Aerospace industry pushes recruiting into cyberspace
Justin Wong, an aerospace engineering student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was schmoozing on facebook.com last fall, when he came across a sleek Boeing Co. job ad.
Wong, who had just interned at the aerospace company, saw the banner on the popular social networking site as a “two-way street” -- a defense behemoth reaching out to today’s youths in their virtual playground.
“My first impression was that Boeing is getting with the times,” said the 21-year-old senior, who will work at Boeing’s satellite division after graduation. “It shows the company is making an effort to talk to us on our level.”
It’s no secret the U.S. aerospace industry is rapidly graying: The average age of aerospace workers was 45 in 2005. By next year, about 1 in 4 will be eligible to retire.
Faced with a looming brain drain, companies are cooking up creative ways to lure and keep talent, including chatting with students online and fast-tracking young workers to be future leaders.
Industry analysts say there’s still time to stave off a shortage -- if the effort begins now.
“The workforce isn’t going to suddenly disappear,” said Jeremiah Gertler, assistant vice president of the Aerospace Industries Assn., a trade group. “We actually have enough time to start building up the folks for the future.”
For years, recruiters flooded college campuses, promoting internships, setting up luncheons and handing out leaflets at job fairs. Although many aerospace and defense companies still consider face-to-face contact their best tool, more are experimenting with virtual connections.
For example, Boeing last year advertised a contest on Facebook to win an Apple Inc. iPod Nano or iTunes gift card. Facebook users who entered the sweepstakes listened to a short video promoting the company and answered a multiple-choice quiz. The company then followed up with job openings.
Boeing also uses Facebook to keep in touch with workers hired through traditional channels. Interns who will work at the company’s Southern California plants this summer were invited to join a Facebook group created by Rob Papandrea, a 28-year-old former Boeing engineer turned college recruiter.
Interns are valuable because many land full-time jobs after their gigs. Recruiters are increasingly going out of their way to make interns feel welcome in a corporate environment, and that sometimes means speaking their language -- on the Internet.
“We’ve got to go to their turf,” Papandrea said.
The Boeing intern group, with 127 members, has been messaging one another with a simple “hi” or questions about housing and other topics. The group page on Facebook even posts an invitation to a mixer this month before summer internships start.
“It’ll be a lot easier to break the ice and socialize,” said intern Senad Basic, a 22-year-old computer science student at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
The aerospace sector -- loosely made up of people who design and develop aircraft, spacecraft, missiles and engine systems -- was flush with engineers during the Cold War. Workers from that era still make up the heart of today’s workforce.
The industry took a nose dive in the 1990s. Military spending cuts forced businesses to downsize or merge. Many young engineers fled to dot-coms and other tech start-ups.
There were 630,000 aerospace workers last year compared with 1.1 million in 1990. The ranks of workers ages 25 to 34 plunged to 15% in 2005 from 27% in 1992, according to the aerospace association.
With fewer students interested in engineering, many wonder whether defense contractors can attract enough skilled workers to replace retiring baby boomers.
Other industries facing talent shortages can easily outsource jobs overseas, where labor is cheaper. But defense contractors have a harder time hiring noncitizens because of national security clearances and government restrictions on technology transfer.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation’s No. 1 military contractor, started a chat room this year on its website where recruiters host daily one-on-one instant messaging fests with job seekers.
The virtual chat was not specifically created to attract younger workers, but many college and high school students log on to seek advice and learn about internships, said Pete Bugnatto, a recruiter based in Silicon Valley.
Every Wednesday, Bugnatto’s computer lights up with a torrent of instant messages from job candidates. He greets every user who signs on during the two-hour chat window and divvies up the questions among eight other recruiters.
The chat room for recent college grads is among the most popular, with recruiters answering hundreds of questions during each session.
“It’s one way for them to get immediate attention. They can chat with someone in real time,” Bugnatto said.
Raytheon Co. is targeting specific regions. In the past, the defense contractor took a “shotgun approach” by flooding college campuses and job fairs with recruiters and trying to appeal to the largest number of people.
Last year, the company developed a proprietary computer software program that analyzes federal labor and demographic data. Recruiters use the software to zero in on engineering hotspots and areas with a diverse population.
“We’re getting more scientific and more deliberate” in our recruiting, said John Malanowski, vice president of talent acquisition.
