Hundreds Wait Hours for 15-Second Shot at a Lockheed Job

A line of several hundred men and women, each clasping a resume, snaked across the lobby of the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys on Saturday morning, down a hall and out a back door.

Many brushed at their lapels or straightened ties as they waited--some for three hours or more--for the chance to be interviewed at a job fair by the Lockheed Corp., the Burbank-based aerospace company that recently landed a $691-million Air Force contract to design an Advanced Tactical Fighter, meant to be the most sophisticated and expensive fighter aircraft ever built.

Lockheed took over much of the hotel Saturday, and will again today, to screen applicants, said Eric Lindgren, the harried human resources manager who was running the job fair. But the company had not expected so many engineers, computer programmers, mathematicians and others to show up, he said.

“We had one of these last year and got about 450 people over the whole weekend,� said Lindgren, nervously clenching his fists. “We’ve had that many here in just the first two hours.�

Several applicants speculated that the large turnout might be related to the announcement Friday by another defense contractor, Rockwell International, that it will lay off 10,000 workers because of a lack of new projects.

Lockheed plans to hire 500 new engineers and other specialists next year and 1,000 more over the following three years, Lindgren said. Two prototypes will be produced within five years.

The contract for actual production of the plane, potentially worth more than $40 billion, will be determined by a “fly-off� between Lockheed’s prototypes and those of Northrop Corp., the other design competitor.

Those in line Saturday ranged from many workers laid off by other defense contractors to an engineer who spent 15 years designing chain saws, and said he “wanted to try something new.�

Groups of applicants stood in a first line to be greeted by two receptionists who recited the same complicated chorus: “We’re looking primarily for design engineers in fields like reliability, maintainability, producibility, supportability, that sort of thing. . . . “

Some immediately walked away. Others shuffled to a second line. Eventually they were ushered into a ballroom where two Lockheed managers shook each applicant’s hand and made a 15-second scan of resumes, then directed them onward or outward--to the exit.

The final step for those who were not filtered out was an interview--and possibly an on-the-spot job offer--by one of 60 specialists in fields ranging from avionics to weapons systems.

“I’ve been through an awful lot of these,� said an electrical engineer from Canoga Park who has worked in aerospace more than 20 years. “We’d all like something that we would feel would last. But this is just an up-and-down business.