Turkish Airlines hiring First Officers

[Faust]

Turkish Airlines

Hi everyone,

For anyone interested in the Turkish Airlines flight crew positions through Parc, Sigmar etc. please read on… I hope this is of some use to you. (Please note this info is of most use to Boeing crew as there are some things (other types / Capt’s) that I’m not 100% sure on.

1. The agency:
Now depending on which agency you go through, they’ll all tell you something slightly different (T&C’s, application info, procedures etc.) Initially let the agency know of your interest and which type/rank you are going for etc. accompanied with your CV. They should come back to you with a request for further info (licence, logbook, medical cert. scans etc.) and the ‘wonderful’ THY application form. After filling this in and sending it back; some time will pass (shouldn’t be more than a week or so), then several emails/phone calls later, provided you meet the minimum requirements, you’ll be invited to interview!

2. Travel:
The agency will let you know that you have been invited to interview within about 1 week before the interview date… So prepare!... About 2-3 days before the date, they’ll come back to you with the full travel itinerary (E-ticket, hotel reservation number etc.) They should also tell you what documents to bring, but here is a list of just some of the items they may ask for:
Logbook
Licence
Medical Certificate
MCC Certificate
RT Licence
Passport
Letters of proof of hours (unless your logbook is stamped & signed previously)
Degree certificate (if you have one, if not I think a high school diploma is fine)
Approx. 20 standard passport sized photos (Yes 20!!! They seem to collect them)*
*If you need some over there say: “Vee-See-Ka-Luk Foto-Raf Check-Ter-Mek Is-Tee-Yo-Room”*
Now, I was prudent and made photocopies of all of the above (not the photos) to speed up the process (they’ll love you for that!). Eventually you will also need to bring the CRC (criminal record check) & No accident/incident report from your respective country, but this is not necessary straight away.

3. Selection process:
Ok, here we go!
Stage 1…. You should have a message for you at the hotel of their choice, informing you of the collection time in the morning. Now throughout this whole process, I must stress PATIENCE!!! In the morning, they will NOT be there at the specified time (this is due to a combination of “lack of organisation” & “TRAFFIC”) Trust me however, they will be there to collect you at some point, it may even take a few hours, but they will be there. The first day will comprise of firstly the documentation check and possibly the sim but I’ll come onto that. In the documentation check you will be waiting in the designated room on the 4th (Dert in Turkish) floor for some time again. They will eventually come to take photos off of you, documents, and copies if you have them and will kindly ask you to fill in what seems to be the full THY application form again! :S They will then drag each of you to a small room filled with 3 HR people all flicking through your details and app form. One or two of them will ask about your flying details to date and career history (this isn’t really an interview, it’s just to make sure that your not lying ) It lasts for about 5 – 10 mins and is the easiest part of the process.

Stage 2…. The sim will either happen on the same day as stage 1 or the next morning if they are busy, or in my case on the same day at 5pm after being in their poorly air conditioned waiting room with little access to water for 8 hrs!!! I can only tell you what happened to me on this bit as I flew the 737 sim and not the Airbus. On arrival, the TRE’s were about to pack up for the day. They questioned why the HR dept. had sent me to the sim building and then found a TRE to take my sim session. They dragged me to the sim which was the 737-400 with no briefing or charts! then grabbed a poor Turkish First Officer to sit in the other seat. Now at this point they tried to sit me in the left hand seat thinking I was a Capt. I proceeded to explain that I wasn’t and had never flown the classic either! The TRE went ‘Oh well!’ and I sat in the right seat. They may ask a couple of tech questions such as the distance between the runway edge lights and what happens if the ‘Speed Trim’ fails. After this they will simply ask you to take off from whichever runway you’re on, from whichever airport you’re at! In my case, the vis. was approx. 1000m and they failed an engine after V1 straight away (forget whatever profiles you’ve been given by your agency, it probably won’t happen!) The Turkish F/O (pretending to be the Capt.) misdiagnosed the fault as a ‘failure’ not a ‘severe damage’ even though there was a bang, then as soon as the gear was up he proceeded to do the EF-SD&S non-normal checklist recalls without instruction! Then if my heart wasn’t already leaping out of my chest, I had a “terrain, terrain!!!” GPWS warning. The instructor made the mountain miraculously disappear and then I was trimming the aircraft to fly one engine (which by the way, is nearly impossible as the rudder trim dial trims the opposite way to which it’s turned!). After fixing that problem, I noticed the altimeter flicks +-200ft and your expected to do your best to fly straight and level. This truly is a test of flying the aircraft, first and foremost! You can almost forget SOPs and checklists and don’t even bother with RT, you’ll be far to busy keeping it in the air. Put it this way, the sim is screwed! there are many other small faults with the 400 sim which would take forever to go into. They eventually vector you around for a raw data ILS (the Capt. will set up all aids etc.) and the vectoring will cut you in too close and high. When I made visual I had 4 whites! The instinct is to go-around, however the TRE will instruct you otherwise (disobeying this has cost many an experienced candidate the position). So I landed this one-engined, high, fast, piece of crap sim with a 25kt x-wind right on the numbers (I even had a Sink Rate!, Sink Rate! To boot) but this was ok too . On landing there were no other faults and that was it. I thought holy crap!!!! I need this job and that session was awful. They sent me back to the hotel and told me to come to the office tomorrow. I had no idea what was coming next, so I started to pack.

