Yes.......

 

Aside from the standard "Thank you for applying to this position" received the morning of the 24th after applying to the position posting, I haven't heard anything, positive or negative. Having attended the event as well, I found it to be informative and, overall, a very positive experience. That being said, it also felt quite anonymous in that the only few minutes where a Southwest recruiter would know me from the proverbial Adam was during the one-on-one. As previously stated, the one-on-one session was more of a coaching session and application review, for me anyway, than anything extremely personal. The recruiter that spoke to me was very friendly and informative and certainly engaged in the process, but no notes were taken in my presence regarding our interaction. There was very little time for the recruiter to take notes outside of my presence as well as we concluded the session by together retrieving the next candidate. Having been told that my application was in good standing order with no corrections necessary, having all of the necessary qualifications, and having not said anything idiotic during the one-on-one session, I presumed that my resume and application were not immediately discarded so perhaps no notes is a positive. Or a neutral. Or a negative. We, as attendees, I don't believe were able to, in any way, set ourselves apart from each other or anybody else; again, this isn't a negative of the event, I'm just attempting to paint an accurate picture of what the event was, or what it was not. If anything, I could see the event weeding out attendees that didn't meet the present minimums which, as has been stated, was not a prerequisite to attend.

The only thought I, personally, have speculated that this career fair would provide any "preferential interviewing" is based on the idea that the attendees, by in large, likely paid a fair share (myself included) to be in attendance for a fair specifically targeting Southwest versus attending a career fair where many airlines are targeted by an applicant. Whether Southwest feels that those in attendance then are more interested, by in large, to being a part of the Southwest group versus a part of the group that calls first, I haven't the slightest. Perhaps? Perhaps not. Of course, then, there are the thousands that also want to be a part of Southwest that weren't able to secure a seat at this event so, then again, this event may be purely what it was branded as - an informational session only to those that had luck, time, and a fast internet connection. Regardless of any of this, Southwest did present a company that is nothing short of the highest class who are still dedicated to their employees, value their customers, and are poised for continued growth.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of letting people take up a slot simply because they had fast internet but don't meet the mine while there's TONS of pilots that do, but couldn't get in.

 

Did you meet all the min qualifications?

 

yes.......

 

I attended Saturday. My one on one was with an FO. He took the time and went through every line of my resume and my Pilotcredentials print out. He had a couple good suggestions and noted that my resume and my flight hours had a 140 hour discrepancy between the two. He asked if he could keep my packet of papers I brought and went and put them somewhere. Did others have there packets taken?

At the question and answer session in the Lonestar 105 room, they took the time to answer everyone and did a great job doing so. They even went past the 4:00 pm end time to get everyone answered. A couple of good things I took away from that was that they DO NOT want you to go to a interview prep course. They do not want canned answers and want to get to know you. They spoke pretty seriously about that and if they figure you are giving canned answers, they will can your interview and have done so in the past as they explained. Someone also asked that if the people that attended would get any bonus points on their applications and the answer was yes. They said that was one of the reasons the hiring window opened that day as well. I'm thinking that they will look at all the qualified candidates that attended for their next round of interviews. All in all, I feel the travel, hotel and car was worth it.

Best of luck to all!!!

 

Yeah, some said there were to folders on a table in that room. We guessed one was for candidates that were to be looked at further and one for not at this time.

I went too and had a blast regardless of what the end result is.

 

And as a side note, a friend of mine who also had a slot but was unable to attend at the last minute (he did call and cancel) just got the interview invite today. Go figure.. !

 

UUUUUGGGHHHH!! Really??? LOL Some people have all the luck!! Good for them though

 

Is an interview invite via phone or email?