Originally Posted by
SVCTA
This has been a complaint of mine for a long time. I knew a guy hired at Delta in the 90s who didn't even have a logbook present, just years of pay stubs from ASA. I know this is a total oversimplification, but HR crept in to the hiring process and here we are. I know some fine aviators/people who got culled early in the process, but HR isn't necessarily looking for fine aviators/people. They're looking for someone who is a pilot and also certain other things that match a list of bullet points provided by a consulting firm.
It's not just aviation.
When I was the regional chief engineer for an oilfield services company (think somewhere between base chief pilot and RD at Delta) HR would try to inject themselves into EVERY hiring decision.
I'd have a job posting.
HARD REQUIRMENTS
Engineering Degree (Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Petroleum or Mining)
Eligible to take the EIT exam (think of the degree as the ATP, and EIT eligibility being having the 1000 hours to be Captain upgrade eligible)
US or basically NATO citizen (we did a fair amount of DoD work, be it on pipelines crossing facilites or on military facilities)
Drivers license. CDL Eligible (we needed at a minimum class C CDL with HAZMAT because we hauled radionuclides)
Preferred:
PE (Professional Engineer, it's the next step past EIT)
Bunch of technical stuff you won't understand
HR would try to shove candidates who are "outside the box" but "volunteered at the homeless shelter" that had either no degree at all, or not one of the degrees that are eligible to get their PE License eventually, NO DRIVERS LICENSE (either never had, or revoked), and then they'd try to get H1Bs from decidedly unfriendly places because they are cheap.
And that's before we get to quotas.
IF they sent me someone who was "underrepresented" in oilfield engineering (anyone not a male of euro, latin american or asian descent) I would have to write a THREE page justification why I didn't like them.
One day I had a ton of real work to do.
Actual background they sent me for a pipeline engineer (need Mechanical or Chemical BS at a minimum)
24 year old woman
Art history degree from some random state school in CA
No license (admitted it was because she can't pass the test)
I copy/pasted
"CANDIDATE DOES NOT POSESS A SINGLE ONE OF THE HARD REQUIREMENTS FOR THE JOB" enough times to fill 3 pages.
If a Filipino man had ALL the requirements and most of the preferred ones a one line email "Doesn't seem like a good fit" would suffice.
If he had a PE (the holy grail) maybe I'd get questioned.