DenverPilot8
Well-Known Member
Hello all! I hope the new year treated everyone well. I don't know how to start this thread so I'll just dive right in. My background is current LCC FO (Airbus) and recent hire at Delta Air Lines. Since going through the process I have helped a lot of friends review their applications and wanted to share, if it would help the most common things I have seen. The disclaimer is that I have no association with or inside knowledge of the hiring at Delta. With that said I think it helps to have a good list of things to look over and you don't have to spend $500
These are more along the lines of how to make your application "complete" and not a way to "hack" the system. Often if you have heard that "yeah i have my apps out but i haven't heard anything" then most likely that person turned in an application 3 years ago and the only changes they are making is their flight time. There is a lot more that goes into making a complete application than just filling in the blanks. So here it goes.
1. As most know there is a "triggering" process for your application to be be "scored" or reviewed. Do what you can to make this trigger happen. Inside recommendation (Any Delta Employee) or a job fare attendance (Once a year).
2. Think of your application as your "story". There are Delta pilots (real human beings) that are reading your application. Talk to them (through your app). Tell them about YOU. There are many places on Airline apps that allow you to write paragraphs explaining things. USE IT! one word answers to all of the questions say nothing about you. Examples are volunteer work, check ride busts, job descriptions etc. Write something but also be concise.
3. Starting at the top. Make sure your airlines apps subscription has not expired.
4. Contact information is up to date and accurate. Especially your email address. Also check your junk mail from time to time just in case.
5. Medical is up to date and not expired
6. Rumor has is that if it doesn't apply put an "N/A" in the field. You can do this or not but go under "review application" several times throughout the process to make sure it's not in an odd place like "John B Smith N/A" in the name field. The same applies for everything else. Use this review function to see what will actually be shown to the application reviewer.
7. Address History. This section and job history get a lot of "fix it" emails. This section needs to be a COMPLETE history. So you you did Job A from 1/1/2009 till 5/6/2010 and started a job on 6/6/2010 they are going to want to know what you did that month. I would make the start and end dates of your jobs the same so it is one consistent timeline. Same thing with address history. Make this COMPLETE. Put every address you lived at with a consistent timeline.
8. Education/Flight Training/Achievements: A lot of apps I reviewed had college information but did not sate where they did their flight training. Make sure to include all of the dates and locations of your flight training. In my case I did my training ALLL over the place. So I added several entries under "professional development" with the flight school name and address with ratings completed there. If you did your training in college it wouldn't hurt to create one entry for your college/school and another entry with the same school with the flight training you did. So one entry for school and one entry for flight training. Don't forget the dates attended as well.
For achievements brag about yourself here. Deans List or honor role are great.
If you have done Volunteer work then talk about it. A typical entry Ive seen is this:
"Ronald McDonald House 2009" and nothing else!?! if you spent the time to help out then take the time to talk about it. What is the Ronald McDonald house? What did you do there? What did you get from it. Remember actual humans are reading this. Nothing wrong with writing a simple paragraph on how this work has allowed you to gain perspective. List the Organization, the dates participated, and what you did.
9. Driving Record: Make sure your Drivers ID is correct and up to date. Obtain your driving record from your home state and list ALL and I mean ALL of your infractions here. If you've lived in multiple states and don't know if something is on there then GET IT. I know it's a pain but you need to do this. It has to be accurate. No exceptions.
10. Employement: See above about a complete Job history with a consistent timeline. Now the Job description stuff. Don't put "First Officer XYZ Airline. Responsible for assisting the Captain in 121 operations" Don't do it. Yes that's PART of what you do but that literally says nothing about you. Put your duties but put things specific to you about what YOU bring to your job. "Facilitate open communication in the flight deck by cracking an amazing joke" would be better honestly. Also under the section "reason for leaving" don't put "left to go to Xjet". Say something about growing in your career and the actual reason you left. It means more that way.
11. Certs & Ratings. Make sure you put all of you Certificates in here. don't forget about the Gold Seal or Ground instructor rating you got.
12. FAA actions. If you do have one then jsut answering "yes" here with no explanation will definitely sink you. Put what happened and what your learned or corrected. We are human and humans (Delta app reviewers) get that. So mistakes happen.
