Captain Positions Offered to New Hires

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

I'd guess the major hurdles to overcome are 1) not getting stage fright, 2) keeping your answers concise and to the point with a logical flow and finite end, and 3) not saying insane stuff that highlights what a nutjub you might be.

Thanks for attending my Ted talk, go ahead and save the $500 now

I’m a pilot. Allow me to tell you how you are wrong, and I am right.



Did I mention we make bad social creatures?

 

[alaskadrifter]

For some reason this summer the JNU GST turns for ANC were built into 4 days with min rest in SEA each night. As much as I enjoy that flight, it kinda sucked the fun out of it.

You got to fly during “daytime” this summer??

 

[JDean3204]

I’m terrible at this. That’s why some people, like myself, needed prep. I wasn’t given any answers, they just helped me communicate my story better.

I understand that, for those reasons yes some sort of prep is a good idea. I hope you don’t think I was ripping on those that need it, that wasn’t the intent at all.

 

[Maurus]

Did I mention we make bad social creatures?

Seriously. This is why the people that are good at being social tend to excel in society even if they are complete •.

 

[ppragman]

Seriously. This is why the people that are good at being social tend to excel in society even if they are complete •.

I honestly think pilots are great social creatures... among other pilots, they just don't exist on the same world that other folks inhabit. Physics and mathematics has a much more important role in our life than the average joe on the street and that changes the worldview a bit. It's not that you are calculating integrals on the fly in flight, but something about the risk of impacting terrain at 250kts has an impact on the psyche.

I've been forced to learn what the "other people" think and live like over the last 3 years... it's different. The type of person who even wants to fly in the first place is motivated by different things; then, you end up flying, and you literally see the world in a different way. You see problems from a different perspective etc.

Do you know how many people just "do things" however they think they should be done without any sort of rational reasoning or procedural thinking behind it? Like, if I come across a new thing that I'm trying to do or learn, my initial thought is, "Where is the checklist? How do we emulate people who are successful at this exact job, if nobody has ever done it before where are accounts of people who are in a similar sort of situations? How do I stack the deck in my favor?" This sounds logical to us; culturally it's baked into our ethos - how many accident reports have we read, or even watched full-length youtube videos about accidents, etc? And despite all of the people who will shout "you don't need to learn that" as soon as something becomes academically challenging, how many of us actively study about the parts of aviation we like on our days off? That's not what most people do.

We're intrinsically "knowledge-sharing" people, we want everyone to have all the information. We culturally view that as the best way to operate efficiently and safely - imagine if approach plates were secret, and you had to schmooze the right person to learn the actual minima. We would (rightly) be like, "WTF! that's nonsense - piss off!" But that is not the way that many people in other industries view the world.

Our culture is encouraging - I have strongly disliked people that I have given instruction and checkrides to, and have gone out of my way to do a good job, provide encouraging feedback, and just generally be friendly to the guy in the airplane - even if I hated him when out of the cockpit. In our culture, that's not just "good behavior" it is obligatory. The most practical and one of the most disgusting ethical breaches of professional aviation ethics I can think of is giving someone an unfair check-ride because you didn't like them. Our culture is about trying to help. We understand that this stuff can be challenging, and we encourage people to do better. That's not something every other industry does, and indeed, think of the biggest ass-hat you can think of in the cockpit - they likely were belittling, rude, or just generally tried to be some sort of sky-god. The only way those people were acceptable in the least was if they legitimately were insanely good pilots, and even then that probably wasn't enough.

So, the culture of aviation is awesome from the outside now looking in - the business culture is utter trash, but that's not what this was about - the culture of "flight crew" - of people who have to go and do a dangerous dance with mother-physics for money every day - and make no mistake, even professional 121 aviation, as statistically safe and fault-tolerant as it is - is not safe in the same way an office job is. The culture of "us" - is fundamentally good, even if we are largely nerds and overly self-centered.

We live in a different world, and that means often we simply don't understand the other world, but now from the outside looking in, aviation is a much more positive culture than many other institutions.

 

[derg]

I used very minimal "prep", as I am somewhat philosophically opposed to the concept, at least in the sense that I see it as a cottage industry that is ripping off pilots. But it is useful for some people, I know. Of course I only applied to one place, and the interview here is super chill, so who knows?

