SkyWest group interviews

[clumpinglitter]

I can understand paying money for a course to give you a leg up. Understand yet, but I don't agree with it. Seems kinda silly since the guys in your class all did the same thing, so who exactly did you get a leg up on?

Great, so if I ever get hired and sent to a ground school, I'll be at a big disadvantage. I can't blame people for paying extra money for that leg up, I suppose, but I still think it should be on the employer to pay for type training. I've already paid so much for flight training, and it's irritating that it seems like I'll have to pay even more to be on the same level as my fellow classmates. Or am I reading this wrong, and it's actually not that common?

-C.

 

[zmiller4]

Great, so if I ever get hired and sent to a ground school, I'll be at a big disadvantage. I can't blame people for paying extra money for that leg up, I suppose, but I still think it should be on the employer to pay for type training. I've already paid so much for flight training, and it's irritating that it seems like I'll have to pay even more to be on the same level as my fellow classmates. Or am I reading this wrong, and it's actually not that common?
-C.

Definately don worry if you haven't taken one of these classes. 1) I don't think that many people have taken "advanced systems courses" or whatever they call them, and 2) you don't need it. Is it helpful? Probably somewhat. If I had had access to one as an instructor, I probably would have taken it because my knowledge of advanced aircraft systems was limited to what I read in the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. But it's absolutely not necessary. I don't know of anyone in my CRJ class who took one, and everybody (including the flight instructors) did fine. My roomate had actually been a CRJ FO at Pinnacle, and we did about the same in groundschool--the airline will teach you what they want you to know, and if you study your butt off you shouldn't have any problem at most airlines.

 

[kellwolf]

Definately don worry if you haven't taken one of these classes. 1) I don't think that many people have taken "advanced systems courses" or whatever they call them, and 2) you don't need it. Is it helpful? Probably somewhat. If I had had access to one as an instructor, I probably would have taken it because my knowledge of advanced aircraft systems was limited to what I read in the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual. But it's absolutely not necessary. I don't know of anyone in my CRJ class who took one, and everybody (including the flight instructors) did fine. My roomate had actually been a CRJ FO at Pinnacle, and we did about the same in groundschool--the airline will teach you what they want you to know, and if you study your butt off you shouldn't have any problem at most airlines.

Ditto.

My ground school at PCL was mostly instructors with a couple of guys that took the class at ATP, one CAPT guy and a furloughed DC-9 driver from NWA. Everyone passed ground school no problem. The airline will teach you what you need to know. It's an FAA approved course designed to teach someone who's never flown a CRJ before how to fly one. Odds are, if you spent money on a course, you'd be bored in ground school. To me, that means I spent money for nothing. There were points in my ground school where the instructor was saying "I know this sucks, but we have to do it according to the FAA." I'd only read the Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual and studying flown some glass cockpit time, and I didn't have a lot of diffuculty.

 

[Hootie]

Ditto again, Im pretty sure the only guy in my groundschool that REALLY struggled was the nerd from UND that had taken an "advanced CRJ course".
Everyone else did fine.

 

[SpiraMirabilis]

If you pay for the RJ course here at ATP and get a LoR from the RJ director they lower the minimums by 150TT. It costs $2000 for an instructor, $2500 for a ACPP grad and like $6 large otherwise? The question is... is it worth it? Maybe so, maybe not. I wouldn't pay 6k for it though!

 

[subpilot]

People pay $2K - $6K for a CRJ prep course!

WTF???

 

[k4air]

Just was wondering if the only way to get hired was to attend a group hiring. Or can you submitt your resume and wait for a call? Also I am sitting at 990TT 190ME If I put in 10 hrs early will they boot me? I know some airlines will take the extra over the multi requirement and put it towards the TT. Example in my case... requirements are 1000 and 100 for SkyWest, so take ten of my ME and count it as TT and say my new times are 1000TT 180ME which now meets the requirements. I have heard of airlines doing this but not SkyWest, I heard they stick pretty hard to their set mins. What ya think??

As said above, the TT and instrument time are hard minimums. I haven't met anyone who got hired with less but I did meet some that got sent home for being a few hours short.

The group interview is not mandatory and people get called in for an interview without attending one. This seems to be especially true if you have a good contact within the company. However, my experience was that it will greatly increase your chance of getting an interview. I had a pilot walk my resume in AND my chief flight instructor talking to the hiring manager several times. Even though SkyWest desperately looking for pilots I did not get called. After 2 months of waiting finally I attandet a group interview (they call that 'open house') and had an interview 3 days later. Almost everyone who showed up and gave a decent impression (appropriately dressed, met the minimum requirements, no bad attitude) was invited to SLC. So in my oppinion, if you are seriously interested in SkyWest, it is definitively worth to invest the time (and money for the flight and hotel).

What to expect: A company presentation, a Q&A session and a brief 1:1 interview. For me it lasted about 5 minutes and was almost exclusively HR questions (see AviationInterviews.com). Based on the people I talked to this is pretty much the standart program. However, there were some people that went to the open house in SLC and did the sim and the technical interview right there. So it is a good idea to be well prepared ;-)

Go for it. It is great to work for SkyWest and your chances to get hired were probably never better than right now. Good luck.