Networking

[Sabre1987]

Loads of people are telling me networking is a great way to get anywhere in life, as the saying goes; "its not what you know, its who you know".
Where should us future pilots go to get the contacts we may need to get into the airline industry one day?
where's the recruiter who needs me to walk and bath their rotweiler / baby-sit their kids while they go out for the night?
Preferably in the south east or London

[CAT3C AUTOLAND]

You are quite right, networking is a great way to get your first job, however it is not something that is going to happen over night.

When you meet people, it takes a considerable amount of time to gain peoples respect, and nine times out of ten that is what you have to earn before anyone is going to recommend you to the company they work for. I certainly would not recommend anyone to the company I work for unless I knew the person and respected them, as you have to remember the person putting you forward has their reputation on the line.

[isi3000]

You could try airshows like Farnborough :)

[Permafrost_ATPL]

Like Cat3c said, it takes time. You can't just talk to people for 5 mins and shove your CV down their throat.

Three good places:

1) Work at executive jet centre. You'll start seeing the same faces and hopefully will get someone to like you enough that they might throw you a rope one day

2) Dispatch or similar at regional airport. Small bases are friendlier and you'll get to build good working relationships with flight crews. Just does not work at big airports with hundreds of pilots. Also big operators these days have such formal and regulated hiring processes, it does not help that much to know people on the inside. Totally different with small turboprop operators.

3) Work at a flight school (not a big ATPL one, go for smaller ones). A fair few senior pilots out there have shares in small airplanes. Some even instruct/exam on the side

Most pilots are happy to chat informally to people who hope to get an ATPL one day. Unless, like I said, you're too up front and just try to get a job out of them within the first few minutes :-)

P