Stage 3…. The next afternoon, I arrived at the office (by taxi after waiting for the transport for 2 hours then giving up) only to find out that that was a mistake and I apparently should’ve waited 2 ½ hrs! They then told me that I didn’t need to come in that day and that (drum roll please!) I had passed the sim!!. I couldn’t believe it. They then said that I didn’t have to do the 30 question ATPL exam either as this was for captains only. I almost had tears of joy, but this was cut short by the news that I had to come in tomorrow to go to the psychometric training building in Nişantaşe (Ni-Shant-Ashay) to do 5 hours of aptitude tests and personality questions. Now folks, this believe it or not is where 90% of F/O’s fall down… I can’t really help you here, suffice to say that there’s some very basic mental arithmetic questions coupled with some other multitasking activities all on computer. i.e. answer 9 x 7 whilst solving a logic puzzle and pressing some coloured buttons. There’s also a 120 question personality questionnaire (as always with these, be truthful). Captains may breathe a sigh of relief at this point, as they don’t have to do these tests. First Officers, you may be wishing you could do that ATPL exam at this point after all… Yes the tests are mentally draining but not too difficult, just relax breathe and take your time …. Well, no too long!

Stage 4…. The interview should happen the day after the aptitude tests and believe me I really got myself worked up before I went in there as I knew this was the final stage. However, here’s what really happens. Back on the 4th floor again in the main office, I was sat for hours whilst one by one we were taken into the interview room. The agencies/THY would have you believe that you’ll be facing a panel of nine people of the highest authority within THY (hell! Maybe even Gazi himself). This is complete bulls**t however; first, they already know the sim, aptitude scores/ATPL results, and have all your records; second, there are only 4 of them in the room and not one of them was the founding father of the Turkish republic. Instead, you will face 3 HR reps and one senior captain. The captain will ask you about your flight training (how you first started etc.), your career to date and maybe hobbies & past-times etc. whilst flicking through your records. Then the second HR rep will ask you about your home life and family etc. Then, he will ask your intentions if successful. You must be eager and forthcoming in your answer that you fully intend to move to Istanbul, you love the city and the culture and that (if you have family) you want to move them out there. They’ll love that answer, and to be honest it’s what they want to hear from everyone. Not one tech question is asked and nor was it from the other candidates I questioned afterwards.

Now put it this way, the interviews whether you’re successful or not, only last for approx. 10 mins. If you walk out of there with a letter in your hand you have not passed. They will have of course told you basically the reasons why in the interview and the letter will say ‘Thanks…. but no thanks’. If you, like myself come out of there with no letter and a ‘thank you very much. Please wait in the room again..’, then you will still be slightly confused as to what just happened and be forced to wait another 30 mins. After this time the room will contain only the remaining successful candidates (in my case, myself and one other captain out of originally 15 applicants), who are then presented with a different letter stating that we were successful and then told we had to go to the police station the next day for our residence permit applications.

This process can take over three hours and is simply a waiting game. But at least you can rest at ease knowing that you are in the company at this point. The truth is that currently around 80% of F/O’s are unsuccessful at selection and 60% of captains respectively. I hope this info will be of use to some of you interested in this position and look forward to hopefully meeting you soon… in the big THY family!

By the way keep all of your taxi receipts whilst you’re over here to hand in to THY head office (4th floor), as they will reimburse you.

Safe flying,

FAUST