CAVOK84

Considering that in the past you had to have a sponsor or some sort of executive endorsement, and that we neutered said sponsorship with the once in a decade endorsement only later to (presumably) reinstate a modicum of its importance—I’d say considering yourself ‘SOL’ is a gross exaggeration. It also dismisses the effort many of our pilots demonstrated in networking.

Overall, it might still be a good practice even if it were to be an overall diminishing of individuals without an endorsement. Considering that there are finite jobs at Fedex available, and that people still get interviewed without an endorsement, is it really unreasonable that a recommendation from qualified experts already on property carry some weight?

While this new policy might not appear beneficial to you personally, that alone will be a difficult argument against the policy when speaking to fedex pilots—most of whom have a greater stake in the quality of the company’s pilot selection as compared to an individual who hasn’t already invested their time with the company in an industry where making a lateral move isn’t really possible.

I would agree that having a pilot group with some diversity of experience can be beneficial to flight operations and within the cockpit. This diversity of experience in some circumstances may also translate to a broader realized benefit by the company, but still within flight operations (e.g., an individual moving to management or better ideas in training). While we certainly have some gifted individuals who become much more involved in the company’s operations, for the most part we are looking to hire pilots; and that is likely to be the realm within which a new hire contributes.

Despite this, I think the variation between individuals is much larger than the variation between categories of pilot (i.e., the difference in quality of aviator/employee is greater between individuals than between the crude brackets we casually assign pilots—and therefor these categories are highly unlikely to be causal in determining the quality of applicant. So, while we may find a correlation in certain attributes with respect to the 'category', we wouldn't want 'diversity' to be the most important criterion). Oh, this also assumes that the endorsements will elicit a homogenized pilot group, but I'll grant it would be more homogenized in all likelihood.

The reasons for this should be fairly obvious. Diversity of experience (in a crew environment like FedEx) should certainly be a consideration, but only if not at the expense of more effective techniques of analyzing an applicant’s suitability.
Your contention that institutional momentum is an effect of a more homogenized pilot group and that this supports your argument against the new policy is fairly odd to me.
-My confusion only deepens in regards to “during a time that innovation and ideas couldn't be more critical”. As an airline pilot, we work in a very highly regulated industry with much higher inertia compared to most other professions. The FAA, the union, aircraft manufacturers, the nature of the crew environment, the seniority system are, to name a few, forces that to some degree oppose innovation and new ideas; this is not to conflate good judgement, discretion, (i.e. airmanship) with what is typically meant in the business world as innovation and ideas.

Beyond that, are you sure this is a time where being innovative and having new ideas is more critical to being a pilot than 10 years ago? Why are you confident that these traits make for a more effective applicant than stick skills and an impressive working memory, or perhaps the ability to survive on coffee and popcorn for a week?

My point is that the selection of an applicant must be done fairly quickly and based on limited information. When making the decision as to which applicant should be prioritized for an interview, the tools for how effectively that distinction can be made should be utilized. And in this profession, that is fairly difficult; it certainly can’t be encapsulated with flight times or types flown alone. Enumerating, identifying and scoring all of the ineffable qualities a good aviator must possess isn’t practical, and is in my mind why an established peer’s endorsement is one of the more effective methods by which applicant selection can be made.

Let's say you're right about needing innovation and new ideas in our new hires. Even then, I don't think you'd really need diversity of flight experience. You'd probably want to emphasize the importance of the applicant's formal education and experience outside of flying, so something is going to suffer there...

Well, I do think that the pilots here consider reputational costs when endorsing someone, so that hypothetical is probably unlikely, but I suppose it is possible it could devalue the endorsement to a degree. I still think it is much more reasonable than every 10 years.
Is there a company that doesn’t self-promote its innovation? Honestly though, considering the sophistication of the technologies you listed and the tremendous expertise required to contribute within those fields—and that this supports an argument against the endorsement policy when selecting pilots is a fairly ridiculous stretch. Fedex would be better off hiring engineers and physicists, paying to train them to fly and garner the years of experience needed, and then stick them in the jet. That way they can work on AI and a fully sentient airbus during the layover… I just think there are more important criteria when pulling pilots out of the stack for only so many spots.

I wish the best to you, and my personal hope is that the endorsement be taken in consideration when selecting whom to interview, but I would not want to see its absence bar individuals from being interviewed, as I do think we gain something by going outside of the ‘network’. But yeah, I think we are all curious about what it means.

I don’t know that your assumption is correct. Plenty of people gave their 1 in 10 shot away, only to have the person not interviewed. A lot has changed with our hiring practices in a short period of time, so I don’t think any of us plebs can be confident. But like I said earlier, it is possible I guess.

I think some people might have taken issue with (what appeared to be) dismissing the importance of experienced FedEx pilots' input on new crew members. I don’t think you intended to offend, but the affirmation that innovation, institutional momentum etc. trump the importance of the PE comes across as dogmatic and trite. I think guys would've reacted much better to "this new policy sucks for me b/c I don't know anyone at Fedex". But perhaps I'm wrong, and your real concern was for the health of FedEx.

Either way, I hope that if you want to work here you get a chance to interview. I would suggest not letting this policy discourage you from making every effort in applying and speaking to Fedex pilots whenever you have the opportunity. Once you get here, you can contribute to changing the policy for the better... That is-- when you're not developing AI, robotics and GPS during your hotel standby