Recruiting in Silicon Valley

Three-day work weeks. Sign-up bonuses as high as $7,000. A key to the company hot tub. Free orthodontia for all the children.

These are just a few of the goodies handed out by electronics companies in California's "Silicon Valley," some 40 miles south of San Francisco. It is the scene of a frenzied recruiting drive for anybody with a scientific skill--and many with no skills at all.

Some 500 companies are locked in a desperate recruiting battle for a severely limited number of workers. The more esoteric the specialty, the keener the competition. The mere mention of the name of an MOS (metal on silicon) engineer causes executive knees to bend. In personnel offices, linear engineers and microsystems programmers are spoken of in awed whispers, as if they were deities.

Monolithic Memories Corp. has a standing order for wafer sorters and probe-card repair technicians; meanwhile, the company is turning down orders for lack of workers. Synerteck needs ion implanters, who manipulate control panels to change the electrical properties of silicon. Fairchild Camera and Hewlett-Packard both have hundreds of positions available that cut across every level of skill. Avantek has an eye out for janitors interested in profit sharing.

This activity is part of the explosive growth of the microelectronics industry, which since 1963 has transformed Santa Clara County, whose heart is Silicon Valley, from a bucolic orchard to a crazy quilt of low-slung buildings and endless seams of freeway. Electronics sales are rising 14% annually and will reach an expected $66 billion this year; 10% of the total volume comes from Silicon Valley. Partly because of a post-Viet Nam decline in trained electronics workers coming out of the military, the valley's personnel officers are searching to fill an estimated 5,000 openings.

Helicopters hover above local picnic grounds, trailing long banners promoting the attractions of working at different firms. The Sunday editions of the San Jose Mercury-News bulge with up to 50 pages of help wanted ads. Television commercials promise job applicants VIP treatment if they deign to drop in for an interview.

Older employees at Fairchild are encouraged to persuade friends, neighbors, relatives and presumably passers-by on the street to quit their jobs and join the company that boasts "We Started It All"--in microelectronics and employee benefits. The bounty for a successful raid is $200 to $500, plus entry in the company sweepstakes. Prizes range from T shirts and dart boards to color TVs and trips to Tahiti and Mexico. Workers are given colorful promotion cards that announce the names of sweepstakes winners and, on the flip side, list some of the benefits of working for the company. Says Vice President Warren Bowles: "It's a constant and continuing struggle, but if we have to get people, we'll get them. Maybe at someone else's expense, but we'll get them."

A newly graduated engineer with a bachelor's degree can expect a starting salary of $16,000, plus sign-up bonus. Engineers with ten years or more experience in virtually any facet of electronics can fetch $50,000. Additional perks often include payments for the selling costs on the recruit's old home and closing costs on the new home, free lodging while house hunting, conferences with tax specialists (in hopes of setting up tax shelters) and membership in a country club.

What recruiters do not talk about is the sky-high housing costs. Last year the average price of a house was almost $74,000 in the Santa Clara Valley, vs. $43,000 in the nation as a whole. Ted Oliver, an engineer for Sycor in Ann Arbor, Mich., turned down a job with Memorex in the valley because he figured that, despite the handsome pay and perks, "I would have had to accept a lower living standard at double the cost." No doubt many other employees, new and old, are happy out in the valley. But with the nation's economy now slowing, the highly cyclical microelectronics industry could soon find its order books shrinking. If so, Silicon Valley might well face some layoffs instead of the free-for-all body snatching. qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.