What do you need to do to get a job around here?

[FlyingForFun]

So there I was, coming to the end of the FIC, and wondering what the job market was like. Others who had finished the course shortly before me had found jobs, so I knew there were jobs out there, it was just a matter of finding them.

So I started asking questions, seeing if anyone knew of any schools which were recruiting. At the same time, I found a list of flying schools around the country (thanks, Flyer magazine!) and highlighted those I thought I'd be a good match for. Some of them were within driving distance, so I took my CV in, and, wherever possible, had a brief chat with the CFI (which usually consisted of being told there were no jobs available but they'd keep my CV on file). But these aren't the ones I'm necessarilly interested in.

Most of the schools, though, were not within easy driving distance. This isn't a problem - I have no ties which would prevent me from relocating just about anywhere in the country if there was a suitable job. So I e-mailed my CV to them.

A small number of schools replied with the standard answer (sorry, no jobs, but we'll keep your CV on file). A couple of schools replied with offers of part-time work, which unfortunately isn't really what I'm looking for.

I was lucky in that, eventually, I found myself a full-time job. I start next week, I'm very excited about it.

But what I'm really interested in is those schools which I e-mailed my CV to, but never heard anything back from them. In particular, there are at least three schools which I have since heard are actively recruiting instructors - both of which seem to have completely ignored my CV. In one case, the school has ignored my CV twice - they ignored it when I e-mailed it to them, and then when I heard they were recruiting I followed up with a phone call and the gentleman I spoke to suggested I should fax my CV to him. I faxed the CV, and again heard nothing back from them!

I can think of only two reasons why this might be. The first is that my CV is so bad that the schools aren't interested in me. I think this is unlikely. I would guess my CV is very similar to most other newly-qualified CPL/FI(R)s. I have two or three thing which I feel make me stand out from the crowd, and I've emphasised these things both on my CV and my covering letters, but I'd guess that everyone else does exactly the same. Besides which, if my CV was that bad, why have I heard from several schools who were interested in me - not only the school I will soon be working for, but, as I said, several others who were looking for part-time instructors?

The second reason I can think of is that the schools' administration is sufficiently poor that although they are recruiting, they do not look at CVs they receive. Or maybe they do look at them, but don't bother replying? In any case, this seems a little strange. In my previous life in IT, when I was recruiting I would look at every single CV I received. Most of them were totally unsuitable for the role I needed to fill, but I always looked at them, and replied to say why they were unsuitable. Besides the fact that there are less jobs available, is instructing any different?

Anyway, I have a job now, so I've got no reason to be too bothered by this. But I would still be interested to hear from any CFIs out there how you go about sourcing CVs when you are recruiting. Do you have a policy of ignoring CVs which don't meet certain criteria? Is there anything which future FI(R)s and FIs can do to ensure that their CV really does get brought to your attention when you are recruiting? Are my experiences fairly typical of the industry?

FFF
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[Evo]

Well I can't help with any of that :p but congratulations on finally getting paid to fly! Where's the lucky school then...?

[Rote 8]

FFF

Congratulations!

Will FlyingForFun now become FlyingForFood?

[Kolibear]

Thought PPune had been a bit quiet lately, then I realised - no FFF.

Congrats on gettin the job FFF - I'm sure that you will make a great instructor. When is the first luckless victim - SORRY - I meant fortunate student?

I wonder how long it will be into the first lesson before 'pprune' enters the conversation.

Good on yer !!

[mad_jock]

From the CFI's I have met its just a can't be arsed factor.

Your CV goes on there desk gets cover up by fuel bills when they eventually read it its 1 month old so goes straight in the bin.

Also as well because of the range of Instructors out there with all the same experence and licenses its very easy for them to discriminate.

ie
No burds
Ginger nuts
Old
Young
Valid IR
type rating
Geordies
Northen
Southern
Welsh
Jock
English
Irish
.
The list is endless and I have heard them all you can't win. You just have to be in the right place at the right time. The habit of Airlines now to grab instructors with next to no warning is proberly annoying the hell out of the CFI's. It can literally be interview on Thursday and start type rating the next Monday.

