Take some lessons from those who give the interviews
If you want an airline job desperately, then you have passed the first test of any airline. They are looking for motivated candidates who not only want a "window seat," as some airline pilots call the cockpit, but who also understand the culture of the company where they seek employment.
Regional airlines, where most airline pilots will begin their careers, are understandably reluctant to divulge any secrets of the interview process. But one interviewer did talk — off the record — while training and operations officials from Comair Aviation Academy, United Airlines, and Northwest Airlines talked on the record. Also included below are some tips from AOPA Air Safety Foundation Executive Director Bruce Landsberg, who formerly helped to develop and run an airline screening program for a large flight-training company.
First, here are some tips from actual regional airline interviewers. If the advice from our "secret" sources could be boiled down to a sentence, it would be this: Unlike the process at the major airlines — and assuming you have strong piloting skills — your success may depend on who you know. As an interviewee for a regional airline your primary job is to convince the airline that you fit into its culture.
To do that, you need to know people at the airline where you are going. Pick their brains about how you can become a successful applicant. It helps enormously to have a recommendation from someone who already flies for the airline, especially if that person knows something about your piloting skills.
And fitting in, assuming that your piloting skills and knowledge of regulations and the Aeronautical Information Manual are up to par, means getting along. As an interviewer for a regional airline in the eastern United States said, "We ask ourselves if we would want to spend a month in the cockpit with this pilot."
Getting along is judged the minute you arrive for your interview. Some candidates at the off-the-record airline have actually failed the interview because they were rude to the secretary at the front desk. Once past the desk — politely — the next task for candidates is to score well on a written examination on FARs and the AIM.
The majority of candidates get 50 to 90 percent of the FAR/AIM questions correct, but if they score less than 70, the bad impression is already made; the interviewers then do not expect much from the applicant.
The purpose of the exam is to see if the prospective pilot has put in the preparation effort. Score an 80, and you will arrive in the interview room with a good impression already made.
As the interview begins, candidates are asked to read coded weather or an approach plate. Some seemed shocked at the mere prospect, because they can't do it.
Other questions will be used to determine if you currently work in an environment where you "make a lot of approaches in a structured setting," the interviewer said. Flight instruction counts as a structured environment.
Unlike those used by the majors, regulatory questions are based on the kind of flying that you have been doing, not the kind you hope to do. But always, in the back of his mind, the regional interviewer is posing the primary question: Would I want to spend a month in the cockpit with this pilot?
If you have had a recent arrest for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you have a problem. Do you have several recent tickets for speeding? Your chances just went down. Lie about that, or about ever failing a checkride, and the interview will end abruptly. The same goes for anything in your logbook that looks like less than honest time.
Fewer than half of the applicants make it through the regional's interview. Those who impress the interviewers will proceed to the simulator.
There is nothing tricky during the simulator test at this particular airline, nor is there anything tricky about simulator tests at most regional airlines. Basic instrument skills are all that are required, although smoothness counts. Your errors during the simulator test will be noted. If more errors are scored than are permitted, you won't be hired.
Even the regionals, which are constantly losing a stream of captains to the majors, can afford to be picky thanks to a glut of applicants. Any doubts about a candidate automatically puts that candidate in the "no hire" category.
Of all the applicants interviewed at one airline, only 10 percent leave the room with a "hire" recommendation. Twenty percent are "definitely no." That leaves the majority of applicants on the fence; they must be discussed after they leave the room. Some of those discussions by interviewers will be subjective and will relate to their gut instincts.
Twenty percent of the applicant's impression, one interviewer said, is made in the first two to three minutes of the interview. Yes, you'll be nervous. That's just the way interviews are.
In fact, if you seem not to be nervous, if you slouch or act cocky, then it is assumed that you are overconfident. But don't let your nervousness allow you to babble on after a question is answered, thinking that a torrent of information is better. And you need to have current piloting skills.
Wayne S. Ceynowa, Comair's vice president of operations, says some applicants are overconfident. "More than a few walk in thinking that 'since I'm a pilot, you should hire me,'" Ceynowa said. "But we still want competent pilots." Comair Aviation Acad-emy in Sanford, Florida, prescreens candidates for Comair, a Delta Air Lines connection carrier.
Ed Comisky, a flight instructor and director of training at Comair Aviation Academy, estimates that it should take an average general aviation pilot about 15 hours of practice prior to the interview to be proficient.
The Comair academy offers a course consisting of nine hours in the aircraft and six hours in a simulator. You might want to especially concentrate on maintaining situational awareness, dividing your attention when the workload is high, and entering holding patterns, Comisky said.
And admit it, you probably have not used the regulations enough lately to be current on them. He notes that there are ample study guides from existing publishers — including software publishers — to help you become current on regulations.
If it sounds like it is rough getting on with the regionals, consider the situation at the majors. Marie Emeott, the human resources director for flight operations at Northwest Airlines, said she has 10,000 applications for an average of 500 jobs a year.
If you are thinking about the majors, the stakes go way up. You need 3,000 quality hours (in a complex aircraft flown in a structured environment) and a well-rounded employment history just to think about competing for a job.