13. Flight time. It goes without saying that this should be accurate and reflect EXACTLY whats in your log book. The worst thing that can happen is you finally get the call and your logbook is WAY off from what was in your application. There are some obvious sections here but pay attention to them all. Did you really only do 5 approaches in the last 6 months or did you forget to update that? Don't forget about flight conditions. Go over the totals over and OVER again until it all matches up perfectly. Put all of your Aircraft Types in. It's a pain but just do it.
14. References. Get them and make sure they know they are being used as a reference. It would be good to have at least one person that is a mentor of some kind (Check Airman, instructor). Include your letters of recommendation under "addendums". Also be sure to read your letters of Rec. As nice as it is for someone to write one for you it also has to be accurate and well written (really meaning just format, spelling that kind of thing)
15. Spellin (Spelling) and Grammer (Grammar!) Check and re-check this stuff. Also excuse any spelling or grammar errors in this post
16. The Addendum: This section is really important and asks a lot of questions. If you failed a check-ride for example then put why you failed and what you learned from it. Don't forget the fax numbers and phone numbers that are asked for. If you committed a misdemeanor crime then explain it here and DON'T leave it off.
14. Formatting. There are many places throughout the application that asks for phone or fax numbers or addresses or dates. Try to make the formatting of these all the same. For example if you list a phone number as (123) 456-7890 then keep the format the same for every phone number. Don't put (123) 456-7890 then the next line 123-456-7890 then 1234567890 and so on. They are all fine but pick one and stick to it. This goes for the whole application. Format it like you would your resume so it is easy to read.
15. The final thing I can say to review your app. Then review it again and AGAIN. Review it until you feel like there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it. Then have someone else review it (a friend for free) to see if they can see anything. If you went through once and filled everything out and haven't touched your app I can guarantee you that you most likely have errors on it. If you're a check airman with 8000 hours, 4 year degree, no busts, no FAA actions or failures and are not getting called then it could be the app itself. Take the time.
Anyway there are a few more things but too detailed to type out here. I hope this list at least helps some people. It is of course in no way a guarantee that it will work. But after attending a job fair or two I know how hard people are working the get the job they want. When that "trigger" happens you want the absolute best version of yourself to show. Again I'm in no way an expert at all. But I've reviewed a lot of applications and the omissions are very common. Happy New Year to all. I hope everyone gets to where they want to be.
These are more along the lines of how to make your application "complete" and not a way to "hack" the system. Often if you have heard that "yeah i have my apps out but i haven't heard anything" then most likely that person turned in an application 3 years ago and the only changes they are making is their flight time. There is a lot more that goes into making a complete application than just filling in the blanks. So here it goes.1. As most know there is a "triggering" process for your application to be be "scored" or reviewed. Do what you can to make this trigger happen. Inside recommendation (Any Delta Employee) or a job fare attendance (Once a year).
2. Think of your application as your "story". There are Delta pilots (real human beings) that are reading your application. Talk to them (through your app). Tell them about YOU. There are many places on Airline apps that allow you to write paragraphs explaining things. USE IT! one word answers to all of the questions say nothing about you. Examples are volunteer work, check ride busts, job descriptions etc. Write something but also be concise.
3. Starting at the top. Make sure your airlines apps subscription has not expired.
4. Contact information is up to date and accurate. Especially your email address. Also check your junk mail from time to time just in case.
5. Medical is up to date and not expired
6. Rumor has is that if it doesn't apply put an "N/A" in the field. You can do this or not but go under "review application" several times throughout the process to make sure it's not in an odd place like "John B Smith N/A" in the name field. The same applies for everything else. Use this review function to see what will actually be shown to the application reviewer.
7. Address History. This section and job history get a lot of "fix it" emails. This section needs to be a COMPLETE history. So you you did Job A from 1/1/2009 till 5/6/2010 and started a job on 6/6/2010 they are going to want to know what you did that month. I would make the start and end dates of your jobs the same so it is one consistent timeline. Same thing with address history. Make this COMPLETE. Put every address you lived at with a consistent timeline.
