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.
