CFI position , Seattle - please read the requirements

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Thank You Cessna414JJB, All CFI's have to start somewhere, I have been looking for a Good CFI job that I can stick with that is steady and keeps me happy, Pays the bills. I have no desire to go to the Airlines, teaching people to fly is what I want to do. I currently have a job that pays 10 times as much as any CFI position out there can, but its not flying. How do I get the Dual Given time required for a CFI job if everyone is requiring hours like that. I am sitting at 500 TT, 200 Dual Given, CFI, CFII CSEL,CMEL, working on MEI, and I have yet to find a job that is worth my time...
 
splunker21 said:
Thank You Cessna414JJB, All CFI's have to start somewhere, I have been looking for a Good CFI job that I can stick with that is steady and keeps me happy, Pays the bills. I have no desire to go to the Airlines, teaching people to fly is what I want to do. I currently have a job that pays 10 times as much as any CFI position out there can, but its not flying. How do I get the Dual Given time required for a CFI job if everyone is requiring hours like that. I am sitting at 500 TT, 200 Dual Given, CFI, CFII CSEL,CMEL, working on MEI, and I have yet to find a job that is worth my time...
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With 200 hours dual given you should be capable to find employment, if not full time than maybe part time. If you have a well paying job, keep it!
By far not everyone is requiring hours like that, in fact I would have hired a well rounded, well flying 500TT jockey instantly, when I still needed one or three. Instead I turned customers away... ;)

Ding, ding ding........ there are no winners in this game. The best you can do in a market like this is realize that doing nothing is sometimes better than a panic attack. Nobody takes your ratings away, the market is burning it's lemmings and yaysayers and when they're done, step back in and play. Looking at this statement:

and I have yet to find a job that is worth my time...
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I'd say, stick to your guns and find the passion you need, to not value your time higher than other peoples time or walletts. It is a bad thing that is happening and there are plenty of very arrogant and ignorant employers out there. But there are also enough (what I call) "bags of hot air" on the road taking the last bit of sanity out of any business that is stuggling. I'm not going to restate the stupid "supply & demand" rule - but lets see:

In the last 8 months I have received enough resumes to figure out that the average # of flight experience is about 3 times as high as the federal minimums. The fun fact: people DO NOT do their homework. Especially they are missing the train if they keep sending me resumes even though my school disappeared from the face of this earth... :insane:

This is unsolicited advice you did not ask for. Do with it as you please, but remember that complaining does nothing. Flightschools will eventually figure out that you need dedicated instructors and that they should look for a longhauler, rather than the quick moneysavings that come with a 260 hour kid. Building staff up, and training them yourself is often a good option to secure a loyal employee, rather than going fishing for a rat in a New York basement. You end up with 50, but none of them is different from the others...
 
Cessna414JJB said:
Flightschools will eventually figure out that you need dedicated instructors and that they should look for a longhauler, rather than the quick moneysavings that come with a 260 hour kid. Building staff up, and training them yourself is often a good option to secure a loyal employee, rather than going fishing for a rat in a New York basement. You end up with 50, but none of them is different from the others...
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Yes but if one had 50 rats they would certainly be eating good that week.
 
Seattlepilot.
I for one would like to know a little more about the position. I have been a corporate pilot and CFI for a few years. I love to teach and don't mind going back to that as my company has announced the closure of it's business.

I realize it seems many have hijacked this thread, some with a purpose that seems to fulfill nothing but being self serving, other maybe unwittingly.

Like my mother used to always say (I'm the oldest of 8 children) "can't we all just get along?"
 
NickH said:
You could have won your argument by simply stating: 'Actually the pay is $2x' (Insert pay suitable for the kind of professional you claim to want). The fact that you didn't, and instead chose to attack me not only proves me right but should tell prospective employees all they need to know.

I comment on many job postings from schools paying significantly below industry standard, or requiring cfi's to pay for checkouts. This forum is filled with people who criticize gojets and the pilots who fly for them for exactly the same reasons. You get no special treatment because you cry about it.

You keep bringing up some girl who moved on to a better job, but what do you expect?

I believe it was also Socrates who said: 'Pay peanuts, get monkeys'.
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When you run your own business, you can do that.. I chose to run it this way.. Why? Because when I work, I don't consider the pay rate as the only reason why I want to work there..

You fail to understand it.. There are people in my organization that are getting compensated for $50K/year. Of course, you'd like to dispute that and bring up the $15/hr argument.

Part of the reason why I don't bring up the pay is to see who is really interested. Another reason is pay becomes irrelevant at the point when a great talent shows up and you can bump up the price because of the ROI that person is going to bring to the company.

How do i know that? 15 years of IT consulting, resourcing and managing people prior to my current gigs...
 
NickH said:
You keep bringing up some girl who moved on to a better job, but what do you expect?

I believe it was also Socrates who said: 'Pay peanuts, get monkeys'.
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You are forgetting that I used to be full time CFI too. I modeled my business after so many examples that I have seen that treated employees badly. As CFIs what do we complain about?:
- Paying for our own check out.
- Low Pay
- No benefits
- Bad treatment
- Not enough flight time.
- Low morale , etc.
- Crappy airplanes
- Bad teaching practices

So , when I started this business 5 years ago, decided to have the least of all these factors that bugged me at the time.

- Paying for your own check out: Nobody pays for your own check out in AcuWings. In addition if you are in need for additional rating and licenses then instructors don't charge each other. I have had many instructors that came out with CFI from various places and then added their CFII or MEIs with much lower rates than any other places.
- Low pay and no benefits: Pay is relevant. You can always go to Proflight and get paid $10/hr if you like. On the other hand, I don't even have benefits for myself, and I cannot afford to provide them for my instructors. Most of them get their benefits through their family or wifes/husbands anyway. It is the reality of this business that full time benefits is a dream.
In Sept 2008 I got furloughed from my airline job. Two things I didn't do was to cut back the compensation for instructors and grab students from instructors.

