Aviation Downturns

[🦈💜]

It probably does. People can have a bad interview and chalk it up to a bad day, but when they start to snowball multiple bad interviews there’s a problem. I’ve offered help, and I know @derg has on numerous occasions but it falls on deaf ears.

It’s easier to complain about the system than it is to try to fix the problems.

I've done interview prep for all but the first one. I've done post mortems on all but this last one, including another session with the folks I did prep with. Exhaustive "what do I do different" sort of things, and the responses have been "I dunno, that all sounds good to me." I've taken every single piece of advice I've gotten and tried to implement it. I've tried "being myself," I've tried "being well-prepared (but still myself)", etc.

Unless somebody can go "Oh yeah, I have access to the interview records, and you scored poorly here [x]," there's not much more I can glean, and I'm kinda sick of people here trying to imply that I obviously have an attitude problem that comes out in the interview. I must, obviously, or I would clearly have been hired.

The system works flawlessly for people unlike me. If the system doesn't work for people like me, then obviously the major airlines don't want people like me. If they don't want people like me, then why am I wasting all this time and energy trying to learn to be someone I'm not so that I can trick them into hiring me?

Maybe I'm just a trash animal, and putting on a $1k suit and polished shoes isn't enough to hide that.

 

[🦈💜]

This (thank god) is not the tech industry.

Objection: non-responsive.

 

[derg]

It probably does. People can have a bad interview and chalk it up to a bad day, but when they start to snowball multiple bad interviews there’s a problem. I’ve offered help, and I know @derg has on numerous occasions but it falls on deaf ears.

It’s easier to complain about the system than it is to try to fix the problems.

Probably a simple “fix” too. But horse, water, well, thirsty horse.

 

[Maurus]

Things may have slowed down some, but the amount of “depression” in mentees and others in the industry doesn’t seem proportional.

I find this odd. Why are new pilots depressed at your shop? I mentor and fly with brand new people here all the time and have yet to find someone that hates the job. Most are excited and happy to be here.

 

[jhugz]

I find this odd. Why are new pilots depressed at your shop? I mentor and fly with brand new people here all the time and have yet to find someone that hates the job. Most are excited and happy to be here.

These are people that aren’t at my shop yet, but somewhere in the training pipeline. I would agree with you that most new hires at my places are excited and happy to be here.

 

[jhugz]

I've done interview prep for all but the first one. I've done post mortems on all but this last one, including another session with the folks I did prep with. Exhaustive "what do I do different" sort of things, and the responses have been "I dunno, that all sounds good to me." I've taken every single piece of advice I've gotten and tried to implement it. I've tried "being myself," I've tried "being well-prepared (but still myself)", etc.

Who are you using for interview prep? Not all interview prep is created equal. Again two active legacy airline pilot recruiters are offering help…for zero cost…and still crickets. I’m failing to find the downside in taking the help other than wasting a little bit of your time.

Unless somebody can go "Oh yeah, I have access to the interview records, and you scored poorly here [x]," there's not much more I can glean, and I'm kinda sick of people here trying to imply that I obviously have an attitude problem that comes out in the interview. I must, obviously, or I would clearly have been hired.

There’s obviously an issue. You don’t unsat that many interviews if there wasn’t one. Again not a big deal, I’m sure it’s fixable, if you’re willing to fix it.

The system works flawlessly for people unlike me. If the system doesn't work for people like me, then obviously the major airlines don't want people like me. If they don't want people like me, then why am I wasting all this time and energy trying to learn to be someone I'm not so that I can trick them into hiring me?

People like you? Not really sure what that is supposed to mean. The system isn’t against you. It doesn’t know you or care about you. The system is what it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s what is used to hire pilots. Accept it, learn how to deal with it, or find a new career.

Maybe I'm just a trash animal, and putting on a $1k suit and polished shoes isn't enough to hide that.

Have you met @DPApilot? Somehow that dude got hired flying widgets. Also I somehow managed to get a CJO at both United and Delta and I’m freight trash.

 

[Hiboglossi]

These are people that aren’t at my shop yet, but somewhere in the training pipeline.

As far as I can tell, it's a very different hiring environment for low-timers right now, from what it is at the major airline level, so that might have something to do with it. Very slim pickings for CFI jobs right now, I believe @Maximilian_Jenius has mentioned that recently- he would certainly have more recent experience with the training pipeline/ low time job market than I do. And while alternative low-time jobs to instructing, such as aerial survey jobs, have always been hard to come by; my understanding is that many of those jobs have disappeared altogether in recent years. I can also see how missing the boat on the biggest pilot hiring wave in decades that we saw in the early 2020s would be depressing if you're in the training pipeline now.