"Take three to five minutes and tell us about your professional journey, please refrain from any personal details"

"And my five kids, Jimmy, he's 12, Benny is 14, Jilly is 11, Tommy is 4 and Tommy picked out this tie and said 'Daddy? you go to that office and get that job, he's my pride and joy along with Francine, who is the love of my life for the past 15 years…"

 

[ppragman]

"Take three to five minutes and tell us about your professional journey, please refrain from any personal details"

"And my five kids, Jimmy, he's 12, Benny is 14, Jilly is 11, Tommy is 4 and Tommy picked out this tie and said 'Daddy? you go to that office and get that job, he's my pride and joy along with Francine, who is the love of my life for the past 15 years…"

I mean, a lot of people who don't have kids or a really tight-knit family don't get it, but it's such a huge part of your life that the idea of separating my career details from my personal details is kind of... impossible?

I mean, sure, I get what the exercise is for, but, how do you explain seemingly "bad" career choices that were "good family" choices without that context? I took a pay raise but an "airframe cut" to go back to Alaska when I did. I went from single-pilot in beech 1900s to flying a Navajo because the money was much better. I was going to be able to be home every night with my family, and my wife was 6 months pregnant. So, the reality is intrinsically tied to my personal details. Sure, there are ways I can maneuver that discussion, but it's being kind of dishonest. I parked my career in the direction of the airlines or corporate stuff to feed my family and give my wife the ability to stay at home when the kids were really small.

I don't know, I definitely feel ripped off by the interview prep I got, it didn't help in the least - but I'd say something like 50% of my career decisions after marriage have been tied to my family in my spouse removing those from the equation is somewhat dishonest. I moved back to Alaska the second time after a couple years in Hawaii to be close to my mom and dad - they were having some health problems and I was worried the kids wouldn't be able to form any memories with them if I didn't. Thank goodness we did, because I would have been screwed if I would have gotten sick in Hawaii, but yeah. That decision was for family too, it wasn't really career oriented.

Almost all that elevator pitch nonsense and "tell me your story" is kind of disingenuous now, I feel like too. The companies interviewing really don't care - the goal is to get crews in the seat and make money. The company does not care how they got there in many many cases, they can't! You'd have to start cancelling flights. The idea is:

1. Can candidate X play nice with others and not cause an HR disaster?
2. Can candidate X make it through training and make money for the company within Y months?
3. Can candidate X get along with the other crewmembers well enough to not cause other problems?
4. Does the hiring team like candidate X?
5. The difficulty of steps 1-4 will be determined by how close we are to cancelling flights from lack of crews.

I guess this is maybe a super cynical take, but I don't know, I always felt like those sorts of interview questions were just a bit of a gimmick to see if there were any blatant red flags and see if the candidate could follow directions, they weren't about actually learning anything about them. By again, I may be overly cynical.

 

[derg]

I mean, a lot of people who don't have kids or a really tight-knit family don't get it, but it's such a huge part of your life that the idea of separating my career details from my personal details is kind of... impossible?

I mean, sure, I get what the exercise is for, but, how do you explain seemingly "bad" career choices that were "good family" choices without that context? I took a pay raise but an "airframe cut" to go back to Alaska when I did. I went from single-pilot in beech 1900s to flying a Navajo because the money was much better. I was going to be able to be home every night with my family, and my wife was 6 months pregnant. So, the reality is intrinsically tied to my personal details. Sure, there are ways I can maneuver that discussion, but it's being kind of dishonest. I parked my career in the direction of the airlines or corporate stuff to feed my family and give my wife the ability to stay at home when the kids were really small.

I don't know, I definitely feel ripped off by the interview prep I got, it didn't help in the least - but I'd say something like 50% of my career decisions after marriage have been tied to my family in my spouse removing those from the equation is somewhat dishonest. I moved back to Alaska the second time after a couple years in Hawaii to be close to my mom and dad - they were having some health problems and I was worried the kids wouldn't be able to form any memories with them if I didn't. Thank goodness we did, because I would have been screwed if I would have gotten sick in Hawaii, but yeah. That decision was for family too, it wasn't really career oriented.