Once you arrive for the interview, Emeott expects that you will have done your homework. You will know about the industry; the hubs that Northwest serves; its standards and safety programs; its leaders, policies, and focus; and even something about its training programs.
If you have read this article carefully, you're thinking, "What a good contact I have just found in AOPA Pilot." But Emeott asks that you not call. Not with 10,000 candidates.
United Airlines also has 10,000 active applicants, said Nancy Stuke, the UAL manager of flight officer employment. (She also asks that you not call her directly.) "We call individuals in for interviews based on their aeronautical experience," Stuke said. That means that those called are generally already flying for a regional or commuter airline, she said. The last interview with an applicant who had only flight instructor experience occurred years ago.
Most applicants are either commuter captains, regional airline pilots, or military pilots. This year most applicants are ex-military pilots. A small percentage of corporate pilots are called, said UAL Boeing 727 Capt. Kru Krueger, chairman of the flight officer selection steering committee.
The questions asked during the UAL interview are a little tougher than those at the regional level. You need to be up on the regulations for the type of flying you want to do, not those governing the type of flying you have done in the past.
Also, the old rule that it is who you know that helps you to get the job loses significance as the applicant moves closer to the majors.
"As you move up through the food chain [flight instructor to regional airline to major airline], that makes a 180-degree reversal to our process, where we have no problem saying no to some very well-connected people in the company," Krueger said. "It doesn't make any difference who you know at this level. It's all about what you know and who you are as a person."
Another misconception is that the jobs go to those who interview well, Stuke said. "When I hear that, I just think excuse, excuse, excuse. What we do in the time we have for the interview is try to determine who the person is and how they will fit in our airline. How will they treat our passengers? How safety conscious are they?
"The meat of it is to identify who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and to articulate that to individuals who are going to be asking some very direct, specific, pointed questions," Stuke said.
But moving to our central question, what are the top reasons that some UAL applicants flunk their interview? "One of the reasons is not giving us specific answers to questions. They are not giving specific examples of how they have dealt with situations in the past. It is very difficult [for the airline] to make a decision when it doesn't have the facts," Stuke said.
Another reason for flunking is telling, well, less than the truth. "Our interview teams are very good at raising the red flag," Krueger said, "when something just isn't right. They are very good at discovering the half or partial truths that an applicant may offer. More applicants are disqualified for a lack of candor or basic integrity than anything else," Krueger added.
"One of the things that we find is that individuals focus so much on being prepared for the interview, they completely forget that we are just trying to get to the meat of the information as far as who they are," Stuke said.
"We find in many instances that we are getting canned responses that are so well-rehearsed that we don't feel we are getting a chance to find out how this individual reacts in certain situations. They are so focused on wordsmithing what they say that they forget to just take a deep breath and just answer our question."
Krueger suggests caution in relying too much on predicting or researching questions in advance. "Sometimes they'll think they have such a great [rehearsed] answer, that they'll give the answer even if that question wasn't asked," Krueger said. "They'll hear somebody start to ask a question that sounds like the really great answer they want to give. Before you know it, they will have given an answer to a question that wasn't even asked."
Often those questions have been passed down from others who have been through the process, several sources said. But the joke is on the candidate: Often the questions that are passed along as the "real" interview were actually made up by the inter-viewer spontaneously.
The rewards for passing the process are well worth the effort. At United, those benefits include stock ownership and the possibility of making captain in six years.
But back to the regionals for a moment, the place where you are most likely to start.
Perhaps you are aware that Aviation Information Resources (AIR) Inc., located in Atlanta, offers advice, interview training, airline background information, and résumé help at a 10-percent discount to AOPA members.
"Young pilots have not discovered that even getting on at a regional airline is a pretty difficult game," said Kit Darby, president of AIR Inc. "Sometimes testing is more strenuous at the regional level than with the majors. And airlines don't hire the most qualified pilots. They interview the most qualified, and hire who they like."
Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, agrees. "Not everybody is going to make it," he said. Landsberg worked for FlightSafety International before joining the Air Safety Foundation, and he helped to develop that company's airline pilot screening program. He personally conducted the interviews.
Landsberg also said that candidates might consider in advance a type of question sure to be on every interview: cockpit resource management, or CRM, known under a variety of titles among the various airlines. For example, what would you do your second month on the job when a gruff captain decides to descend below minimums? What if he later claims he saw the airport out his side, when you did not see it out yours? This question could come in many forms, but may start with the interviewer asking, "Ever had a dispute with another pilot in the cockpit?" They are looking for a solution, not a lie.
"If you want the part, look the part when you go to an interview," Landsberg advised. "Be polite, professional, and proficient."
There is plenty of help on the Internet for prospective airline pilots. Visit these sites: www.jetjobs.com; www.comairacademy.com; www.flightsafety.com; www.alpa.org. Telephone AIR Inc. at 800/JET-JOBS. For a directory of regional airlines, including their Web addresses, visit the Regional Airline Association site ( www.raa.org). For applications from United Airlines, call 888/UAL-JOBS, or for questions about employment with United, call 303/316-5000. Links to all Web sites referenced in this issue can be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links9910.shtml). E-mail the author at [email protected].
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