Boeing has already recalled to fill new jobs that are similar to their old ones, Murphy said.
Boeing has added 233 people to its Washington state workforce over the past two months, for a total work force of 52,996.
Thursday’s job seekers included a mix of current and laid-off Boeing workers, plus others from outside the company. The people jammed the parking lot to overflowing in the morning, forcing organizers to arrange for parking at another hotel, with a shuttle bus running hopefuls back and forth.
Phil Carlson of Lake Stevens was one of them. A retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant, he was there to interview for a job working on technical publications for the AWACS program – updating the books and manuals he had used as an aircraft maintenance technician.
“It’s something I’d really like to do,” he said.
Katherine Clouse of Edmonds took the day off from a temporary clerical job at Boeing to apply for a full-time project management position. “I’m hoping it’s with the 7E7,” she said.
James Timko was one of the earliest to be laid off. He was a service engineer in Everett before he got his 60-day warning. Since then, he’s worked “survival jobs,” including a stint as night attendant at a gas station in Kirkland.
“It’s been an experience,” he said.
Carlson and Clouse were called in for interviews after applying for jobs on Boeing’s Web site, but Timko was hoping to get a chance to meet with a hiring manager without an appointment.
Who was going to get hired? Malik said his team – which has openings for 25 environmental systems engineers – was looking to hire for attitude, and train for specific skills.
“We’re looking for people with the right attitude,” he said. “How they’re going to fit into the team – attitude, teamwork, that kind of stuff.”
For those with the right kind of stuff, Malik was ready to make an offer on the spot. Boeing had designated “job offer” rooms set up at the hotel. People getting offers Thursday could start work in three weeks, he said.
“We’re hoping to make quite a few offers today,” he said.
More typically, Murphy said, people who did well in Thursday’s interviews would be asked back for follow-ups, which could lead to a job offer in the coming weeks.
Clouse finished her master’s degree after being laid off in December 2001. She said she felt good about her chances of landing an offer Thursday, given her education and previous Boeing experience.
“I’m confident of my skills, and with 16 years experience, I know the infrastructure,” she said. “I’m definitely an asset.”
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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