Just got back from the interview in Tokyo. I was offered the job pending the medical results. It was a great experience and am looking forward to hopefully joining you guys there in January. They will have a class in November and every other month for now.
As far as the interview process goes it was pretty straight forward like all the previous posts have stated. Plan on leaving for Tokyo on Sunday and staying until Friday. I did the interview and sim on Tuesday, had a free day on Wednesday, and the medical on Thursday. You will know if you have the job offer the night of the interview or first thing the next morning. If you do not get the offer you have the option of staying until Friday or trying to leave early.
The interview consists of the 15 question quiz which, as everyone else has said, appears to come from the ATP question bank. The quiz is not too hard but I would recommend reviewing one of the ATP study guides. There were a couple of questions I might have missed if I had not reviewed. I was told that the better you did on the quiz the less technical questions you will get in the interview. I do not think I missed any questions on the quiz and had only one technical question during the interview.
After the quiz you will spend about an hour in the orientation. Most of the orientation was spent covering the sim profile. They are very thorough and will cover any questions you have. Make sure you know the sim profile, especially the power settings. You do get some practice time before the sim evaluation starts. They will put you on final and do an autoland so you can see what the power settings and view look like on final. You will also do a practice VFR pattern just like the one you will do on the evaluation. I had notes on my approach plates with flap and power settings and other things I thought would be useful during the ride. They offered me approach plates when we got into the sim but said it was ok to use the ones I had made notes on.
The panel interview lasts around 45 minutes and consisted of 3 pilots and 2 HR reps. Like I said before I only had one technical question. What is V1 and V2? They asked me if I had flown up north during the winter, which I have, so I guess that eliminated the cold weather/icing questions. The rest of the questions seemed to focus on how much I wanted the job and did I plan on staying long term. Why do you want to fly for AJV? How does your family feel about the job? Do they know how long you will be away for training? I was there for AJV captain so they asked if I did not get captain would I be willing to accept a first officer postion or a position with AJX? Why AJV as my first choice? Do I think the captain is more important than the first officer?(CRM) Are you prepared for training? What did you do to prepare for the interview? From what city are you going to commute and are there any direct flights? How far do you live from your home airport? They were very friendly and made me feel at ease. It can be hard to understand some of the questions but listen carefully and if you do not understand there is no problem asking them to repeat the question. As everyone else has said, do not rush the answers.
You will also do the MMPI, around 540 questions, while you are waiting for the other candidate to do the sim and interview.
The hotel was just like everyone said. Small rooms and hard beds but overall I had no problem with it. They have a japanese style breakfast in the lobby or you can go next door for an american style breakfast, both are free. There is plenty of food around. A 7-11 across the street. If you take a left out of the hotel, about 1/2 mile down the road is a McDonalds and Dominos Pizza. You will take the Limousine Bus from Narita to Haneda, costs 3000 yen($30). As someone said before, it is a good idea to have a map of the hotel to show the cab driver at Haneda. The hotel has a free shuttle service that runs from the Haneda airport to the hotel starting at 1800 and runs every 15 minutes. When you leave on Friday, the hotel shuttle will take you to the airport, it starts running at 0500 and runs every 15 minutes. The first limousine bus runs from Haneda to Narita starting at 0745 and it takes about an hour. If you have one of the morning flights back to the USA I would recommend taking the 0745 bus and be at Haneda around 0700 to make sure you get a ticket for the bus.
To prepare for the interview I used Gleim's ATP book, Ace The Technical Pilot Interview by Gary Bristow, and printed out everything I could on ANA, Japan Postal, Air Japan, JP Express and Japan in general. I also bought a 767-300 cockpit poster so I would be familiar with the cockpit layout. I used the x-plane flight simulator to practice the approaches. Don't get to caught up in trying to use the 767-300 in x-plane or ms flight sim, as someone stated before, the switches might not be the same or in the same position. Just use the sim to get familar with flying the approaches and practicing the sim profile.
Overall it was a great experience. Have fun and enjoy the opportunity.
Last edited by aupilot; 10-18-2008 at 11:19 AM.