Almost all that elevator pitch nonsense and "tell me your story" is kind of disingenuous now, I feel like too. The companies interviewing really don't care - the goal is to get crews in the seat and make money. The company does not care how they got there in many many cases, they can't! You'd have to start cancelling flights. The idea is:

1. Can candidate X play nice with others and not cause an HR disaster?
2. Can candidate X make it through training and make money for the company within Y months?
3. Can candidate X get along with the other crewmembers well enough to not cause other problems?
4. Does the hiring team like candidate X?
5. The difficulty of steps 1-4 will be determined by how close we are to cancelling flights from lack of crews.

I guess this is maybe a super cynical take, but I don't know, I always felt like those sorts of interview questions were just a bit of a gimmick to see if there were any blatant red flags and see if the candidate could follow directions, they weren't about actually learning anything about them. By again, I may be overly cynical.

Well, usually the personal details are chock full of details that aren't germane to evaluating someone and, often, an interviewer would be unable to record and use in subsequent scoring anyway. The non-personal "story" type things are used to evaluate someone's dedication and drive to aviation. "Ehh, I woke up, saw an ad in Flying and went to FlightSafety" will score lower on that section than someone that talks about a deeper, longer-term passion for aviation.

 

[Flyinthrew]

"Take three to five minutes and tell us about your professional journey, please refrain from any personal details"

"And my five kids, Jimmy, he's 12, Benny is 14, Jilly is 11, Tommy is 4 and Tommy picked out this tie and said 'Daddy? you go to that office and get that job, he's my pride and joy along with Francine, who is the love of my life for the past 15 years…"

Really happened here..."We know you prepared your 'Tell me about yourself' speech so just say it. We'll listen. Please keep it to less than five minutes."

I respect that.

My panel was a current 767 Captain, some retired dude, and a HR lady who was cute and plump like strawberry and almost certainly made a great pecan pie.

 

[Flyinthrew]

I honestly think pilots are great social creatures... among other pilots, they just don't exist on the same world that other folks inhabit. Physics and mathematics has a much more important role in our life than the average joe on the street and that changes the worldview a bit. It's not that you are calculating integrals on the fly in flight, but something about the risk of impacting terrain at 250kts has an impact on the psyche.

I've been forced to learn what the "other people" think and live like over the last 3 years... it's different. The type of person who even wants to fly in the first place is motivated by different things; then, you end up flying, and you literally see the world in a different way. You see problems from a different perspective etc.

Do you know how many people just "do things" however they think they should be done without any sort of rational reasoning or procedural thinking behind it? Like, if I come across a new thing that I'm trying to do or learn, my initial thought is, "Where is the checklist? How do we emulate people who are successful at this exact job, if nobody has ever done it before where are accounts of people who are in a similar sort of situations? How do I stack the deck in my favor?" This sounds logical to us; culturally it's baked into our ethos - how many accident reports have we read, or even watched full-length youtube videos about accidents, etc? And despite all of the people who will shout "you don't need to learn that" as soon as something becomes academically challenging, how many of us actively study about the parts of aviation we like on our days off? That's not what most people do.

We're intrinsically "knowledge-sharing" people, we want everyone to have all the information. We culturally view that as the best way to operate efficiently and safely - imagine if approach plates were secret, and you had to schmooze the right person to learn the actual minima. We would (rightly) be like, "WTF! that's nonsense - piss off!" But that is not the way that many people in other industries view the world.

Our culture is encouraging - I have strongly disliked people that I have given instruction and checkrides to, and have gone out of my way to do a good job, provide encouraging feedback, and just generally be friendly to the guy in the airplane - even if I hated him when out of the cockpit. In our culture, that's not just "good behavior" it is obligatory. The most practical and one of the most disgusting ethical breaches of professional aviation ethics I can think of is giving someone an unfair check-ride because you didn't like them. Our culture is about trying to help. We understand that this stuff can be challenging, and we encourage people to do better. That's not something every other industry does, and indeed, think of the biggest ass-hat you can think of in the cockpit - they likely were belittling, rude, or just generally tried to be some sort of sky-god. The only way those people were acceptable in the least was if they legitimately were insanely good pilots, and even then that probably wasn't enough.

