This industry sucks (rant)

jhugz said:
I’ve been where you’ve been. I got the thanks but no thanks from my number 1 choice (UPS) when I decided to leave Kalitta. I was devastated. I sulked for a couple of days allowing myself to feel bad, then I got back on the horse to prep some more. A couple months later I had a CJO with Delta and United.

I still think about that interview with UPS and what I did wrong. Out of the three I felt as if it was my best one so again I was very surprised when I didn’t get it. You can let this failure define your aviation career or you can use it as motivation to propel it.

The best thing that happened to me was my number one choice to say no. I wanted to prove to them and myself that they made a major mistake. I firmly believe I’m at an airline that fits my personality and I’m happy here. I’m only here because of my previous interview failure.
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If I had gotten hired by American when I interviewed, I would have taken it, but thought I wanted United because I thought I couldn’t live without the SF Bay Area but Delta called first.

I have seen things because of the specific people that took me under their metaphorical wings that I couldn’t have experienced anywhere else. But it wasn’t the airline, it was the people. Those people can be anywhere, I just happened to find mine at an airline that seemed the most unlikely.

I tried to let her know that she shouldn’t let this interview define her, spend the evening mourning, but the next day talking to people (not career consultants) about opportunities. I also offered to write down all she could about the experience, what she was asked, how she responded while it was still fresh and to reach out to “a certain someone” that could give first-hand feedback with reference to their interview because I really have no idea what they ask or what they’re specifically looking for. But even that has to be done quickly because the more time that passes the murkier the memory.

It’s not the end of the world. And, quite frankly, looking at the business world here, there really isn’t anywhere to run unless you’re a Private Equity Bro, I just hope the cash and prizes hold out for a few more years.
 
I hope you don't have to resort to it, but if airport ops/management ever becomes an interest, definitely let me know and I'll do whatever I can to help get you connected.

I know of one airport director contact of mine who is a transgender woman, and I'm sure she would be happy to help you as well.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
You know you can…get a degree, right?
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It is a tough market right now. I haven't been able to get an interview, in either tech or aviation, in close to a year of trying. It is frustrating when there is a lead, and the person doing the hiring is then gone themselves a week later. There's been a lot of that (mostly in the tech world, but flying gigs too). At least instructing, you can do freelance, enough that you are at least flying, though freelance instructing is only viable for as long as you have the savings to support it.

At the same time, I'm aware that there are several hundred applications for every role. And in the tech world, maybe 20% of those reqs are actual jobs, the rest are CV farming for various purposes.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
It is a tough market right now. I haven't been able to get an interview, in either tech or aviation, in close to a year of trying. It is frustrating when there is a lead, and the person doing the hiring is then gone themselves a week later. There's been a lot of that (mostly in the tech world, but flying gigs too). At least instructing, you can do freelance, enough that you are at least flying, though freelance instructing is only viable for as long as you have the savings to support it.

At the same time, I'm aware that there are several hundred applications for every role. And in the tech world, maybe 20% of those reqs are actual jobs, the rest are CV farming for various purposes.
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The days of not needing a degree to touch a major are probably over and really only lasted at most between late 2021-mid 2023. I say this as someone who didn’t get mine until I was in my 30s… get the damn degree. I wonder how many years more seniority I might have had I quit messing around and gotten it years sooner.
 
JordanD said:
The days of not needing a degree to touch a major are probably over and really only lasted at most between late 2021-mid 2023. I say this as someone who didn’t get mine until I was in my 30s… get the damn degree. I wonder how many years more seniority I might have had I quit messing around and gotten it years sooner.
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I have a degree. I'm probably getting a masters while I wait for the job market to improve.
 
🦈💜 said:
Honestly, thank you. I don't want to leave the industry again, but I can't continue on like this.
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At some point, you just have to do what makes you happy, and Jr CA at Skywest isn't it. I don't have any advice to offer, but you sound miserable and have been miserable for a while. The fact that you're still getting interviews is a good sign, imo.
 
2+ years of short call reserve can do that. How far away from line? How many places have you interviewed?

There’s more to life than aviation.
 
🦈💜 said:
Not really. Actually, most of the people doing prep just tried to help me reformat my answers so that I could hit all of the stupid points (empathy, humility, leadership, etc) on the grading rubric in a "STAR" format, and to recognize that the questions asked might be more broad than the question itself implied.
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From the perspective of someone who's spent a good amount of time on the other side, asking the TMAAT STAR questions, it is sometimes just the luck of the draw. Often, I would find out just before an interview I am to assess these 2 traits, and choose from these 5 questions. Sometimes the traits had something to do with the questions, sometimes they didn't, at all. So, some of the blame certainly rested on me for not steering the responses more closely towards the behavior that I needed to document. And being human, how late in the day it was. And I needed notes to support this in a debrief, which were sometimes given more consideration than others.

In a small sample size, of one or two interviews, it can just be bad luck. You could answer the same questions the same way in the interviews I was doing, and have a different result the next day depending on a bunch of reasons you couldn't control or even know. That said, if I could make the case that "This is the strongest candidate I have interviewed this year, because of X, Y, and Z" -- I would make that case. It was at least was considered, from what I could tell, and almost always resulted in "keep them on the list for next time."
 
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