[ QUOTE ]
I have a good buddy who is in recruitment at Airnet. He's been saying that grumblings around HR departments (he meets recruiters at all the airlines at job fairs and conventions) is that there just aren't enough decent applicants out there. Not because of time or experience, but because of personality-type issues.
[/ QUOTE ]
I just thought I'd expand on this. I think this is a clear example of what many people on the boards have been trying to reiterate time and time again. When it comes down to it, flying skills, hours, ratings or flight experience are only a piece of a very large pie of which HR departments use to evaluate an applicant. More than anything, with the more CRM-oriented industry we are in, recruiters are looking for applicants to have more traits associated with socialbility, leadership, customer service, determination, planning, workload management, and the like. Not to say they haven't always looked for these things in some way, shape or form, but nowadays they are becoming more relevant.
Where can one attain some of these traits, or expand on them? Most notably... college! Also, the military for those inclined to lean that direction, or even working outside of a pilot position in jobs that require task management, leadership, and a high degree of customer relations.
But for many on these boards who are young like me and choosing the civilian route, college is the best answer. I speak from my own personal experience in college, and how my four years taking various non-aviation related classes, flying, and pursuing other extracurricular interests helped shape me into a much different person than I was when graduating high school.
In these times, we have many pilots completely bypassing these routes, and immediately moving from high school to a community college in their area for a year or two, before taking out massive loans to pay for flight training at some of the large "ab initio" type schools across the country. Now, I do not necessarily have anything against these schools (minus those who are PFT-types). But moving directly into them with minimal life experience and strictly focusing on flying, then attempting to move into a position in something like charter or a regional airline, in my opinion puts these pilots at a distinct disadvantage (not to mention financial disadvantage). The modern airline cockpit is probably only 10-20% flying. The rest of the time is customer service, systems management, CRM, communication, task management, and situational awareness.
Anyways, I kinda got on the soapbox here. I just saw an opportunity here to reiterate the need for training pilots to not only focus on stick and rudder skills and operations knowledge, but also to expand the other personality-associated traits which are IMHO a necessarity entity in the modern cockpit. This means finding things that will allow you to "expand your horizons" if you will, and help you become a more well-rounded individual. Which is exactly what HR departments are starting to look for in this CRM-driven industry.