So, the culture of aviation is awesome from the outside now looking in - the business culture is utter trash, but that's not what this was about - the culture of "flight crew" - of people who have to go and do a dangerous dance with mother-physics for money every day - and make no mistake, even professional 121 aviation, as statistically safe and fault-tolerant as it is - is not safe in the same way an office job is. The culture of "us" - is fundamentally good, even if we are largely nerds and overly self-centered.

We live in a different world, and that means often we simply don't understand the other world, but now from the outside looking in, aviation is a much more positive culture than many other institutions.

Hey that's incredibly insightful and makes me introspective about my interaction of other pilots and also my interactions with the Operations People on the bridge in The Mothership.

I mean, a lot of people who don't have kids or a really tight-knit family don't get it, but it's such a huge part of your life that the idea of separating my career details from my personal details is kind of... impossible?

I mean, sure, I get what the exercise is for, but, how do you explain seemingly "bad" career choices that were "good family" choices without that context? I took a pay raise but an "airframe cut" to go back to Alaska when I did. I went from single-pilot in beech 1900s to flying a Navajo because the money was much better. I was going to be able to be home every night with my family, and my wife was 6 months pregnant. So, the reality is intrinsically tied to my personal details. Sure, there are ways I can maneuver that discussion, but it's being kind of dishonest. I parked my career in the direction of the airlines or corporate stuff to feed my family and give my wife the ability to stay at home when the kids were really small.

I don't know, I definitely feel ripped off by the interview prep I got, it didn't help in the least - but I'd say something like 50% of my career decisions after marriage have been tied to my family in my spouse removing those from the equation is somewhat dishonest. I moved back to Alaska the second time after a couple years in Hawaii to be close to my mom and dad - they were having some health problems and I was worried the kids wouldn't be able to form any memories with them if I didn't. Thank goodness we did, because I would have been screwed if I would have gotten sick in Hawaii, but yeah. That decision was for family too, it wasn't really career oriented.

Almost all that elevator pitch nonsense and "tell me your story" is kind of disingenuous now, I feel like too. The companies interviewing really don't care - the goal is to get crews in the seat and make money. The company does not care how they got there in many many cases, they can't! You'd have to start cancelling flights. The idea is:

1. Can candidate X play nice with others and not cause an HR disaster?
2. Can candidate X make it through training and make money for the company within Y months?
3. Can candidate X get along with the other crewmembers well enough to not cause other problems?
4. Does the hiring team like candidate X?
5. The difficulty of steps 1-4 will be determined by how close we are to cancelling flights from lack of crews.

I guess this is maybe a super cynical take, but I don't know, I always felt like those sorts of interview questions were just a bit of a gimmick to see if there were any blatant red flags and see if the candidate could follow directions, they weren't about actually learning anything about them. By again, I may be overly cynical.

Ok, now I just think you got deep into the bourbon.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

The SkyWest F/O Staffing Strategy

Man, it’s remarkable how excited you are about current employers and how quickly you poop on previous ones.

 

[alaskadrifter]

I mean, a lot of people who don't have kids or a really tight-knit family don't get it, but it's such a huge part of your life that the idea of separating my career details from my personal details is kind of... impossible?

I mean, sure, I get what the exercise is for, but, how do you explain seemingly "bad" career choices that were "good family" choices without that context? I took a pay raise but an "airframe cut" to go back to Alaska when I did. I went from single-pilot in beech 1900s to flying a Navajo because the money was much better. I was going to be able to be home every night with my family, and my wife was 6 months pregnant. So, the reality is intrinsically tied to my personal details. Sure, there are ways I can maneuver that discussion, but it's being kind of dishonest. I parked my career in the direction of the airlines or corporate stuff to feed my family and give my wife the ability to stay at home when the kids were really small.

I don't know, I definitely feel ripped off by the interview prep I got, it didn't help in the least - but I'd say something like 50% of my career decisions after marriage have been tied to my family in my spouse removing those from the equation is somewhat dishonest. I moved back to Alaska the second time after a couple years in Hawaii to be close to my mom and dad - they were having some health problems and I was worried the kids wouldn't be able to form any memories with them if I didn't. Thank goodness we did, because I would have been screwed if I would have gotten sick in Hawaii, but yeah. That decision was for family too, it wasn't really career oriented.