8. Education/Flight Training/Achievements: A lot of apps I reviewed had college information but did not sate where they did their flight training. Make sure to include all of the dates and locations of your flight training. In my case I did my training ALLL over the place. So I added several entries under "professional development" with the flight school name and address with ratings completed there. If you did your training in college it wouldn't hurt to create one entry for your college/school and another entry with the same school with the flight training you did. So one entry for school and one entry for flight training. Don't forget the dates attended as well.
For achievements brag about yourself here. Deans List or honor role are great.
If you have done Volunteer work then talk about it. A typical entry Ive seen is this:
"Ronald McDonald House 2009" and nothing else!?! if you spent the time to help out then take the time to talk about it. What is the Ronald McDonald house? What did you do there? What did you get from it. Remember actual humans are reading this. Nothing wrong with writing a simple paragraph on how this work has allowed you to gain perspective. List the Organization, the dates participated, and what you did.
9. Driving Record: Make sure your Drivers ID is correct and up to date. Obtain your driving record from your home state and list ALL and I mean ALL of your infractions here. If you've lived in multiple states and don't know if something is on there then GET IT. I know it's a pain but you need to do this. It has to be accurate. No exceptions.
10. Employement: See above about a complete Job history with a consistent timeline. Now the Job description stuff. Don't put "First Officer XYZ Airline. Responsible for assisting the Captain in 121 operations" Don't do it. Yes that's PART of what you do but that literally says nothing about you. Put your duties but put things specific to you about what YOU bring to your job. "Facilitate open communication in the flight deck by cracking an amazing joke" would be better honestly. Also under the section "reason for leaving" don't put "left to go to Xjet". Say something about growing in your career and the actual reason you left. It means more that way.
11. Certs & Ratings. Make sure you put all of you Certificates in here. don't forget about the Gold Seal or Ground instructor rating you got.
12. FAA actions. If you do have one then jsut answering "yes" here with no explanation will definitely sink you. Put what happened and what your learned or corrected. We are human and humans (Delta app reviewers) get that. So mistakes happen.
13. Flight time. It goes without saying that this should be accurate and reflect EXACTLY whats in your log book. The worst thing that can happen is you finally get the call and your logbook is WAY off from what was in your application. There are some obvious sections here but pay attention to them all. Did you really only do 5 approaches in the last 6 months or did you forget to update that? Don't forget about flight conditions. Go over the totals over and OVER again until it all matches up perfectly. Put all of your Aircraft Types in. It's a pain but just do it.
14. References. Get them and make sure they know they are being used as a reference. It would be good to have at least one person that is a mentor of some kind (Check Airman, instructor). Include your letters of recommendation under "addendums". Also be sure to read your letters of Rec. As nice as it is for someone to write one for you it also has to be accurate and well written (really meaning just format, spelling that kind of thing)
15. Spellin (Spelling) and Grammer (Grammar!) Check and re-check this stuff. Also excuse any spelling or grammar errors in this post
16. The Addendum: This section is really important and asks a lot of questions. If you failed a check-ride for example then put why you failed and what you learned from it. Don't forget the fax numbers and phone numbers that are asked for. If you committed a misdemeanor crime then explain it here and DON'T leave it off.
14. Formatting. There are many places throughout the application that asks for phone or fax numbers or addresses or dates. Try to make the formatting of these all the same. For example if you list a phone number as (123) 456-7890 then keep the format the same for every phone number. Don't put (123) 456-7890 then the next line 123-456-7890 then 1234567890 and so on. They are all fine but pick one and stick to it. This goes for the whole application. Format it like you would your resume so it is easy to read.
15. The final thing I can say to review your app. Then review it again and AGAIN. Review it until you feel like there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it. Then have someone else review it (a friend for free) to see if they can see anything. If you went through once and filled everything out and haven't touched your app I can guarantee you that you most likely have errors on it. If you're a check airman with 8000 hours, 4 year degree, no busts, no FAA actions or failures and are not getting called then it could be the app itself. Take the time.
Anyway there are a few more things but too detailed to type out here. I hope this list at least helps some people. It is of course in no way a guarantee that it will work. But after attending a job fair or two I know how hard people are working the get the job they want. When that "trigger" happens you want the absolute best version of yourself to show. Again I'm in no way an expert at all. But I've reviewed a lot of applications and the omissions are very common. Happy New Year to all. I hope everyone gets to where they want to be.
