Hey guys, thought I'd do a recap of my experience so far so that others know what's up and how to prepare for the assessment and interview.
I applied in late June 2022, a few days later they sent me an e-mail telling I had 7 days to register and pay a 60€ fee to take the online assessment. I waited for 6 days so that I could prepare better because I wasn't expecting such a quick reply.
The online assessment consisted in a few cognitive tests (CUT-E tests), a video interview that you record yourself answering questions and a 10 minute 30 question ATPL test. The website I recommend for you to practice the CUT-E tests is pilotest dot com. It’s free and their tests are harder than those you will find on the assessment, so if you can pass those you won’t have any trouble for the assessment CUT-E tests.
I then bought a subscription in pilotassessment dot com for the Ryanair assessment. This was merely to practice ATPL questions (I mainly focused on POF, Meteo, Air Law, AGK, Operation Procedures and HPL) but later on I also used it to prepare the HR interview, the forums are also somewhat nice but not worthy since the best content is just copypasted from this thread. They also have CUT-E tests but I barely touched them since I was practicing them on pilotest for free. On pilotassessment they have a 30 question, 10-minute ATPL test just like the one you will have in your assessment, I recommend you to practice this one since I’ve got like 3-4 questions exactly the same as I had on my ATPL test with Ryanair which helped quite a bit.
Then there was the video interview which goes kind of like this: they won’t allow you re-record the answers or you will be “disqualified” so do everything at the first try. The questions I had were something along the lines of: “Why Ryanair?”, “Hardest Part of your flight training?” and “What makes you a good fit for ryanair?”. They give you 20 seconds for you to prepare the answer before they start to record your answer, which has to be under one minute.
After 2 days of completing the online assessment, I received an e-mail saying I had passed and scheduling a date for the presential interview and sim assessment. You have to pay for your flights, accomodation and also a 350€ fee to Ryanair.
I did some sim prep (3+2 hours) in a 737 sim (this was in Alverca, Portugal. So, for anyone looking for something similar around Lisbon I recommend them, you can find them in sims dot pt and you can take a pilot that you know or schedule with the guy who runs the Sims, he is not a pilot but he is well versed on what Ryanair wants and prepares you nicely.)
On the day of the online assessment, I got there very early and recommend you to get there early too, you don’t want to be late. They showed us around where the canteen and WC’s were and after that they took us into a small room where one of the sim assessors gave us a small presentation of how the day would go on and paired us with our sim partner and that would be where we would spend the rest of our day. For the first guys going into the sim they gave 15 minutes to prepare and brief what you need to with your partner.
I waited for quite a bit but finally they called me up for the interview. First it was the HR interview. The questions were something along the lines of: “Tell me a bit about yourself”, “Tell me some numbers or something you know about Ryanair”, “You know that we operate from a wide range of bases from 40 different countries. Would you have any trouble in getting placed in a base that might not be ideal to you?” “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”, “Tell me something that you’ve learned in your past jobs that you think is a “plus” to work for Ryanair”, “Have you applied for any other airlines? Which ones?”, “Do you think SOP’s are important? Why?”
Then it was the technical interview. He looked into the planes that I’m flying and the questions were something like this: “Difference between C150 and C152?”, “What type of engine does the C152 use?”, “If you lose an alternator on the C152 what would you do/ what would happen?Would the engine die after the battery died?”, “What are the benefits of a fuel injector system when comparing to the traditional carb system?”, “Let’s say it’s 20ºC outside and clear skies, is there any risk of carb icing?” And that was pretty much it from what I can remember.
Next, we went for the sim. I was PM first, we did the SID (POL 4T from Liverpool), some, but little airwork and then ground ops called us saying we had to return because there was some baggage on the airplane from passengers that were on the ground. We did PIOSEE, prepared the approach and landed. Then I was PF, same SID a bit of airwork and then ATC calls us saying that due to TS we would have a 90 min hold over our destination. Same thing as we did before: PIOSEE, NITS and we decide to return because we would run out of fuel. Then we did the ILS which honestly, I ****** up a bit. I was overcorrecting the localizer, never close to being to half scale deflection but I was weaving around it until I got it sable around 800ft AGL and was also flying like 10 kts above Vref+5. Then as we are like 500 ft above minimums and visual with the runway the G/S and LOC fail. I call to continue approach since we are visual and I land the aircraft.
On the next business day, I got the reply saying I passed the assessment.
Hope this helps out someone looking to do the assessment!