Almost all that elevator pitch nonsense and "tell me your story" is kind of disingenuous now, I feel like too. The companies interviewing really don't care - the goal is to get crews in the seat and make money. The company does not care how they got there in many many cases, they can't! You'd have to start cancelling flights. The idea is:

1. Can candidate X play nice with others and not cause an HR disaster?
2. Can candidate X make it through training and make money for the company within Y months?
3. Can candidate X get along with the other crewmembers well enough to not cause other problems?
4. Does the hiring team like candidate X?
5. The difficulty of steps 1-4 will be determined by how close we are to cancelling flights from lack of crews.

I guess this is maybe a super cynical take, but I don't know, I always felt like those sorts of interview questions were just a bit of a gimmick to see if there were any blatant red flags and see if the candidate could follow directions, they weren't about actually learning anything about them. By again, I may be overly cynical.

I don’t know, I went from 121 regional CA to single pilot 135 for QOL/family reasons and it was no big deal in my interview.

 

[ppragman]

I don’t know, I went from 121 regional CA to single pilot 135 for QOL/family reasons and it was no big deal in my interview.

I have definitely have had people give me a hard time about "going back to Alaska" but that was circa 2014? I reckon a lot has changed now, and nobody cared when I went to go work for a great corporate outfit - everybody got it... but I definitely had people make snide comments. Now, to be clear, these were places that were probably not "great" to go to, I never got the call for the legacy interview, so this is a thing that I don't really know about at that level, but I definitely got crap for my career choices.

I don't know, I'm really happy how it all turned out, but in a world where I worked for a place where management overlooked some truly heinous (and criminal) behavior because they couldn't find pilots, I'm pretty cynical.

 

[///AMG]

People who • on other pilots, or look down on them, for who they chose to work for, are • people. I'd like to think that all our eyes light up a little bit when talking about flying some poor airplane around single pilot in crap conditions. Whether that be my baby girl, or the civilian equivalents. Maybe a floatplane. Maybe a tail dragger. Something that reeks of actual aviating, even if it is at a shop that isn't "cool". Nobody should look down on that, just because the people writing the paychecks suck. Maybe I am naive in this statement, but, people gotta work.

 

[///AMG]

Also @ppragman don't ever come to the legacies. Your optimism will be crushed. It isn't a majority, but we have a non-zero population that are mouth breathing. Like just weird for 6 hrs straight, show no leadership, and can't even make the guys and gals in the back giggle. It's f ing weird. There are very few people at my shop who I have anything at all in common with professionally, but it always sticks out in my mind when we spend 16 credit hours in mostly silence. If you don't talk to me for 3 hours straight, I immediately start ripping farts. If you don't say "Jesus dude" I'm gonna assume you are dead

 

[Kingairer]

Also @ppragman don't ever come to the legacies. Your optimism will be crushed. It isn't a majority, but we have a non-zero population that are mouth breathing. Like just weird for 6 hrs straight, show no leadership, and can't even make the guys and gals in the back giggle. It's f ing weird. There are very few people at my shop who I have anything at all in common with professionally, but it always sticks out in my mind when we spend 16 credit hours in mostly silence. If you don't talk to me for 3 hours straight, I immediately start ripping farts. If you don't say "Jesus dude" I'm gonna assume you are dead

I don’t know if this is all sarcasm or not, but I wouldn’t talk anyone out of coming to a major, and it hasn’t been representative of my experience at all.

 

[bLizZuE]

I used very minimal "prep", as I am somewhat philosophically opposed to the concept, at least in the sense that I see it as a cottage industry that is ripping off pilots. But it is useful for some people, I know. Of course I only applied to one place, and the interview here is super chill, so who knows?

I think it rips people off that think “this will get me the job.”

My 141 pilot mill had everyone in CFI ground school prepare a lesson and teach it in front of the class and we video recorded it. Then we had to watch it. I said “um yea” about 500 times.

I think having a run through with someone and getting feedback on how to tell your story is a really smart idea when that one day interview will change your entire career. The 500 bucks I paid for interview prep was a steal.

 

[Ian_J]

I think it rips people off that think “this will get me the job.”

My 141 pilot mill had everyone in CFI ground school prepare a lesson and teach it in front of the class and we video recorded it. Then we had to watch it. I said “um yea” about 500 times.