And lets face it who isn't going to be bothered breaking a contract of 1 months notice if your wage is going to double and you get to fly something with 2 engines. Ok for the FI but the CFI then has a huge hole in his timetable and unless they get another FI the next day they will loose custom. So the next person that comes through the door gets work.

MJ

[lookoutbelow]

Well done on the job FFF.

I would suggest that it wasn't a poor CV that caused the lack of response. More lightly the poor admin in place at the schools concerned.

I guess CFI's are busy people and I don't think there is any substitute to going and grabbing them for five minutes if at all practical. CV's have a habbit of getting lost, used as tea mats, paper aeroplanes etc etc. Well done anyway.

I am seriously thining of doing the FI (R) course at the moment. Can I ask how many hrs you have?

LookoutBelow

[18greens]

Congrats on the job.

Its not personal and the thing is the approach to hiring FOs is pretty much exactly the same. And any way if it is personal you are probably better off not working there anyway.

Any cv more than 2 weeks old is out of date and when you want someone you want them now. If someone leaves for the shiny jet job this morning then first guy through the door this afternoon to fill FI position gets the job.

Think of it from the CFIs position. Suppose he files the suitable cvs in order and starts calling them. How many will be saying yes please and how many will be saying sorry mate thanks for the offer but I got a much better job last week. Before long he's a bit hacked off and the next knock on the door is someone with a fresh FI and a shiny cv and he can start today. Who gets the job.

Lesson is if you want the job keep turning up and keep handing in CVs (even if all you have added is one more hour). One day , sooner rather than later they will have a pressing need and instead of 'No thanks' its 'Hang on you may have called at the right time'.

It happens all of the time to everyone.

[FlyingForFun]

Ok, so it seems that everyone agrees that my experiences are quite common. Well, that's a minor relief ;)

In the hope that it might help some others who are not too far behind me, I thought I'd recount the tale of how I actually got my job. I walked onto one of my local airfields a week or two before my skills test (an airfield I know reasonably well from the ground, even though it's too close to have bothered flying in more than once), and handed my CV in to the schools that I know of. One of those schools happened to mention that "XXX is always looking for instructors, have you tried there?" I hadn't, but I had a spare copy of my CV with me, so I walked in. The admin assistant took my CV and suggested I call the next day, when the CFI would be in.

I called, and eventually got hold of the CFI. He took a bit of time to explain the school's operation to me, and asked me to call back once I'd passed the skills test. So that's what I did.

When I called again, the CFI clearly had no recollection of me. He told me to drop my CV in, and when I said he already had a copy of my CV he asked if I was free "for a chat" that afternoon. I was, and the CFI explained he'd just got back from some paternity leave, hadn't got anything sorted out yet, and he'd call me at lunch-time to arrange a time to meet.

Lunch-time came and went. By 3pm I was wondering how late a CFI can have a bite to eat and still call it lunch. At 3.30, I thought I'd give him a call. I was a bit unsure of this - being this pushy goes against all my natural instincts. But it turned out to be the right thing to do. There was no reply when I phoned. Nor was there a reply at 3.40, or 3.50, or any of the calls which I made at 10-minute intervals. At 5.00 I headed down to the airfield and went to the office, but found it locked. I phoned my girlfriend, who happens to live a 5-minute drive from the airfield, and arranged to meet her for dinner at 6pm. In the mean time, I hung around watching the aircraft come and go, and continuing to call every 10 minutes.

At 5.50, I had time to make one last phone-call before going to meet my girlfriend. And this time, he answered! He asked where I was, and I told him I was a 5-minute drive away (I didn't want to admit to already being on the airfield!) so he suggested meeting up 5 minutes later. That gave me enough time to cancel dinner with my girlfriend and get myself cleaned up a bit.

