I've taught at Riddle and elsewhere, and I can safely say that there are not many better instructing jobs out there. Flyboy got the pay and bennies about right. As a beginning full time instructor, the pay is actually exceeded by alot of FBOs, but the benefits far outweigh that. Bennies include Health, dental, free tuition for up to 6 creds per semester(undergrad or grad) for you and immediate family (wife/kids), and a retirement plan better than the one I get now at a regional. The supply of work is limitless. If some of my students were sick, out of town, etc, I could always find more from another instructor who was going on vacation, etc. If the wx was bad, we could do ground and sims. The equipment is the best maintained you will find anywhere. I disagreed with the idea to go with all glass cockpits, but that is the direction alot of other top schools were going, so that's what we got.
But, it is run similar to an airline, as the jobs there are in high demand. The interview/indoc process is long and tough, sort of a preview of airline indoc. When I interviewed, people were being furloughed from the regionals, and jobs were very tough to get...I'm not sure if the process has changed as of late. The interview was a sit down interview with the chief CFI and two training managers, all sorts of HR and technical Q's, including teaching several maneuvers and systems. There was also a written test, and a sim with a couple of approaches. I was then placed in a "hiring pool" (yes, they had one at one time), but with the industry as it is now, they might not be doing this anymore, or they might be! Once you get the call for a class date, indoc starts, where they teach you most things youll need to get started, all of our procedures, the local airspace, the scheduling system, benefits, etc. etc., There are a few tests during indoc, but they are pretty easy. During indoc, you go on several flights with a check pilot or senior instructor to practice maneuvers, learn the airspace, etc, then you've got your hiring ride in the airplane with the chief or a check pilot. Once this is passed, you're officially hired.
Another issue is if you have an MEI, you will not immediately be able to teach multi courses. Mgmt raises and lowers the requirements to teach multi students based on demand. The training course for students as it is laid out now is very multi-intensive, so they need alot of MEIs. When I started teaching multi the requirements were 750 dual given, MEI completed, with a good pass rate, which I had after teaching there about a year. We had some pretty high requirements to teach CFI as well. There are alot of opportunities for advancement, and side jobs as well. Positions for assistant team managers, and team safety leaders open up regularly as instructors move on, and there are side jobs outside of teaching college students as well, like working with professors on flight research projects, and teaching kids to fly at the summer academy camp each year.
It was a fun job, and I would not have gone anywhere else...if they paid a bit better I may have never left!