Southwest Interview
I recently interviewed with Southwest. I am an 'outsider' (no experience in the airline industry) but have many friends in the industry whom I keep in touch with and have been working to get 'in' for a number of years now, so I think I have an idea of what the process is like at most of the majors. I must say, the process at Southwest impressed me.
It impressed me mostly because of the simplicity. No head games, no simulator or technical questions, no psychological tests. They do the LOI to look at your decision making process and CRM under (slight) pressure. They ask you some questions to get to know you and let you talk about yourself. Mostly they make you feel at ease and treat you like you're already hired, but that they just have to go through some formalities. Sure they'll do some checking around to see if you have any skeletons in the closet. I was impressed with everyone I met, and certainly the pilots that I met. They really made me WANT to come work for them. Of course I'm not hired yet, but am hopeful.
I've seen a lot of grumbling on here about Southwest, and that's OK because I know I only saw one small part of the operation, and still pretty much from the outside, but I say again, what I saw impressed me, and what I heard impressed me. Rocky said that the airline industry is very cyclical and that currently all the majors are "riding the wave" right now but the trough will come and Southwest is preparing for the next trough now. That's comforting and of course a philosophy backed up by practice as we know Southwest has not laid off in its existence.
The bottom line of my post is that the interview process at least really reinforced my desire to work for Southwest. I wonder if others feel/felt the same way.