How does this young guy sound for a job?

[RetiredTooEarly]

Having been out of the industry for some fifteen years, I have kind of lost touch with the whole employment scene, here there and everywhere. :uhoh:

I have semi 'adopted' a young guy - 24 single - near my place in Brisbane and have been giving him advice on interviews, quals and the like to crack a decent job ex GA in Australia. ;)

Briefly he has some 4,000 hours all up with only about 800 on twins the biggest being an archaic old SkyVan turbo prop on which he has about 600 hours. He has all the night flying requirements, a Class I IFR rating, C Grade instructor and the usual scattering of work experience predominately working with parachutists and crappy charter work. :ugh:

He is a trier and though having been to interviews with Cathay, Singapore, Air Niugini and all the Aussie carriers has not had much luck to date. :{

Can anybody out there suggest to me whether he should pack his log book, licence and just head off to the great sand pit in the Middle East, or maybe Asia to try for the second level of operators who flog old tired jets around? Like all of us went through, getting the first 'big break' onto a pure jet or glass cockpit is never easy........... :yuk:

I don't expect job offers from this post, but maybe just a brief hint or suggestion which path he should go down next? :ok:

Thanks all

[Stalker_]

I'm Sorry from your post it sounds as if you are under the belief that by just packing up and heading to the middle east he will be begged to fly an EK A380!


Trust me when I say the ME job market is just as tough if not tougher than the Aussie job market.


All of the airlines here want as a minimum just to apply

At least 4,000 hours TT
A minimum of 1500 hours on multi crew jet aircraft
Class 1 medical and no incidents or accidents
correct BMI fit and healthy
at least 500 hours on type applied for


This is the MINIMUM required, the chaps actually getting offers have much more than this.


Even in Asia for the lesser carriers you wont get far unless your willing to P2F in excess of 70,000 Euros to a company that will give you no salary and treat you worse than you could imagine.


Sorry but please Know that this is the situation in ME & Asia


With the experience you have mentioned your man can get an interview with QLINK on the Dash 8, he would have a pretty good change if he/she did well at interview, also the Air Ambulance on the B200 may be worth pursuing. REX? possibly or if all else fails head west and try for the WA airlines


If he/she wants to head abroad I would say Africa, that's what I did and it lead to Kingair and eventually a B737-300

[Luke SkyToddler]

When you say "all the Aussie carriers" who are you referring to specifically?
Has he seriously done Jetstar, Virgin, Tiger, all their respective subsidiaries, the various Qantas regionals, the good non-airline employers like Cobham and RFDS, and still got nothing?

If he's screwed ALL of those interviews up, as well as CX and SQ and Niugini, then I suspect that maybe the problem does not lie with the airlines and their cold hard unfair recruitment practices :rolleyes:

Could you share with us some of the feedback he got from all those failures? What did he do to improve his chances, or do differently from one interview to the next?