- Bad treatment : I used to take my instructors to dinners with their gf/bs once a month. Unfortunately due to the economy it's gone. On the other hand I try to provide coffee and doughnuts for the instructor meetings. (or some kind of snacks depending on the time of the meeting)

- Not enough flight time: This is kind of related to your own attitude. I used to print out business cards for myself when I was at Proflight because the owner won't do it. It's amazing how the walk-in traffic can turn into a next private and instrument rating student that will keep you busy for the forseable future.
Also, I try to keep the instructor body to a low level so that I can give you more flight time.

- Low morale : I'd like to keep the morale as high as possible. That is the first thing that is going to show up in the instructor's face and that is the first thing the customer will notice. Times are tough for full time instructors but I am not rolling in my Benz while these guys are working hard and not getting paid enough. (Yes, I admit, no instructing job pays enough)
Despite of all that, I still don't charge them for their currency, I still don't charge them for the use of simulator, etc.
One of my instructors took 19 days off so that he can travel with his band. I could have said no, (maybe I should have) because his students didn't come as often to fly. It did hurt my bottom line, for sure. But when I needed a favor from that instructor, he delivered it.

- Crappy airplanes : not an issue in here. Things are not the same as 2 years ago and 2 years from today are going to be even better. In two years, I introduced online maintenance tracking, automated mx features, full digital library for aircraft and engine books, full time mechanic and we still farm out some work. There are shops in the area that still use the good old paper or microfiche method. We are not a shop but we still implemented it.. oh yeah, it's not cheap.

Unlike some of the 'clubs' in the area we don't skip the 100 hour mx because all the members are airplane owners. They have better rates , but $$ isn't the everything.

- Bad teaching practices: Non standard teaching is a worse thing that can happen to you as a customer. We still have a room to improve. There are still gaps in there minor ones maybe, but at least we are not teaching two different types of power on stalls like there was the case in ProFlight at the time.

See NickH, there is still a lot more to consider than $15, 16, 17, 18 10, 8, 50, /hr when you are applying for a job. On the other hand , I have seen a lot more people with bad attitude especially from kids with sense of entitlement.
Gen X, gen Y, whatever you want to call it..

Once again, if you are serious about the job, apply.. If you are not don't talk bad about a place that you don't know much about ..
 
splunker21 said:
Thank You Cessna414JJB, All CFI's have to start somewhere, I have been looking for a Good CFI job that I can stick with that is steady and keeps me happy, Pays the bills. I have no desire to go to the Airlines, teaching people to fly is what I want to do. I currently have a job that pays 10 times as much as any CFI position out there can, but its not flying. How do I get the Dual Given time required for a CFI job if everyone is requiring hours like that. I am sitting at 500 TT, 200 Dual Given, CFI, CFII CSEL,CMEL, working on MEI, and I have yet to find a job that is worth my time...
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You have a job paying 600K? I want in.
 
SeattlePilot said:
You are forgetting that I used to be full time CFI too. I modeled my business after so many examples that I have seen that treated employees badly.
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Thank you for laying all this out on the table. I think a lot of bad feelings might have been avoided if this information was available to everyone earlier, but that's no one in particular's fault.

With that said, you sound like you have a good flight school going. I would like to learn more about what you've done, and I'll be contacting you privately to do so.

Again, thank you for being so candid and clear.
 
Dude, I AM a time building "Riddle Rat", and even I could find a job that pays better than $15/hr. Heck, most "Riddle Rats" I know wouldn't bother with applying for your job.

One more thing: USMCmech, work on your attitude. Such derogatory terms such as "Riddle Rat" show your own lacking in intelligence. Is that simple enough to understand, or do I need to use smaller words?
 
saria19 said:
One more thing: USMCmech, work on your attitude. Such derogatory terms such as "Riddle Rat" show your own lacking in intelligence. Is that simple enough to understand, or do I need to use smaller words?
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Buyer's remorse?
 
saria19 said:
Dude, I AM a time building "Riddle Rat", and even I could find a job that pays better than $15/hr. Heck, most "Riddle Rats" I know wouldn't bother with applying for your job.

One more thing: USMCmech, work on your attitude. Such derogatory terms such as "Riddle Rat" show your own lacking in intelligence. Is that simple enough to understand, or do I need to use smaller words?
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Wrong side of the bed or calendar?
 
It sounds like the OP has a good thing going, but he's going to have to bring the pay up some to get the highest-quality applicants. $15/hr was what I made when I was a 300 hour CFI with no experience.

I'm not bashing here, just saying.

EDIT: Wait, $15 per duty hour, or contact hour? Big difference.
 
dasleben said:
It sounds like the OP has a good thing going, but he's going to have to bring the pay up some to get the highest-quality applicants. $15/hr was what I made when I was a 300 hour CFI with no experience.

I'm not bashing here, just saying.

EDIT: Wait, $15 per duty hour, or contact hour? Big difference.
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Go back to my posts and see where you see I said I was paying $15/hr.See if you can find where this job has a compensation attached to it. It's a rumor that is being spread by NickH.
 
SeattlePilot said:
Go back to my posts and see where you see I said I was paying $15/hr.See if you can find where this job has a compensation attached to it. It's a rumor that is being spread by NickH.
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It is a rumor you have yet to say is untrue.

So do you pay CFIs $15 +/-$2?
A quick no I pay more would put the rumor to bed.
 
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