Pilot shortage (desperate?)

Drives me nuts as I have the hours and would love to go fly a jet. I (like many others on here) from a young age have dreamed a of flying for a mainline one day. The only thing stopping me is the terrible starting pay. I can't afford to make the leap and live on poverty wages. (I know, I know...pay your dues, yadda yadda yadda) But with a wife, kid, mortgage and everything that does along with it, I'm kind of stuck at the moment. Best of luck to others in the same situation battling with similar decisions. They certainly didn't advertise that in the 141 packet starting out!
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It's just the first year that'll get ya. 6 months should put you where you need to be for something better anyway. I know of a certain gentleman who used to hunt big game in the KC area and is now a 2nd year at XJT doing alright for himself. We on the other hand, have what you might call a titanium ceiling.
 
jtrain609 said:
Orly?

Hey @Derg, how easy has it been for your wife to get a job?
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The market for EE's has been really, really bad lately. About 15% of positions disappeared from the US last year, combined with increasing numbers of H1-B's (and constant lobbying to increase those further). Some of this is also due to more and more design work being done in software.

On the bright side, demand for software engineers is strong, and lots of folks can do either.
 
jtrain609 said:
Orly?

Hey @Derg, how easy has it been for your wife to get a job?
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Speaking of jobs, I just got out of a meeting with a Federal Reserve President and with the new unemployment numebrs that came out this topic came up. The unemployment rate can misleading at times. If people say they havent been looking for a job in the past four weeks, then they drop from the statistic. They are no longer considered 'unemployed'. Not saying this is the case with Kristie but in general. What's my point..who knows, jsut that when speaking in terms of unemployment it's not alwyas the %....

(I hear that she has a 2nd interview.... Is this in the Engineering field?)
 
With engineers its all about the field your in. That field may be over saturated with engineers or may be in dire need of them. It all depends on the market and number of engineers in that field, sometimes its easy to get hired other times its hard. This is how I have been told employment is in engineering.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Knowing people in the field obviously helps a lot. (Networking is how you end up in most jobs, not just aviation)
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There is some pretty good info in this thread - but what beagle says takes the cake. It's better to be lucky than good.

I would also add that you should really think about what you want your career to be. It's hard to decided as an ~18 year old, but try to work backward when choosing a major. Don't just pick an area of study because you think you can get a good job with that degree. Know what it is you want to be, then choose your major accordingly. This coming from someone who graduated with Finance and Accouting only to realize the jobs for those degrees are terribly boring... And has since changed fields!
 
AA34 said:
This coming from someone who graduated with Finance and Accouting only to realize the jobs for those degrees are terribly boring...
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That made me chuckle because in my mind, ANYTHING Finance & Accounting related would bore me to death. Glad you came to your senses and pursued something more challenging! :D
 
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AA34 said:
There is some pretty good info in this thread - but what beagle says takes the cake. It's better to be lucky than good.

I would also add that you should really think about what you want your career to be. It's hard to decided as an ~18 year old, but try to work backward when choosing a major. Don't just pick an area of study because you think you can get a good job with that degree. Know what it is you want to be, then choose your major accordingly. This coming from someone who graduated with Finance and Accouting only to realize the jobs for those degrees are terribly boring... And has since changed fields!
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Germany makes kids choose their career at 10 I think. I thought about becoming a trader or stock broker but that would require a Ivy League diploma. That's why Im planning on engineering, its probably one of the better careers.
 
AA34 said:
There is some pretty good info in this thread - but what beagle says takes the cake. It's better to be lucky than good.
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Playing well with others is not luck.

Really, you can be the best engineer in the world, but if no one can stand working with you, employment prospects are greatly limited. Most products are built by fairly large teams.

You can be the best pilot since Bob Hoover. If no one is willing to be in the same cockpit with you, job prospects are quite limited as well. CFI'ing is one activity that tends to weed those folks out, probably the most valuable aspect if doing so for the professional aviator.
 
Hopeful Pilot said:
With engineers its all about the field your in. That field may be over saturated with engineers or may be in dire need of them. It all depends on the market and number of engineers in that field, sometimes its easy to get hired other times its hard. This is how I have been told employment is in engineering.
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Well, if you are an EE, and ONLY want to do design work, you will quickly find that while you may be quite good at it, employers often really need you doing something else.

There is a tendency to pigeon hole people into very specific skill sets too, typically experience with a particular tool/product/vendor. The thinking is "why pay for a few weeks of training when I can hire someone that won't need it?" Same as with airplanes - it may seem cheaper to find someone already trained and current in a specific type, but in most cases, you end up paying to train someone anyway, or they aren't the right fit for some other reason.

In my 15 years in the tech biz, I have been:

- Oracle DBA
- developer in C (embedded storage controllers)
- UI developer (C++/Windows)
- Java Developer (server side)
- Oracle Financials Admin
- Linux developer
- Technical Sales Consultant
- Virtualization expert

Those are mostly similar skills, but that work has been for Sales, Product design, Development, consulting and Services - which are wildly different jobs.