I think having a run through with someone and getting feedback on how to tell your story is a really smart idea when that one day interview will change your entire career. The 500 bucks I paid for interview prep was a steal.

Yeah, at that price it’s like 1.5 - 2 hours worth of pay credit.

 

[MikeD]

When the interviewer is asking you about your career jobs and wanting any personal stuff left o it, they are simply asking what you did, not why you did it. This isn’t difficult at all to separate out,

 

[ClearedForOption]

"Take three to five minutes and tell us about your professional journey, please refrain from any personal details"

When the interviewer is asking you about your career jobs and wanting any personal stuff left o it, they are simply asking what you did, not why you did it. This isn’t difficult at all to separate out,

Ok... I think that the best response to this is, that's not how stories work.

If you want a snapshot of my professional experience, well, that's why I made a CV and put all the appropriate buzzwords in it. Then, I copied and pasted the exact same info into the application system. I check the boxes.

If the goal of the interview is for me to show you that I'm good at my job, a good fit, and not an asshat, well... I'm not the one you should interview. Talk to my last 10 FO's and a bunch of my FA's. But, since the process is that you have to talk to me... well, then let me show off my skills in the world's 2nd oldest profession.

(Disclaimer: I've got more than the 'golden handcuffs' - it's more like I'm strapped to a golden St. Andrew's cross with a 50' gold chain. The only interview I'll be -most likely- doing is working part time at Home Depot after I retire just to get out of the house for a little bit each day so I can answer home improvement questions or something. Even if I wanted to jump shops, and the FOMO does get to me every now and then, I have too much seniority and not enough time to ever recover the QOL or finances. Anyhoo...)

I'm not saying that my elevator speech has to be a Fox-style rant segment, I can swing that pendulum towards the BBC when reporting on myself. At this point in my career I gauge my success after a pairing when, like the way that it ended on my last trip, my FO said to me, "This was an enjoyable 2 day."

So, how do I convey that without it being fake? I don't know. One interview that I did... for a carrier that had a flow to widget airlines at the time, I was too excited. I think that's how I blew the interview. In that case I was completely myself, because I was excited. My uncle had worked at the pre-merger NWA, by going to that regional and flowing up I would have been following the same type of carer path. I was very annoied when I got the TBNT. On the flip side, in this hiring enviroment, I got offered a $350k/year Gulfstream job because I chatted up a dude outside the bathroom on a Widget 76 for like 45 min on my last commute before being based at home. I told him that I really appreciate the offer, but I have a decent QOL at my current shop and was 2 weeks from (finally!) driving to work after so many years.

The problem is that the whole process is fake. You wear clothing that you bought only for the day and you present yourself that <insert company name> is your dream airline. The interviewers write things down - who knows what things go in the notes - so that after seeing 100 clones you can remember who is Fives and who is Rex. Maybe I'm just bitter because younger pilots have choices today, I remember when AirTran had a line longer than the In-N-Out drive though at lunch at a job fair in '10 after I'd been furloughed. My professional life is framed with, "tell 'em what they want to hear and take the first job at a major offered to you."

Why do I want to (really) work at <insert company name>? Because money and airplanes.

Tell us about your journey without personal details? My journey is personal details. I've always wanted to fly, I was told in the pre-internet world (where you couldn't verify things HS counselors said) that my slight prescription that I used to wear disqualified me from flying. So I started another career path - it was rocky but fun, but no money. When I was in my mid-20's and I was working in cargo, <insert professional details about working my way up through the cargo hatch and how that perspective frames my understanding of what's going on around me in the flight deck> I found out that was a big misconception - so I jumped in feet first. Yada, yada, yada... more of the same as I discuss my professional life.

Really, it's the people and the connections that I made (along with doing the work) that framed all my professional successes as I climbed the ladder to where I am today.

All that to say, my CV is a great picture of what I have done, but the whole journey is framed with personal details. We all check the boxes for being qualified to drive the bus, what makes me a good person - and a good person to fly with - and a good personal to be behind the controls leading the crew at <insert company name> - is the intesly personal things that I have done and learned from all of the people I have worked with along the way and how that made me the person I am today.

I guess all that to say that a fake process sometimes requires a little guidance to make sure that you present as a square peg for the square hole. Otherwise, just have a real conversation with me in front of 'Lav F' for an hour where I am completely myself.