When we met, it was obvious that this guy still hadn't seen my CV. He couldn't remember my name and didn't know where I'd done any of my training, despite this information being right at the top of the CV. As far as I'm aware, he still doesn't know how many hours I've got in my logbook unless he's managed to find my CV since then. The first half hour of my "interview" consisted of me watching him phone a customer to get some credit card details, and then watching him talk to a sign-maker about some new signs to go on the tail of some of his aircraft, and on the airfield fence. After that, he had enough time to talk to me. He told me exactly the same information about his school that he'd told me two weeks earlier, but filled in a lot more detail. He asked me the odd question or two (mostly stuff he could have got from my CV if he'd found it!) And then, before I knew it, we were talking about start dates.

He wants me to work for a two-week trial period. During this period I will get to know the airifleds and aircraft the school uses, and sit in on some other instructors' lessons in ordre to see how they teach, and to standardise the training the school gives. After that, I will be allowed to take lessons myself. After two weeks, if both parties are happy, I will sign a 6-month contract. In other words, the two week trial period basically takes the place of a formal interview, which seems a little unusual when I compare it to my pre-aviation job-hunting experiences, but it happens to suit me quite well so I don't mind.

So the moral of the story: make sure you're seen and heard in person. Although I will actually be based some way away from my current home, the school's head office is close enough to home for me to drive there easilly, which is lucky because otherwise I would almost certainly never have got the job.

Of course, this only relates to one specific incident, I'm not suggesting that everyone else's experiences will match mine, or that the techniques which worked for me will work for you. But I hope this helps someone.

Now to answer some of the other questions: I'm not sure if mentioning details of the school will break PPRuNe's No Advertising policy (it's not something I've ever had to considre before in my few-thousand posts!). I suspect it won't, but if the mods disagree then I have no problem if they remove these details. The school is FlyTeam Aviation. I will be based at Cranfield, which is where all of the flight training is done. They also do rental, but not training, at Elstree (which is where all the administration is done, too), so I will occassionally be called upon to do checkouts and so on at Elstree. My two-week trial period starts on Friday (11th June).

Lookoutbelow - I have 380 hours. If you're thinking of doing the course, my advice would be that hours don't really matter too much. When I was on the course, I met other students with 250-300 hours. And I also met a retired airline pilot with tens of thousands of hours who was current on the B747 and the Chipmunk. As far as I could see from flying back seat and mutual with other students, although our relative experience, or lack of experience, might have shown to a small extent in our ability to handle the aircraft, it had absolutely no bearing on the ability to teach well.

Anyway, thanks for all the good luck messages. I can't wait to start instructing - I have a funny feeling I'm going to enjoy it :D

FFF
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[mad_jock]

Sounds about normal FFF.

Apart from in my case I got 1 circuit in a PA38 after I started then got put on a train to pick an aircraft up. Then 2 days later had to do a INV to turweston and back to pic one up off annual. The dodgy CPL xcountry I put in my CPL application was well a truly sorted, the day my License turn up I did 6 hours instructing.

It is as much fun as the effort you put in.

MJ

[Send Clowns]

Sounds normal. I just had a stressful weekend, flying when I really needed a day off because I couldn't get anyone to work for me. Someone walked through the door today, and he has work if he wants it (has to relocate, so concerned we may not give full-time work, which is fair enough. On the other hand, I started out filling in at weekends when needed, now fly 4-7 days a week!) - full weekends plus a bit in the week, hopefully increasing to full time if we can get the business. Had he walked in last week he'd have had over 10 hours at the weekend! And I'd have gone to the motor show with Whirlygig and to Sandown Airshow :(

[mad_jock]

Mind you just wait until 9-12 months time with 7-800 hours under your belt. OOh that FO job looks great :D

Good luck, stick at it and and enjoy it while you can. And watch you don't get fatigued. Days off are a must. Flying 7 days a week for months on end does you and your students no favours. Its very tempting to go in all the time if the books are full and wx clear.

MJ

[charlie-india-mike]

FFF

Look forward to meeting you.

C-I-M