Thankfully this thread hasn't turned into another Oxford Bashing excercise and I think that is to its credit now.
Anthony, as posted earlier, has done a great job of pulling it into the next millenium and it really is a modern and efficient place for training and he himself is an approachable and helpful MD.
If you are reading this and are planning on going to one of the APP Seminars take the career presentation with a huge pinch of salt. ALL schools are going to tell you there will be a pilot shortage and they will help get you a job, it's all TOSS.
It's true Oxford have this 'Department', but you only need to have a look round the number of students in the canteen at lunchtime to realise that getting picked out of just Oxford's grads will take some exceptional scores or a lot of luck.
Any career development department would have a tough job getting a good reputation of placing people with the current level of jobs compared to the number of people being pumped out of Oxford every day of the year, let alone the country and Europe. I think there are 2 first time IR's attempts a day just at Oxford.
So just as an epitaph to everything else said here the Career Development Department are just not handling the many of us pumped out well at all and what needs to be remembered is that is our last memory of Oxford and that is the most pertinant and personal aspect of the whole process, and yet it seems it is not being treated as such.
What I want to state, and many others here have done so, is that I was extremely happy with Oxford as a training organisation for my CPL/IR it's just this whole experience leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and the fact that people are possibly going to spend 60-70k on the basis they will be helped out by Lofty at the end when there is not ONE confirmed airline signed up to the APP is lunacy. Plus he is pleading for our photos and info to bolster their claims made to these people who are possibly risking their house, wife and family on the basis of their 'promise' when it is us who have gone out there and made it happen and not him with his imaginary 'contacts', I think is criminal especially with the amount of money we are talking about spending here on an Integrated course, which is arguably irrelevant now compared to full time Modular.
Mike's hours have been reduced to part time now, so I hear, so it would be interesting to hear what other people's experiences of the department are without him having such an input.
I am sure there will be a Chief Pilot/Flt Ops Director among Oxford's Graduates in 20 or so years. They need to remember that as they are leaving me slightly annoyed with the place having been so happy there, I might not ever be a chief pilot but I might know one....and that's what it's all about in this business.