Some pointers from a friend that worked WAI
- Thread starter derg
- Start date
B767
Well-Known Member
Still waiting on that link to the direct interface UAL has with its applicant pool. I'd seriously love to see what their insight is on it. Seriously.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
They have an email address that they've provided to career fair attendees to do the same thing that Delta is doing. Dunno how else you get it, but it exists.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Honestly, I'm disappointed that this thread hasn't had the participation of the "star" posters -- the brand new members of the forum we were assured weren't shills -- from last year's "job fair tips from a friend" thread.
http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/some-job-fair-tips-from-a-friend.233285/
@Troy Everly
@CRJ-2016
@cvwags
@Huckleberry
@jmci
@JP1
@Mcaughell
@CRJ7Rider
http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/some-job-fair-tips-from-a-friend.233285/
@Troy Everly
@CRJ-2016
@cvwags
@Huckleberry
@jmci
@JP1
@Mcaughell
@CRJ7Rider
Cruise
Well-Known Member
Yeah, this is a very simplistic take on what our job actually entails. Sure, we all fly airplanes and much of the time is spent sequestered in the flight deck. However, you're also a brand ambassador and spend a fair amount of time in transit through airport terminals getting to your gate, heading to the hotel van, so forth and so on. If all you're capable of doing is pushing the GO button and have zero ability to interact with passengers, gate agents, etc... are you really a 'good' candidate/ employee?
Kingairer
'Tiger Team' Member
Id prefer anything over the flow through process........
We become pretty good at telling home a trip is going to be in the first few minutes of meeting the other crewmember, Id guess the job fair is sort of like that. Weed out some strange ducks pretty easily.
Seriously though, anyone want to go back to the mid 2000's when there was about 150 career positions available a year from all the airlines combined? Whats it about 500-1000 for every carrier out there?
We become pretty good at telling home a trip is going to be in the first few minutes of meeting the other crewmember, Id guess the job fair is sort of like that. Weed out some strange ducks pretty easily.
Seriously though, anyone want to go back to the mid 2000's when there was about 150 career positions available a year from all the airlines combined? Whats it about 500-1000 for every carrier out there?
AUpilot
Well-Known Member
With that in mind...
Would it not make sense to emphasize internal recommendations to the point where your application review would only keep you from being interviewed as opposed to the internal recommendation merely prompting a review? Maybe it is in fact that way...
Scenario:
Current employee submits a recommendation...
Pilot selection committee initiates an interview invite pending a review of the application...disqualifying factors could be anything from minimum standards not being met to arrests, etc.
This as opposed to a recommendation prompting a review and that review fitting an algorithm, if the stars align you get an invite or you failed to include a 6 month construction job over 15 years ago and you get a fix-it letter (I uhhhh have a friend who told me about this...
). It just seems that if you're looking for s specific candidate, who better to help you find that person than those you feel ARE that type of personJust my suggestion...
On another topic...job fairs are a tough way to find quality candidates, recruiters are able to meet only those that find themselves in front of the computer at the exactly right time. You'll get some good mixed in with the bad but efficiency takes a back seat to volume, no doubt. Even though the Delta in-house expo was a similar format I felt like the time management side of it was much more efficient. I'm not sure how you move away from the ticket system without just sending out personal invites...which sounds like a tall task...but that would be the only improvement over the current system that I could imagine. But then the gnashing of teeth is over "How do you get a job fair invite..." It's a vicious cycle
Good points. The job fair can serve as a personality screen in some cases. You do meet some very "eclectic" people sometimes. Face time is always good because you're able to see if the candidate has the comportment to be an asset to the company. It's assumed that 100% of the people in your applicant pool can fly the hell out of an airplane because there's no simulator check. But only a percentage (large? small?) are going to actually fit your corporate environment.
The heavily weighted internal recommendation thing is a double edged sword. We have a deeper level of social networking and some people crank out letters of recommendation like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't dream of giving a letter of recommendation for a person you either haven't met, but today the average new hire is barraged through Facebook by people they only "electronically" know and that dilutes the pool of genuine letters of recc.
I like the internal recc idea. I think there should be a weighting for the total number of reccs you have in the system at any one period and some feedback to the author about if the candidate was competitive or not and if there was some sort of circumstance which is going to prevent further evaluation.
One way some companies are trying to get around this is saying that all you need is one and additional LOR's aren't necessarily beneficial. If my friend had a quarter for every "Life is unfair, I have 30 LOR's on file and you still haven't called", he'd have his own private Super Tucano. How many of those LOR's are from people the applicant has a deep professional relationship with or has actually flown extensively with? New hires, with their newfound popularity, crank those things out like gangbusters.
On registering, there are people that are really good at the system who are able to pick up the scant amount of available passes. One thing that some companies (not all, unfortunately) are doing is making it so it's only beneficial to meet with the recruitment team once per year. So that way, if you're talking to 1000 per job fair, you technically should be able to get through roughly 4000 individuals if you're running/attending quarterly job fairs. Unfortunately, there are some corners of the internet that say "Go to them all! They want to see that you're motivated! They give points!" which isn't necessarily true. I know one airline who gives points for the number of fairs you attend and I really wish they would stop.
