FI Employment Prospects
I hate to be the bearer of doom and gloom but I'll share my experiences with you and you can make your own mind up.
I finished my fATPL and MCC last May and spent 6 fruitless months seeking employment, had a few 'nibbles' but nothing came of them. So I started to investigate the FIC route, I downloaded a standards document from the CAA website which detailed every flight school in the UK authorised to teach PPL. As a married family man living in Somerset I wanted to teach at a school where I could at least stand half a chance of getting home weekends to see the family. So I drew a line across the country at Birmingham and emailed every scholl South of that line to see what the employment situation was.
About 40 or 50 schools bothered to reply and they all said pretty much the same things:
They have enough instructors (several were looking to lay off instructors).
None of their instructors have their notice in and if they did put their notice in they would be allowed to leave and would not be replaced.
The CFI has a huge pile of CVs from qualified FIs looking for work and that my CV would just go to the bottom of the pile.
All the FI schools have their courses booked up so loads of FIs are qualifying and looking for jobs.
Many airline pilots being laid off have instructor tickets and are snapping up FI jobs.
Basically the message was that unless I get a job lined up before commencing the FIC then I would spend 6 weeks and £7000 on the course and still not be in employment, I'd just be £7000 poorer.
Obviously faced with this information I scrapped the idea of the FIC, I would definitely recommend that anyone considering signing up for an FIC should do their research and go into the course with their eyes open, it really is a case of 'buyer beware'
Again I'm sorry for being the bearer of doom and gloom but this was the situation that I faced. If any of you do decide to go ahead with the course then I sincerely wish you every success in the course and in finding gainfull employment after the course. Perhaps if you do find employment you could come onto this thread and rub my nose in it for having no guts and commitment.
Cheers
MM