Dec 16th Stage I Inverview in YVR

[Airbus_Driver]

Hello Ladies and Gentleman,

This is my first posting on this forum and I thought some of you might be interested in my interview notes from the Stage I Vancouver interview:

Met with the Chief Pilot of the B777 and a nice man from HR. They were very professional but virtually expressionless in their emotions which made it a bit difficult to build a rapport with them. Very similar demeanor to the United Airlines interview I did back in 1996. I understand this method for two reasons. First is to judge your ability to handle stress and the second is objectively view each candidate under the same conditions.

My previous experience in airline interviews have only been with American carriers, (Northwest, United, ATA, Air Tran and JetBlue Airways) so this was my first interview with a foreign carrier. After reading many of the PPRuNe forums I knew it was going to be a difficult interview as many of the technical questions are quite different from the ones asked in the U.S. For example, at Northwest we don't ask in an oral "What is the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone?" or "Tell me what predictive wind shear is?". Our questions are more operationally oriented and situations are presented to you to determine your level of CRM ability. You are asked systems questions but they are more related to questions such as "What does that light indicate?" "What alternatives are available to you now?" and so forth. They are rarely black and white answers and rarely from your primary flight training days. That being said, I knew I had my work cut out for me and studied many of the books recommended on this forum.

The HR questions did not consist of a single interpersonal relationship type question such as "Tell me a time when you had a conflict with xyz" or "Describe when you had a situation that could have developed into an emergency" which are the cornerstone of most U.S. carrier interviews. In the U.S. you are asked these kinds of questions because they want to know how you deal with other people and how you handle difficult situations plus the interviewers want to know if they can tolerate you in the cockpit for 12 hrs a day.

My HR questions consisted of:

1. Tell me how Northwest arrived in the financial condition it is in today? (if I was a manager or an officer of the company, it would be illegal to answer this question so I told him based on what is known publicly).
2. How does Northwest operate the B757?
3. Describe your career progression up to this point today.
4. What will you do if you are not hired today?
5. How do you feel about the pay cut you will be taking? (weird because I told him I am being furloughed).
6. Why are you working on a Masters Degree? (they really pressed me on this as to question my motives for getting an advanced degree. I guess personal fulfillment doesn't count).
7. How does your wife feel about Hong Kong?
8. Do you know how long before Captain upgrade is on the Freighter? Passenger fleet?
9. Have you applied to other carriers?
10. What did you think of the written test?
11. How do you like Vancouver?
12. What resources did you use to prepare for the interview?

I wasn't asked about company history or about Hong Kong. Too bad too because I prepared quite hard for those questions. That was it as far as HR is concerned.

The B777 Captain was next and he had a hard time believing me that I had not applied to other carriers knowing I was going to be furloughed but I told him I was very lucky and that after I applied to Cathay, I was called for an interview 2 weeks later so I committed myself 100% to the interview because I knew how difficult it would be. I also had finals that I needed to complete. I still don't think he believed me but its true folks. Here are some of the other questions he asked me.

1. Why do you want to be a Captain at Cathay?
2. What makes a good Captain?
3. What makes a -400 freighter different than a -400 passenger aircraft? (I mentioned pax windows, side cargo doors, the convertible nose but forgot about the shorter supernumary area).
4. If you climb out at 300kts IAS to FL300 what happens to TAS?
5. If you then climb out at Mach .84 to FL350, what happens to the angle of attack? (this question does not apply to the B757 which climbs out at a constant 3 degree pitch all the way to FL410 so I stumbled a bit. I didn't feel too bright after he told me the angle of attack increases).
6. What is critical Mach?
7. What is predictive wind shear?
8. What happens to your flight director guidance when you encounter a wind shear warning? What if your on an ILS and have already captured the Localizer and Glide slope? (he was looking for the priority order of the EGPWS. A wind shear guidance overides everything including a stall on a B757 but not on a A320).
9. I would like you to speculate on the Southwest Airlines accident at Midway. What did they do wrong? (ok this one is incredibly unprofessional. It is inappropriate of me to speculate on an accident or on my colleagues in which I know none of the hard facts of the case. All I know is from what I read in the papers which could be grossly inaccurate. I told him this but he still told me to speculate anyway. I said I won't speculate on this accident but I will tell you my procedures for landing on a short, snow covered runway under low visibility conditions.)
10. Are spoilers or reverse thrust more important on landing? Why?
11. He drew HK and then drew 3 different hurricane locations. He asked me which location I would prefer in order to land on 07R in HK? There was no other detail such as what direction I was coming in from or what Category the hurricane was? (Not sure what he was looking for so I picked the one that had the most headwind for 07R. I fumbled a bit because I forgot that HK is still in the Northern Hemisphere so I am sure I looked pretty stupid on that one. Especially since I have flown to HK on number of occasions).

The interview ended with any questions I had. I tried to build a little better rapport with the Captain but I could tell he was not pleased with my performance. Needless to say I did not receive an offer for Stage 2 but I will surely try again in 6 months. I am disappointed I will not be flying with Cathay but I did learn quite a bit how "the other side" operates. Perhaps I will be more successful the second time. I do have some recommendations on the books I used.

The goods ones for me were:

Beyond Lion Rock, by Gavin Young (tough to find in the U.S. used eBay)
History of Hong Kong, the Swire Group and Cathay, wikipedia.org
The Encyclopedia of Technical Aviation, by Bristow (the best one by far)
Ace the Technical Pilot Interview, also by Bristow
Preparing for your Cathay Pacific Interview, Capt xyz (not recommended, info out of date)
Airline Pilot Career Magazine, August 2005 (profiled Cathay)
JAA ATPL Theoretical Training Manuals
Aviationexams.com (JAA exam data base questions)