 

[Hiboglossi]

Also kind of ironic that everyone likes the premise of this thread. I remember last year I was excoriated for suggesting there could ever be airline bankruptcies or furloughs again, since it was causing other people on here emotional trauma, and would surely scare away newly hired regional pilots if they were to join the website.

 

[jhugz]

As far as I can tell, it's a very different hiring environment for low-timers right now, from what it is at the major airline level, so that might have something to do with it. Very slim pickings for CFI jobs right now, I believe @Maximilian_Jenius has mentioned that recently- he would certainly have more recent experience with the training pipeline/ low time job market than I do. And while alternative low-time jobs to instructing, such as aerial survey jobs, have always been hard to come by; my understanding is that many of those jobs have disappeared altogether in recent years. I can also see how missing the boat on the biggest pilot hiring wave in decades that we saw in the early 2020s would be depressing if you're in the training pipeline now.

Is it a different hiring environment than a couple years ago? Sure. Is the hiring environment bad? Not even close. Many of the legacies are hiring, some of the regionals are and others will be soon once legacy hiring ramps up. There still are CFI jobs out there too.

Good CFI job now requires a couple hundred hours of dual given instead of a fresh cert.

First regional job is now at 2000TT instead of 1000/1500TT.

Legacy is 4000-5000TT instead of 2500TT.

Different…sure…bad…hardly.

 

[juxtapilot]

I’m afraid you missed the point entirely.

What was $15,000 in 1996 is about $30K today. But that wasn’t the point. The message is right there in the text and I’m afraid that all I can offer is re-reading it without sniping-out the math.

I came to this realization while walking through ORD a few years ago and seeing the RJ FOs eating at the sit down restaurants… dayum how times had changed—inflation or not!

 

[Maximilian_Jenius]

Sometimes you just keep getting dealt a bad hand.

Yep!

As far as I can tell, it's a very different hiring environment for low-timers right now, from what it is at the major airline level, so that might have something to do with it. Very slim pickings for CFI jobs right now, I believe @Maximilian_Jenius has mentioned that recently- he would certainly have more recent experience with the training pipeline/ low time job market than I do. And while alternative low-time jobs to instructing, such as aerial survey jobs, have always been hard to come by; my understanding is that many of those jobs have disappeared altogether in recent years. I can also see how missing the boat on the biggest pilot hiring wave in decades that we saw in the early 2020s would be depressing if you're in the training pipeline now.

@derg once said on here that its easier to get a job at a legacy, then to get a low time job. Accurate.

It's a god damn knife fight, West Side Story-like. But with a requirement of ten years of jazz, interpretitive dance and vocal lessons, mixed in wiith professional headshots. For the promposal and "hoco".

For me, it was months of waiting for a CFI at a mom & pop school. Because no one in the valley had 200 hrs. of dual. All of their CFI's that could do instructor training, had left for the regionals, creating a vacuum. If they did have a CFI/CFI's, that could train new CFI's, they were super busy and not taking any new students. So, there was a long wait list. Then I decided to check out independent CFI's, the vast majority of the ones here in AZ. also didn't have 200 hrs of instructing. Then when I was ready to schedule my CFI exam, there was a wait list for a DPE's, because the pilot mills, were contracting with DPE's for exclusivity and throwing cash and perks at them. So, they didn't want to deal with us scummy 61 guys/gals at a mom and pop, if they didn't have too. When my independent CFI, that actually had more than 200 hrs. instructing, actually found a DPE. He upped his price at the last minute from $1500.00 to $3200.00. Then I decided to go the pilot mil. route. Every school at that time AeroGuard, CAE, etc. had a long waitlist for people coming in just to do their instructor ratings. The priority for them were their career track students. Aeroguard actually wanted me to basically do a NASA/Delta style interview to get accepted into their CFI program, with a CUT-E, and some other types of • test.

 

[derg]

I came to this realization while walking through ORD a few years ago and seeing the RJ FOs eating at the sit down restaurants… dayum how times had changed—inflation or not!

The closest I got to a sit-down restaurant at the commuters was that BK past security in Milwaukee or when the captain trying to get me into his MLM scheme would spring for a pastry at the Great American Bagel Company.