What makes you great pilots can make you hard to interview

Pilots are pretty consistent in their concerns or fears about getting through the airline recruitment and interview process.

I know because I see them every day of my working life and have done for… oooooh, nearly nine years!

Whether you have 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours, you’re an FO, or you’re in a command the worries are still the same:

How do I choose the right thing to talk about?
How do I know when to stop?
I have no idea how to sell myself?
I can go into too much detail and blither on.
What do I put in what do I leave out?
How do I know what they want?
How do I control my nerves?

Sound familiar?

Well, all that means is you are probably a process or procedure driven personality and you prefer to know what the process is:

Step One: Understand the process
Step Two: Get the right preparation and training.

Isn’t that what you do now, every day as a pilot? That’s exactly what you have to do for the recruitment process – plan and prepare.

You need to have your own set of SOP’s for the recruitment and interview process and that’s where a specialist can help. You could be a perfect fit for the airline but if you can’t prove that at interview you are going to miss out, and so are they.

They want you to succeed, so take the time and do the work. Don’t sabotage your chances by ‘winging it’.

If the airlines want a sales person then they advertise for one, but the airlines want great pilots who have the potential to command; simple as that.

What does that mean?

It means that rather than being a show pony you need to exhibit the appropriate qualities of an aviator:

safety
the ability to follow SOP’s
attention to detail
good communication and team skills
calm under pressure
the ability to learn
the potential to lead.

My motto is: “Be yourself but be prepared”.

The recruitment team know from the get go whether you have done the correct preparation or not and that tells them how much you want this.

I’ve had pilots going through their fourth airline interview before they decide to talk to a specialist, and each and every one them says to me, why didn’t we come here earlier.

Related posts: