Originally Posted by
OnCenterline
This is spot on. In my new-hire class at UA, every single person brought something to the table that made them a step above "average." One had flown in Viet Nam for a few years, all of us had been check airmen of some sort, except one, and that one had been heavily involved in ASAP work. Most of us also had some sort of community service on our resume, and ALL of us had been to at least one job fair, and most to two, and all of us had a 4 year degree. When the (then) head of hiring came in to say hello to us, he made it clear that those standards will stay in place--and they have. Special emphasis was placed on attending job fairs, so that recruiters can get some face time with you and see beyond what is on the resume.
Also, only 1 person in my class was military. The rest of the 11 off-the-streeters like myself were civilian (there were 5 furloughees returning as well).
Average flight time was over 12,000 hours.
As for importance of TPIC....it's still there. I know of one person who was hired without it, and that individual had at least 1,000 hours of wide-body international time flying cargo. Another friend of mine with thousands of DC-8 and 767 FO time also got invited for the interview, but didn't get past the Hogan test. If he had, I'm sure he would have gotten hired. So, either have a competitive amount of TPIC or some wide-body international time.
I fundamentally disagree with the scam that is a job fair, I refused to attend one before I decided to quit this career and I wouldn't have attended one if I had stuck to it. Job fairs are held on weekends so if you're not senior you can't attend. The most prestigious job fairs are for organizations I am not a member of as a white male, and I think it's absolutely assanine how many white males go to those. Finally I'm a regional FO and I'm supposed to drop a few hundred just to hand someone my resume?
I do volunteer work where I live, I have a 4 year degree, and I update my apps weekly. My total time is nowhere near 12,000 and I wouldn't have been there for another 12 years at least. I checked all the boxes I could, including getting recommendations from a few guys at all the majors, to no avail. I gave it a shot, I would have liked to fly at a major just to see what it was like compared to a regional, but I guess it wasn't in the cards. Sorry for being bitter, I'm glad for my health and sanity I'm quitting this career.