Point is, people say he should get bonus points for being an instructor. I'm saying, what if he did get bonus points and his score still wasn't good enough? It is entirely possible.

 

I guess the problem I have is, you are good enough to teach, but not good enough to fly with those you just taught....

 

When I posted my original statement about my interview, I tried to be as humble about the entire process and my outcome. I was simply giving you all background as well as perspective on the process. My reply to the original post was just that, I could've walked in and they looked at me and just didn't care for me. Or the interview in their mind just didn't measure up. I truly do not know. They asked me back so I didn't crash too badly. The interview was quite vanilla with the majority of my time spent with them asking about sick time at my previous job(which was once in 10 years and zero in 7 years of time at DGS. When some of you ask if my time in the building should help, the point isn't whether it should or shouldn't, but you have actual information(seven years worth) to go and ask the personnel in the fleet to help you make an informed decision.

I spent three hours of interview preparation one week prior to the interview with one of the HR guys at DELTA who in fact did pilot interviews. He ran a consulting business on the side. My interview mirrored his practice session. So I found it even more interesting to compare one HR person's perspective with another within one week. The three hour preparation went extremely well. I even went to three other services for interview preparation. My point to any of you is this.

Even though I worked at Delta, I took nothing for granted and was humbled to have the interview. But as this subject was bounced around, some of you have(and rightfully are entitled to) an opinion about whether time within a company should help towards your employment.

So in a 45 minute interview who knows more, the fleet I worked with for seven years plus the hundreds of pilots and personnel in and around Delta that I came in contact with or a retired pilot, a first officer in the flight office in SLC and an HR rep I sit down with for 45 minutes whose biggest worry is my sick leave usage.

One more piece to the puzzle. I quit UAL years earlier. I reapplied, interviewed and they hired me back. I went into the DAL interview and they asked me if anyone else had interviewed me or hired me. I was honest with Delta. Naturally, they asked me who I wanted to work for. I answered that truthfully as well based on my seven years of experience at DAL.

As I said before, an outstanding group of pilots I was fortunate to work with. Blessed to have that opportunity.

 

They might not use the latest and greatest gadgets but all the Amish I know are constantly busy because they come in, work hard and build high-quality stuff that stands the test of time.

 

The vision I get is the hardtop buggy.

 

Any consolation, I don't think I would make it through the interview process. Seems way over the top, look at the log books, an interview and make a decision. This is getting to be re god damn diculous.

 

I think its funny that everyone can train Delta pilots and fly Delta passengers. Outsourcing seems to be the way.

Oh, and it does seem like total hypocrisy BTW.

 

The original hiring program was started by a consulting group run by a Carl Hoffman. If you want a little insight into the philosophy you can read his book Calculating Success, How the New Work Place Analytics Will Reviatalize Your Organization.

Cliff notes: Delta only hired military pilots but knew they would soon have to hire civilian pilots. Hoffman offered a program to filter pilots, collect data and adapt the hiring program to improve the quality of pilots accepted by Delta. Under this program pilots hired were supposed to have their training data (through out their career) collected and if issues occurred, the data was to be cross referenced with metrics from their interview/hiring process. The goal to collect data and identify deficiencies that could be identified before ever hiring future pilots.

The Hoffman group has been contracted by a few other Major Airlines, I know of one Cargo Carrier and a few DCI carriers became involved to.

IMHO the challenge we see is the balance between hard data collected thru testing and the human factor issues. The interview team's biggest challenge is that they are human. No one is perfect and they bring their own expectation bias, beliefs, fatigue, etc to the interview room.

We've all seen it every Air Carrier, pilots who you'd think had no business in the cockpit get hired. Then pilots who are top notch and well respected, never even get a call or worse told no. Anecdotally pilots that I spoke with at a cargo carrier who use the Hoffman group told me that the new hires are cookie cutter pilots. They're all the same and it was driving most pilots nuts. Maybe a little human error and chaos leads to some diversity to the Pilots hired at Delta. But we really need more diversity here compared to other airlines.

Face it's very challenging. If you're a regional puke getting even one legacy interview is the "golden ticket" (face palm). American has the flowthrus and military, Delta mainly hires military, United is more diverse IMHO. But you gotta jump thru the damn hoops if you want to get on easy street (compared to the regionals). Take on the extra responsibilities if you can at work. Do the volunteer work. Prep Prep Prep. Utilize the professional Prep companies. I don't care what anyone says, you cannot be over prepared. Unless your name is Tony Robbins. It's the same damn job, same passengers, same paint on the plane but with better pay, respect and fleet opportunities. Same damn job.

 

Statically Delta has hired more civilian than military

 

Can you back this up? What time span? How many regional pilots were there for a year and were previous military before that? I'm not trying to start a military vs civilian battle. But the stats need to be accurate.