Moving between roles is difficult if you aren't currently employed. However, when you do work somewhere, going to work for a different team, even in a fairly different realm, is actually pretty easy. Mostly comes down to "how well you get along with the people there."
 
jtrain609 said:
My undergraduate degree is in philosophy.

It was a fantastic area of study for me.

My wife has a degree in anthropology, and now she's a research coordinator for a hospital. She has zero medical training, but she IS pretty smart and very good looking. So she's got that going for her, which is nice (@Screaming_Emu).
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Yes...I too am smart and good looking.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Well, if you are an EE, and ONLY want to do design work, you will quickly find that while you may be quite good at it, employers often really need you doing something else.

There is a tendency to pigeon hole people into very specific skill sets too, typically experience with a particular tool/product/vendor. The thinking is "why pay for a few weeks of training when I can hire someone that won't need it?" Same as with airplanes - it may seem cheaper to find someone already trained and current in a specific type, but in most cases, you end up paying to train someone anyway, or they aren't the right fit for some other reason.

In my 15 years in the tech biz, I have been:

- Oracle DBA
- developer in C (embedded storage controllers)
- UI developer (C++/Windows)
- Java Developer (server side)
- Oracle Financials Admin
- Linux developer
- Technical Sales Consultant
- Virtualization expert

Those are mostly similar skills, but that work has been for Sales, Product design, Development, consulting and Services - which are wildly different jobs.

Moving between roles is difficult if you aren't currently employed. However, when you do work somewhere, going to work for a different team, even in a fairly different realm, is actually pretty easy. Mostly comes down to "how well you get along with the people there."
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I've seen this exact thing over and over in my technology career. It kind of amazes me because with how much technology changes, you'd think that a company would want someone versatile enough to step into to a new technology or product by reading a few documents and a little "play time." Instead many seem to prefer one-hit wonders who can recite the standard scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ on a RHEL versions 2-7 from memory.
 
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exneophyte said:
I've seen this exact thing over and over in my technology career. It kind of amazes me because with how much technology changes, you'd think that a company would want someone versatile enough to step into to a new technology or product by reading a few documents and a little "play time." Instead many seem to prefer one-hit wonders who can recite the standard scripts in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ on a RHEL versions 2-7 from memory.
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People...people memorize that?
Code: 
/etc/init.d/<TAB><TAB>
:D
 
Autothrust Blue said:
People...people memorize that?
Code: 
/etc/init.d/<TAB><TAB>
:D
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Exactly. In fact, I was once asked that very question in a job interview for the federal government. I gave them three ways I could find out that information in about 10 seconds, but that was not considered an acceptable answer. Needless to say, I'm glad I didn't get the job.
 
Mm. I hate the term 'engineer' for anyone who doesn't drive trains or build physical plant.

After a wonderful 20-year run in tech, words cannot express how excited I am to be quite broke and heading up to AK to fly for <$. I've loved everything I've done, and that's really the trick... do what you love, love what you do... it's all the same thing. In the end, happy people choose to be happy.

That said, the pilot career is basically full. If you CAN not fly, you SHOULD not fly. Don't do it for the money or "prestige", heh-those are just things that flight schools sell to make more money. If you can imagine yourself in any other career long-term, you're far better off going that direction.

That's all I've got, anyway.

~Fox
 
Autothrust Blue said:
People...people memorize that?
Code: 
/etc/init.d/<TAB><TAB>
:D
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People don't know how to interview systems people, so these are the idiotic questions that result... things that have 'right answers' and thus can be studied for. The sort of 'knowledge' that college teaches admin types, too.

I have lost count of the number of candidates that have been paraded in front of me at $200/hr+ bill rates who came 'prepped' for those sorts of questions, who I ate alive.
"Describe to me, at the lowest level you're comfortable, what happens when you push the power button on a cold, powered-down Unix webserver in a rack. Whatever hardware/unix you're most familiar with, from the point you push the button until it's up and seving traffic."

Sheer panic, followed by a clear lack of fundamentals... follow-up questions utterly destroy them. Sometimes I feel bad, but usually not-not when they're trying to get a job as a "Senior" anything...

-Fox
 
Stomp16 said:
I understand it this was like this "back in the day" too, circa 2006. A Mesa recruiter showed up to my 141 one day and left with about 30 instructors.

I don't think you're meaning it this way, but just to be clear, just because it "happened all the time a few years ago" doesn't make it ok now. I still think people coming from a 61/141 with 250 hrs and sliding into a yettt warrants a "yikes" reaction whether it be back in the day or presently.
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Not meaning it that way at all. A high performance jet full of 50+ people shouldn't be in the hands of a 250hr pilot who is trying to "pay their dues". Flying an airliner (And lets stop playing games by trying to downplay the type by using the term "regional".) requires experience and knowledge. It used to happen all the time, but I was agreeing with you, it's not right.
 
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