Aero Crew Job Fair Saturday 8th in ORD
 

Is anybody going to this job fair? What are your thoughts on paying $129 on a crapshoot?

I know the value placed on networking, but paying for the opportunity to just talk with a company seems like a shake down.

Kind of like Charging $55 a year to apply to 8 US airlines? Otherwise you have to manually type 30 pages of stuff 8 times.

i hate to sound like im shillin for job fairs but i went to one...spent my 80 bucks. i got an interview and a job almost immediately afterwards while ive heard from multiple people that theyve never heard back from their online application, called the company, resent their resumes...so on and so on. the hiring at AWAC has been very very limited lately and i know theres been no shortage of applicants there. my times were a little above average and my personality is nothing shy of awful but i think that $80 helped get me a job.

Get used to it. As pilots we always pay and overpay for everything! Medicals, uniforms, job applications, etc.

Sounds like we are missing a great business idea. Low cost medicals, job fairs, application sites, job sites, and uniforms!! Do it all in one, and you have a pilot walmart!

I went to the Aero crew pow wow last November and was in ground school at skywest 2 months later.

I'd do it if I could get face time with a company I really wanted to work for and thought I had a reasonable shot. That said, I went to the AeroCrew job fair in late 2010 when pickings were slim. The two marquee names that showed up were on everyone's list and I wasn't competitive in that crowd. I got my current job by sending in a resume with no internal recs and got lucky. Do what feels right to you and you won't regret it.

Don't they offer an airline discount? :D

I'd bet that cheap pilots have asked them this, many times.

I've had good results with job fairs throughout my career.

only two airlines i would want to talk to, just don't know if I would get to much face time with either. I have been to these many times, and many times there was huge lines to talk to a recruiter for maybe a few minutes. Also seems like they keep getting more and more expensive.

Much more result driven then the ripoff "meet and greet" in Vegas.

I went to one of these last year and I guarantee you recruiters will pull people from the pile who have gone to things like these and have internal recommendations. A first impression is everything and while you might be dishing out some dough to plow through a few lines only for a few minutes of face time, I assure you it's not for nothing.

I went yesterday. Dropped off my resume along with a couple of interal recs. I'm not saying I will get an interview, but it's better than not going.

What if you don't have internal recs? Were there a lot of people there?

Does anyone have some good news about this job fair? I was curious about attending but as like everyone else, I questioned myself on the entry fee as well as transportation to ORD. So, any good news will greatly persuade me in attending the next event which I believe takes place on Nov. 3.

I know there was a few other guys I talked to who had internal recs. There had to be hundreds of pilots lined up to to talk to the reps at Spirit. I would say 80% of the pilots there were current or ex Comiar. The few Comair pilots that I talked to didn't have any interal recs. The reps for Spirt I talked to looked over at my resume and like my letter and asked if I had a degree (which I did). we BS for about 3-4 mins. I felt good about it, but I doubt I stood out that much compared to everyone else. All I know is for me to show up, it got my LOR in their hands which is somethingI didn't get a chance to do before.

Sorry to stray off topic but......

Hundreds of people in line and you gotta pay to get in. I thought there was a pilot shortage or something. Sounds more like a job shortage to me. I was told a year and a half ago from many reputable people that I would be in a really really good position with-in a year or so. Guess I missed something.

This thread is just more evidence that all of the pilot shortage hype is designed to keep this huge scheme called "the making of an airline pilot" running strong. From the sounds of it there is a lot of money being made at the expense of pilots and those looking to become pilots.

True, but you have keep this in mind for perspective;

There were regionals there; PSA, XJT, GoJets, Compass, Commutair, Great Lakes, Cape Air. And for those places, it's more than likely CFI's, etc trying to move up. They probably don't have JS/NR privileges, nor the funds to pay for a ticket/hotel to attend. Hence the lines at the regional desks were not that long, if any at all.

There was Kalitta, Atlas, and Spirit. You can easily deduce who the major draws were. And yes, depending on when you got there/got in line, the wait could exceed 2+ hours.

However, IF, and I'm just saying IF Delta, SW, FedEx, United, USAir, etc where there two things could likely be deduced;

1) The attendance would have been higher, MUCH HIGHER and
2) The wait times probably wouldn't have been quite the same for basically 2 companies. Or rather more spread out.

Just seeing some friends and meeting some people, there were pilots from a wide range of backgrounds. Guys with jobs looking to move on guys with jobs about to get furloughed, and guys that have been furloughed. COMAIR, Southern, World, Pinnacle, TSA, furloughed frac pilots, DHL, etc etc etc....................

Overall I thought it was good. As far as the question of whether or not it helps, who REALLY knows? It's all subjective/relative. Sure, it puts a face to the resume/app.

But more importantly, it probably doesn't HURT an applicant one bit.

Pilot shortage is a marketing term.

Lol, I think you may have missed my point but that's ok.

I was simply stating that there were clearly more applicants and than available jobs. Which is NOT the definition of "shortage of qualified pilots".

I'm pretty sure if most people weren't constantly influenced by deceit on the whole shortage thing the turnout might be smaller. Of course then the companies that organize the whole job fair thing wouldn't be making money off of desperate under-paid pilots either. Can't have that:rolleyes:

Ding Ding Ding Ding!!!

Somebody get this guy a beer.

FWIW, I was there. Didn't seem to be any shortage of pilots to me. In fact, it eerily resembled a job fair I attended back in 2009 when everybody was furloughing.

As well as an oxymoron.

Gotcha, sorry :o

Pilot shortage isn't here yet people. Retirements don't start till the end of this year and won't really ramp up for a few years after that.

There is a huge shortage! Too bad it is at the regional level. If you wanted to talk to a recruiter from a regional at the fair, you would have had no problem!

Ya know, I would feel the same way if it weren't for the 100's upon hundreds that had retired already this year and yet the industry is still furloughing. Management probably has a better picture than us. So why aren't they hiring in huge quantities already? Hundreds are retiring and thousands are being furloughed. Comair, Pinnacle, Eagle, and Mesa have been a huge player in the surplus of qualified pilots.

Airlines are getting by and becoming more successful as a business still using techniques such as throwing out pilot contracts. So even if there is a pilot shortage, it won't matter. The industry will always find a way to be two steps ahead of the pilot group. Shortage or not, they apparently cannot even afford to pay pilots what they are currently paid.

Shortage at the regional level. That's just silly. Thousands of guys being tossed to the street all at the same time and yet the regional airlines are having a tough time attracting guys. Something wrong with that picture.

Thousands on furlough huh?

You hit the nail on the head many times! One day people will wake up and realize the people running the circus are many moves ahead of you such as in checkmate. Some of us have already figured out the game.

Since the demise of Comair, a lot of pilots have hit the street. Pinnacle threatening to furlough and I saw an announcement that Mesa was looking to do the same as of recently. So yes, close to that number.

There is never going to be a shortage of pilots. There will always be a shortage of qualified pilots willing to start over @ the bottom of the list.

If you don't go to a job fair, you'll never know if it would have made the difference, and will be left dreaming of things that might have been.

Very true. I got hired 5 years ago by showing my face, even going beyond the job-fair thing. Jumpseating on us, networking our with pilots (talking to them at the airport) and even showing up at corporate HQ to say hello to HR might do the trick. With close to 10,000 resumes on file, and many, many experienced pilots trying to get hired, you need to stand out...You just might be lucky enough to talk to the right person, just like I was.

Best of luck...

Any official number of pilots attending?

From the avatar it appears half of the APC is now at Spirit.

APC, can you stop running the ads now?