Group Interviews at Skywest
 

I will likely be attending a group interview at Skywest. I have been looking at the Skywest website and reading the interview gouges and I see that there are several phases to the interview process. Theres an ATP written, a mechanical aptitude written, a sim eval, a CRM eval, and an HR/Tech interview. How much of this will occur during this initial group interview? I am assuming there will not be a sim eval or CRM eval during the group interview. Should I expect everything else?

Basically it is a meet and greet. Last I heard, they called you back if they wanted you for an interview in Salt Lake. When I attended the group interview in St. Louis back in August they invited everyone who attended to Salt Lake for an interview. I have heard that has changed, so I don't know what they are doing now. I know of a few people on hear who have attended recently, hopefully they can give you more insight.

Anyways, I have been extremely happy here after coming over from another 121 carrier and wish you the best during the interview process! Just try to remember that SkyWest is actually worth all the hoops they throw you through during the hiring process.

Thanks, thats helpful. That sounds positive, especially coming from someone who is actually there. I see that SKW is hiring approximately 70 pilots per month until at least summer of '07. Hopefully this means it's another meet and greet. I plan to attend the group interview Jan 10th, I'm studying hard. I just hope it's enough time to get down what I need to get down. I'm not quite sure how to prepare for the CRM portion. It sounds like maybe they're just looking to see if you can work with others and take critism. Can anyone shed some light on what kind of things happen during that CRM portion?

Any CRM scenario is designed to see if you can interact constructively with others without coming on too strong or too weak...strike a balance. If you have good ideas on how to solve the scenario, that's great but don't be too overbearing when pushing your ideas...

The group interviews get you looked at. I went to one then went to SLC and I am still waiting for the package, it has been over a week and a half. When I was at the group interview they were wanting people with multi time of
500+ or total time of over 1700 for the RJ. RJ classe are 1/1/07 and 1/23/07. The tech is the hardest. A buddy who interviewed last week called me and said 4 out of the 10 scheduled showed up for the interview in SLC.

I am on the waiting list for the jet and I just jumped up about 30 spots. My thoughts are that they are going to transition guys from the Bro to the jet and hire for the Bro. Apparently, they are short on the jet and somewhat ok on the Bro, at least from what I can see on the FO side of things on the Bro. They have let me do a lot with changing my schedule, which to me means things are ok in terms of having enough FOs on the bro.

We just got word that they are having jet classes every three weeks with the number of seats being determined by company need. They are planning one Bro class per month and they said it will probably start on the first Monday of every month. They did not give a date as to when this will stop, nor did they say who will be awarded the flying out of Cincy.

Also, I just sent in a buddy's resume who is currently at Trans States and is looking for someone to rescue him. He was called the same day I sent his resume out to schedule an interview. I have also spoken with a couple of cfi's from this site who are having a tough time even getting word of whether they have got the job or not. Again, this leads me to believe that they are more concerned with getting qualified applicants for the jet and bringing people over to the jet to get the numbers of pilots on the jet to where they need to be. And, they will hire as needed for the Bro, but they don't seem in too much of a hurry to hire guys who are really wanting to get on here.

I have heard that a lot of people are not showing up for the interviews which shocks me. I assume this is because of first year pay. Just think about this... chances are you will have a line within two months on either plane and your second year pay is higher than Trans States top FO pay, Mesa's 8 year FO pay and you will probably have around 13 days off even if you are the last line holder. I think it is worth the suffering through the interview and the first year to have the opportunity to fly for SkyWest. But, I don't know who is not showing and why they aren't going to the interview, so take those comments for they are worth.

Those are my thoughts, anyone else from SkyWest with their thoughts or think this is at all accurate???

Thanks!

Merry Christmas!

