Originally Posted by
ecam
That's all great advice, and is advice most of us have heard before. What befuddles me is seeing low total time (and some no PIC time) millennial pilots flooding in, while my friends stuck flying RJs at dying UA express carriers, (most over 10k hours and 5k jet PIC) have had apps in for 10 years and can't get a call.
Sure it's nice that you discussed the various well known hoops people can jump through to hopefully show "someone" they want the job. but when they have been to multiple job fairs, get the same old spiel, then more crickets, it's easy to get frustrated. Not sure who else they can impress. It becomes apparent they just aren't wanted.
And how 'bout that pilot shortage! Pilots will always be begging for mainline jobs. There will NEVER be a pilot shortage at legacy carriers.
I completely understand where your buddies are sitting as I was right there with them. I got burned out playing the game trying to get hired in the front of the wave and I slowly eased off because "I had done the career fairs", "checked the boxes", and "couldn't do anything else". I don't think I accepted how competitive the front of this hiring wave was. I did the full court press early when I was hoping for a miracle but realistically guys around my time weren't getting the call for two more years. The job is definitely worth it for anyone looking in from the outside but your buddies have to compete against guys who are still young, ambitious, and new to the process.
I have reached out to some people that are just like the people you mentioned and they hadn't updated medicals, the new addendum wasn't filled in, still hadn't done interview prep, and didn't want to ask for letters of rec from former first officers. It sucks but it has to be a second job to get hired and they have to stay on it. Simple errors and mistakes are most likely holding up their chances.