Captain on ATR or SFO on Boeing 737?

[Uplinker]

......someone from HR who was at the time vetting applications......

That says it all to me. HR in my experience often don't seem to have much idea about what abilities and experiences make a good pilot. Or whether the abilities and experience of a turbo-prop pilot are worth having in order to fly a jet - (of course they are, very much so). As well as the stupid psychometric tests which bear very little relation to the abilities required to fly big jets, they ask you to write about your feelings and motivations etc,


I once happened to see my own application for a certain operator of light blue passenger jets. It had been scribbled on by HR, and where I had written that '....freight operations [which I had flown for a season] was a strangely empty experience without passengers.....', HR had written "nice !", and they meant it ! In other words they seemed to be concentrating more on how applicants wrote about flying than actually doing the flying, which I found bizarre in a system that is supposedly choosing the best and most experienced pilots. I had a similar experience with a significant Gatwick based long-haul jet airline, during initial phone call vetting. "How did I feel about xyz", etc.


Would you employ a person who can write a good essay about flying, or a pilot who can actually fly and has relevant experience ? I think HR would choose the former.


As far as the OP's dilemma; I went for the jet RHS, but then got held back when two airlines I worked for went out of business, because I had no LHS PIC time when I was applying for new jobs. But I would imagine that jet time in whichever seat would be more transferrable than turbo-prop LHS time, while you have these sort of non technical HR staff vetting applications - people who think that small turbo-props must be simple and easy to fly compared to the impressive big shiny jets.