Application question, opinions needed.
Hey guys,
I applied to the regionals months ago and haven't heard anything yet. I had not hit my 1500 yet when I applied because I had been told to apply when I was within six months of hitting 1500 (which I finally did last week). In the meantime, I have not heard anything from any of the six regionals I have put in for. I'm fully aware of the hiring market compression, no thanks to Boeing and Airbus’s P&W engine AD's. During highly competitive times like this, however, I'm sure that applications are being vetted with a microscope. Despite the tough times, I feel like I'm a fairly strong candidate for someone who has just hit their 1500. I am a 600 hour CFI/CFII, have 135 experience, 450 hours of part 91 turbine time, no check ride or written exam failures, no accidents, no incidents, no FAA admin action, clean driving record, no criminal record and a four year (non-aviation) degree. I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been contacted by anyone yet. There is one possible blemish on my application, however, and I'm worried this might be plaguing me. I'm not sure if I'm in my own head about this or if my concerns are merited and I want some opinions. On all but one of the addendums (which didn't ask), I decided to answer "yes" to the question "have you ever been asked to resign or been terminated from employment?" Here's why, and I'll be omitting names and some finer points to help with anonymity.
The flight school I got all of my certificates and ratings at was a really awesome place to be a student. They hired me as a CFI/CFII. I instructed there for a total of a year and a half. The first year went by great. I had a good relationship with my co-workers, students and admin. Seemingly out of nowhere, the school became wildly successful in a few short months. That's where the problems started. Admin and the owner basically became croney seemingly overnight. Profits came first. Student/employee experiences hit the backburner. In addition to this was maintenance. The school started refusing to maintain/fix anything that wasn't regulated by AV1ATE or 91.205. Sure, INOP lights and certain avionics aren't a big deal when teaching a private student stick and rudder skills in the daylight. However, I was primarily a CFII and found myself trying to teach instrument students with half working or completely busted avionics/GPS's. It was extremely frustrating. Without getting too long winded, the maintenance issues snowballed until eventually a student and I had a terrifying in-flight emergency. We were able to safely make an emergency landing. However, I shortly learned the issue that caused my emergency landing was a prior issue that hadn't been fixed properly. That same issue forced another CFI and student into an emergency landing months earlier. Upon learning that is when I became appalled and stopped being quiet about the growing shoddy maintenance practices. Unfortunately, instead of doing the right thing and fixing their planes, all this did was sour relations between admin and I. By the time things reached a boiling point, I had a CJO from my current job but that was dependent upon if insurance would cover me or not. Albeit minor, after I had yet another in-flight scare and made a precautionary landing, I squawked that plane for a maintenance checkover. The next day, the school manager called me and was very hostile. The conversation basically ended up being us mutually parting ways by them saying "you're gone" and me saying "I quit." I started my new job two weeks after that. I've stayed in touch with my co-workers ever since and I know for a fact that admin is very bitter towards me to this day.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Of all the other jobs I’ve ever had, I’ve always resigned and quietly moved on. So there hasn't been any grey areas around my dispositions there. What I don’t want to happen in this instance, is for me to check “no” to the aforementioned addendum question, only to have an airline recruiter call the school and have them conflict what I wrote and tell the recruiter they terminated me. I do not want my application to come off as dishonest and get forever disqualified. I'm rather worried about what they may say about me. So, to cut off at the pass, anything conflicting they may say, I checked “Yes” to the question. I was very transparent while filling out the addendums and explained everything in the explanation box. The state I live in is a right-to-work state and state law empowers current/former employers to say whatever they want about past/current employees to prospective employers who call for a reference check, so long as any statements aren’t factually dishonest (slander). I think what happened between myself and the flight school is arguably a matter of perception of the situation and they may honestly believe they terminated me. That could limit any legal action I could take against them and probably won't act as a deterrent. Meanwhile, I honestly believe I walked away.
I have no idea what kinds of questions airline recruiters ask when they call former employers or if they even call at all. The silence from the regionals has thus had me wondering about two scenarios. First, is that my concerns are merited, I did the right thing by cautiously checking "yes" and I should leave that part of the addendum unchanged. The other is I’ve been wondering if I’ve been a little too cautious over something that’s not the end of the world and checking “yes” to that question is a blemish causing my application to get overlooked, and perhaps I should change the answer to “no.”
What do you guys think?