I'm not sure how much you and I have in common. I assume you are a younger guy who is a lot earlier in your career than I and your goal may be to fly for the majors. I fly for a part 91 aerial mapping op and am very content to stay but hopefully you can get something out of this. So - here ya go (LONG, but there is a point at the end)
opcorn:
Flying was just a hobby for a long time. After a nasty divorce and some rearranged priorities I got a renewed interest in flying.
I never had any interest in teaching but I wanted to get my Instrument and Commercial so I needed to build time. With 115tt and only a PPL, I offered to make a website for the flight school where I learned to fly. They gave me flight time in trade and a few hours a month to maintain the site. I also offered to wash planes for them on weekends and earned even more flight time. I eventually had enough for my Instrument rating. I spent so much time at the airport that I got a lot of networking contacts. I met an instructor there and we became friends. He is still my instructor. He's an older guy, independently wealthy and instructing was basically a hobby for him. As he puts it, he now only accepts "students who already know how to land". Anyway, he got me through my commercial then I start ferrying aircraft around for the flight school for even more flight time.
Up to that point I wasn't even thinking of flying for a living since I owned a computer consulting company that made me a decent living. But I started getting bored with the computer thing and the profit margins were diminishing in that industry. My buddy who is a CA at Skywest suggested that if I ever wanted fly for a living that the regionals were hiring pretty low times(and also pretty low money). I decided that the good money I was making in the computer biz was not making me happy so I sold my company, and went to work as an avionics installer. I had met the owner of that avionics shop while ferrying airplanes over there for the flight school. He had a Baron and he wanted me to fly it to remote fields to do pitot static certs. So a few months later I get my multi but before I got any time in the Baron I got laid off there.
So I started sending out resumes and living off savings. About the time I had no money left I got an interview with Mesaba. It seemed to go well and I was one of two out of the interview group to get a letter of intent to hire and sent to drug testing but a week later got the dreaded nevermind letter. I found out the other person also did not get hired either and in fact they started furloughing shortly thereafter. That was Spring of 2007 when everything started going downhill.
So there I am, no job, no money left, no prospects for anything, let alone a flying job. I started Googling for anything and found the JC site. I found a thread talking about aerial mapping and there was a photo of one of my current company's 172s. I googled the tail number, google the reg address, found the personal website of the owner(at the time) and found that he and I share the same last name. I sent him an email saying that if he was the owner of this company that I wanted to work for him. Fortunately for me, the company mins at the time were 350tt. I had 450. Initially I heard nothing back and in the meantime I applied at one of the other aerial mapping companies. I was turned down for being too fat. I weighed 225 at the time.
I had signed a non-compete agreement with the company I sold my computer company to so I couldn't do that anymore. In desperation I thought about trying to borrow some money to get the CFI but found that half of the CFIs at the local flight school had given up and the rest were making nowhere near a living wage. I had resorted to local temp services but no one wanted to hire a 40 something guy that had once been President and VP of his own companies.
I was on my way back from another demoralizing interview at a temp agency when I got a call from the then owner of my current company. He remarked about us having the same last name and we determined that we in fact were not related. He offered me the job. Two guys had quit to take 135 jobs. I felt obligated to let him know that at 225 pounds I was too fat for one of the other similar companies. He said "Oh we got guys WAY bigger than that".
I worked three months before being offered the Chief Pilot position. The company has changed ownership since then and there have been some growing pains but generally I am happy here. I have developed an extraordinary working relationship with the VP of production at our client company and last Summer successfully negotiated adding two Piper Aztecs to the fleet. So now I'm at 2300tt and cranking out multi hours.
You'll notice that for me, getting from Private pilot with 115tt to ATP with 2300tt involved a certain measure of luck. It also involved some logistics. I heard a phrase a long time ago - I think it was a French phrase and unfortunately i forgot it but I did remember the meaning and have tried to live by it. It basically says, "Put yourself in the best position to take advantage of luck"
In other words, you need to learn the art of putting yourself in the right place at the right time. Sending out 100 resumes and waiting by the phone won't cut it. I've got 100 resumes sitting on my computer right now and zero positions open.
This site is a great resource for networking. Most here are good folks genuinely wanting to help their fellow pilots. There are also a few very bitter and negative members who spend a lot of time bashing companies from a point of ignorance or ridiculing another member's career choices. Learn to discriminate between good advice & bad advice.
Figure out how to use your non-aviation related talents to get you into circles that can help you.
Be persistent but know the difference between being persistent and being annoying.
Good luck to you and I hope this helps you or someone out in some way.
