MrERJ

Does delta still do the silver bullets program? Where each pilot had one person they can personally refer and they are guaranteed an interview? My buddy is swearing they still do this but I said I don't think so. Tia

WhiskeyDelta

No. I've only been here a couple of years but your post is the first I've ever heard of it. Delta wants their pilots recommendations for candidates so if this were still around I think they'd be advertising it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

PNWFlyer

When I applied I was told the "silver bullet" was a DAL pilot sending an email directly to pilot recruiting that guaranteed they would score your app. It in no way guaranteed an interview.

tcco94

Didn't mean that it's required. Just meant I know that makes the application a lot stronger than what I currently have.

gloopy

I think the silver bullet program is a Frontier thing. JetBlue has the "blue dart" and United has an official Chief Pilot meet and greet.

Delta never had any kind of official program like that, but for a long time you did have the ability to walk someone in (officially or not) and quite often if they were even close to being competitive (and appeared to have their act together) the odds of an interview offer were very high. That was phased out and eventually firmly prohibited. Its been replaced with the once a year app review in theory, but in reality that's nebulous at best because if your app was already reviewed and you weren't selected, it probably won't make a difference. If, on the other hand, your app hadn't been reviewed yet, its probably because you were in a lower "tier" and they weren't going to get to you for a while regardless because you weren't competitive in the first place.

The end result was to almost completely marginalize the line pilots from any ability to realistically recommend anyone. I think a good compromise would be some type of limited program like other places use, but it probably won't happen unless the "shortage" gets so bad they literally can't find pilots. But as of now, they have no use for, and don't want, 14,000 pilot recruiters because they feel they have all the applicants they can handle already. For now.

tunes

I disagree. I'm 4/4 with people I've sent emails about getting invites to interview in under 60 days from email sent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

John Carr

AS had one too "back in the day".

And the UAL system has gone through so many variations and changes that at one time it was pretty useless unless you could check a lot of boxes. Even the CP's had their individual "stacks/silos", and some CP's carried a hell of a lot more weight than others, etc.

gloopy

Is that a cause or a correlation though? If you recommended 4 current military pilots or regional LCA's with good GPA's etc odds are they would have been reviewed and scored anyway, and high enough to have been offered an interview anyway. Maybe your rec triggered a review a little sooner than may have happened "naturally" though I suppose.

I know a lot of pilots, myself included, who have recommended lots of candidates with great resumes who are really good pilots, people and fits for the company/group who never got more than a "fix it" email if that. I know of others who did get interviews after being recommended, but they fit squarely in every "tier one" stereotype that gets almost all the interview spots to begin with.

Dash8Pilot

I don't know anyone hired in the last few years that didn't do a career fair or have a recommendation sent to pilot hiring. Every single one had their app scored from one of those two methods. I haven't heard of anyone that got an invite out of the blue.

In my case I had my app in for years and heard crickets. I met with recruiters at a career fair and got the interview invite 11 days later. Nothing changed drastically over the previous year except for more TPIC.

tunes

3 mil guys, 2 of which were at frontier at the time...and 1 non mil regional CA with < 500 PIC


I agree with what you are saying though, they would have gotten the call when their app was reviewed, I just think the email got their app reviewed earlier.