The average traditional job fair attendee drops easily $800 to $1000 just to get there and it's created an industry, of sorts, and it really shouldn't be that way because it's expensive and soul-crushing.
Keep the suggestions coming, my friends airline is certainly listening and wants to make a better system.
The heavily weighted internal recommendation thing is a double edged sword. We have a deeper level of social networking and some people crank out letters of recommendation like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn't dream of giving a letter of recommendation for a person you either haven't met, but today the average new hire is barraged through Facebook by people they only "electronically" know and that dilutes the pool of genuine letters of recc.
I like the internal recc idea. I think there should be a weighting for the total number of reccs you have in the system at any one period and some feedback to the author about if the candidate was competitive or not and if there was some sort of circumstance which is going to prevent further evaluation.
One way some companies are trying to get around this is saying that all you need is one and additional LOR's aren't necessarily beneficial. If my friend had a quarter for every "Life is unfair, I have 30 LOR's on file and you still haven't called", he'd have his own private Super Tucano. How many of those LOR's are from people the applicant has a deep professional relationship with or has actually flown extensively with? New hires, with their newfound popularity, crank those things out like gangbusters.
On registering, there are people that are really good at the system who are able to pick up the scant amount of available passes. One thing that some companies (not all, unfortunately) are doing is making it so it's only beneficial to meet with the recruitment team once per year. So that way, if you're talking to 1000 per job fair, you technically should be able to get through roughly 4000 individuals if you're running/attending quarterly job fairs. Unfortunately, there are some corners of the internet that say "Go to them all! They want to see that you're motivated! They give points!" which isn't necessarily true. I know one airline who gives points for the number of fairs you attend and I really wish they would stop.
The average traditional job fair attendee drops easily $800 to $1000 just to get there and it's created an industry, of sorts, and it really shouldn't be that way because it's expensive and soul-crushing.
Keep the suggestions coming, my friends airline is certainly listening and wants to make a better system.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
I would REALLY like to see two things:
1)Is my application really in the system? I've heard of apps becoming lost in the electronic ether. True or not, I have no idea. But it sure would be nice to see something indicating Delta has it.
2)Some feedback for the internal scoring/ranking (whatever you call it) when an applicant has their stuff submitted internally to HR by a Delta pilot. Having gone through this last summer, I never heard a thing. Again, my paranoia has me wondering if anybody actually even saw it?
Not hearing a single thing ("fix-it" email or otherwise) after having a continuously updated app on file for a few years is very frustrating.
1)Is my application really in the system? I've heard of apps becoming lost in the electronic ether. True or not, I have no idea. But it sure would be nice to see something indicating Delta has it.
2)Some feedback for the internal scoring/ranking (whatever you call it) when an applicant has their stuff submitted internally to HR by a Delta pilot. Having gone through this last summer, I never heard a thing. Again, my paranoia has me wondering if anybody actually even saw it?
Not hearing a single thing ("fix-it" email or otherwise) after having a continuously updated app on file for a few years is very frustrating.
Der_Meister
Well-Known Member
Mine was on-file for a few years then out of nowhere I received an interview invite.
AUpilot
Well-Known Member
Having done a little (I mean very little) hiring myself, I agree with you on the internals...to me if the system is set up correctly they are golden. I've read where a notable box-hauler has decided to give their pilots one recommendation every ten years...TEN YEARS! You think they had a problem with too many recs?? That's definitely overboard but I think they were, at least, headed in the right direction. Maybe something along the lines of one recommendation per year of service each year with a max of 5 yearly recs or something along those lines might be more effective....who knows
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
I like th @Capt. Chaos approach to internal recs.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
+1 for having some way to see that my application looks like to the recruiters. I wonder how many of the "why can't I get a phone call" guys simply forgot to check a box somewhere so their application got submited blank. IIRC, someone here was applying to Atlas for several years only to discover that because of the browser he was using, all of his applications were sent in blank.
Story time:
When my wife was applying for residency positions after medical school, she didn't get into any programs that she had applied to. Turns out, the medical school had attached the wrong transcript to her records. That student had flunked one of their courses which, considering the competivness of the specialty, was enough to get your application tossed. She had to wait an entire year to reapply.
Like a "thank you for submitting" or something like that?
I think I understand why FDX did that. Every new hire sitting in class, before they even get a real good feel for the company will shotgun a good portion of his friends and "dudes I saw once in the hallway who asked me to write a letter". So when hiring is brisk, there is a virtual deluge of LOR's and emails converging on the office 24/7. I think it serves as a pause where "Your recc is going to see some action, but really, REALLY think about it before you send it" which a lot of people do.
I've written less than 15 over the span of almost 18 years, but there are people that do that in an average month.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
Or at least a "Your application is on file"?
The guy who runs AirlineApps is a personal friend, I'll send him a note.