Bro seat locks are being lifted in order to transition more FOs over to the jet. People not showing up to the interview is a good motivator for SKW to give new hires more than a $0.23 raise....or they could just lower their minimums. KoolAid, you aren't going to transition and knock me down a spot in ORD are you? HAHA :D

Unfortuately... I am! Live in St. Louis and had half my TT at Trans States before coming to SkyWest. Still can't figure out why they complain about not getting enough "qualified" applicants as they say and then put people with jet time on the prop? Personally, I think the Bro is harder to fly than the 145. See you in Chi town! When is your DOH?

DOH is October

I have been pondering this crusade to hire high-timers for the jet...other airlines use 500/50 hour CFI's (or less :eek: ), so you'd think SKW would be OK with 1000/100 for CRJ FO's.

My suspicion is that there is some big growth coming that we don't know about yet but management does. They may be stacking the jet deck with people who have enough time to upgrade on short notice...

ya bump up first year pay to at least 24 and id be bothering them as much as i am some others

Hourly rate doesn't tell the whole story...their work rules are very good. If you were to sit reserve without flying much, first year pay would blow.
If you bid into a growing base (easy to do right now) so you get a line right away you can make $27-30K (including per diem). Actually even on reserve in most bases you would fly a lot.

The key seems to be flying as much as possible over the company mins to get a fatte paycheck...Too bad you guys don't get an overtime rate for hours worked past the comapny mins or do you at the regionals?

-LAFF

No news yet. They might be waiting to see if they have enough for the jet on 1/1 or if they need people in the 1/23. Thinking back, I feel th einterview went good. The jet questions wer tough after I get the results from my interview I may post 1 or 2 to let you "pros" take a shot at it. Did they say how many people were going to to be in the bro class? There are 22 people in the pool.

If your assigned line or reserve flying exceeds the guarantee, you do not normally get overtime just for that. However many regionals have overtime for volunteer/junior man flying on your days off, so that can add up quickly if you chose (or get chosen) to do it.

Some regionals get extra pay for working holidays, working over 12 duty hours, night flying, etc.

Thanks Rickair. The CRM seems like a tough thing to do without having previous 121 experience and without previous knowledge of company procedures. I have a buddy in the company. I'm sure he can help shed some light on this as well. It would be nice to find some specifics on what the scenario may be. I know I can work well with others and be assertive. I suppose I'm worried more about not dealing with the situation correctly than am I about dealing with other people. I suppose if I was able to deal with the situation perfectly from the get go, then what would be the point of training?

P.S. What is DOH?

Whats the deal with the group interviews? Do you just show up at the hotel on the day of the interview? I am thinking about going to the one in Chicago on the 8th of Jan.

They DO NOT expect you to know any company procedures or aircraft systems for CRM. CRM is not about specific knowledge, it is about working with others. There is really no way to "study" for any CRM eval, so don't bother worrying about it. If you apply common sense and your existing aviation knowledge in a general sense, that will suffice...as long as you are not a complete goon :rolleyes:

DOH = Date of Hire

ya but im lazy and only like to work bare mins

Thanks...I'd like to work the max allowed by law / FAA per month. I'm not one to stay home and do nothing...

-LAFF

I am going to a group interview for SKW in January. Is it basically a HR type of interview or do they ask technical questions too?

The one in PDX was only HR. there was about 35-40 people at the interview.

So I went to the SLC group interview back in sept. I then did a real interview in SLC on Sept 25th. I didn't get the job and they said to reapply in 6 months. Would it be good to go to the Chicago group interview even though it was before my 6 month date? Would it be good to go to show that I'm still interested?
Another question. Is the 6 months from the Date of interview or the month? I want to know when to reapply.

You probably don't need to do another group interview. You already have an "in" by virtue of having done the interview once.

I think it is six months from the first interview. The good news is SKW has a history of hiring people who do two or even three interviews. About a month or so before your six months, contact the pilot recruiter and let her know you would like to interview again as soon as possible. They will likely schedule you for an interview at that time. The interview date will have to be after six months after the first one, but it might be six months and one day.

Usually just written tests/HR, but at some of them they have done everything but the sim. It all depends on staffing and the number of attendees. Be prepared!