British Airways DEP Selection - THE lowdown Part 1

[Green Army]

British Airways Dep Selection, Updated Version

Hi Guys,

I just finished the latest BA DEP selection day. They have adapted a slightly new and shortened format for direct entry pilots. NO MORE MICROPAT, RADAR SCREEN, "FRIEND OR FOE" and SUITCASE MAN!

I am sure we have all read the DEP Low Down many many times.

This is the new set up:

You arrive at Cranebank and meet the security man where you get your visitors pass. You meet up with the rest of the candidates before somebody will collect you and escort you to the selection area.

You will be in a group of six. They invite six in the morning and six in the afternoon. You will be collected by a pilot and HR person and they will explain to you what to expect during the day.

GROUP EXERCISE
We first did the group exercise first. This will be done with the whole group of six. This exercise is fairly straight forward. We were managers of Cruise Ship company that is meeting to decide what to do with the launch of the ships the following day. The situation is that there is a severe storm rolling in around launch time. You as a group will have to decide wether or not you want to launch, delay or cancel. You need to come to a decision as a group and when you think you are finished, one of the assessors will put something on the table that will alter the situation, ie the storm has changed course of is more intense.

We were split up into two groups after the group exercise. One group went of to do the interview which is exactly as we all expect, done by a pilot ( Capt. Or FO) and a HR person.

INTERVIEW
It is a very informal setting and they really try to make you feel comfortable, like that is possible. Everybody is really really nice. Both will ask questions for about 20 to 30 minutes. Try to vary your answers between private and professional examples. Do not come up with on the spot B@£'#%}S%}%T answers because these people are highly trained and smell your fantasy, made up answers a mile away.

Questions you can expect are and they are unchanged:
GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF WHEN YOU..............
1. You have influenced others
2. Dealt with cultural diversity
3. Made a bad decision
4. Made a good decision
5. Taken a risk
6. Dealt with confrontation
7. Define CRM. Example of when you have seen or used good CRM.
8. You have improved customer service.
9. Bent the rules to meet an objective
10. Delivered sensitive news to someone
11. Showed compassion and empathy
12. You’ve made a professional mistake and what you’ve done to overcome it
13. Made a team decision that others haven’t liked
14. How do you share you plans and mental models with others?
15. You’ve made a big decision
16. Others in a team have made /implemented a decision that you disagree with. How do you deal with it? How do you adapt?
17. Done something well
18. Diffused conflict
19. Dealt with an awkward situation
20. Could have done something better


The other group went to do the verbal and numerical reasoning test.

VERBAL AND NUMERICAL REASONING TEST
I am lying when I say that either one of these test were easy. I found the verbal test particular hard. They give you just 25 minutes to do 52 questions. You are given a booklet with several ridiculous passages and four to five questions per passage. Some passages are ok but then they come with ridiculous questions. All you have to say is agree, don't agree or can't tell. You can clearly see at first glance wether the passage is a hard one or a reasonably easy one. I suggest you do the easy ones first and then the harder ones. The last one in the booklet I thought was ridiculous easy. Easy points! I suggest you practise this until your eyes fall out. This was by far the hardest test of the day. The pressure is full on because the time is simply not enough. May I suggest you practise any online test you can find and think about getting the SHL Direct package. Money well spend. ( I have no idea where or how to get this package. I am mentioning this package because some people on the day were talking about it. I would hope SHL can tell you more about their Management and Graduate booklet..)

The numerical reasoning test is reasonably simple. The questions are not hard but every question is wrapped in a little paragraph. Ie. You have a long piece of wood that you need to cut into three equal pieces. The cutting will lose 0.2 millimetre. The original piece of wood is 120.4cm long. How long are the three separate pieces? Answers are multiple choice.
Further more there were a few simple area questions were you were asked to calculate a missing piece of a rectangle, determine the length of one side or where you simply had to tell the area. These questions again weren't hard but I found these took a longer time to do, so I skipped most of them and revisited them ones I finished all straight forward ones. There was a perimeter question; you have a string of 60 cm and it has to go around a rectangle where the length is twice the width. What is the area of this rectangle. 20x10=200cm. I am not saying this is hard but it takes a few unnecessary seconds thinking about this.
There was one of two fraction questions. Something cost so much and is 7/8 of original, how much was the original?
Lastly there was one ration question. Can't really remember the question but it had something to do with al length and a ratio of 8:3.
I don't think they expect you to finish but you can do quite well if you do it very fast. My advice again is to practise until you fall over. Not so you learn how to calculate but simply to increase your speed. Again the questions are not hard just a little time consuming. They give you 12 minutes for 25 questions. I'm not saying it is impossible but you can get most questions done if you practise your speed, you might, if you are really good, finish the test. I haven't heard of anyone who did finish it.

CAPACITY TEST, MULTI TASKING
This is where the lay out is slightly different, the selection no longer has the MICROPAT in it. It does however still has the capacity test in it. So just to be absolutely clear, the suitcase man, radar screen and "Friend or Foe" are history. You will however still have to face the capacity test which is fairly hard.

It starts of with a cross that you need to keep centred. The tricky bit is that you have to control the horizontal bar and vertical bar separately to keep the cross centred while both bars have a tendency to move in alternating directions.

Next you will have to subtract numbers that come through a headset. You will hear a three digit number followed by another. You will have to remember the difference. You will hear another three digit number and as soon as the difference changes you will have to pull the trigger on your joy-stick and remember this new deference and apply it to the next set. Ie 760...755 (5)....750 (5)......747 ( new difference is 3, pull trigger)....744(3)......etc etc. You will do this while controlling the cross bars.
Now it starts to get difficult. Next you will see on the left of your screen a coloured shape with a digit in it, ranging from 1 to 9. The shape can appear anywhere on the left hand side of the screen. Through your headset you will be given a shape and a colour, ie green square. When this coloured shape appears you have to press the corresponding coloured key and the digit displayed within the shape. It is very simple on it's own but you will be doing this while you control the crossbars AND subtract the numbers you hear coming through your headset. You will see your score as you go along. Every time you you pull the trigger the score will display the correct and unfortunately the incorrect ones. My advice, don't look at the score because this will interfere with your concentration.

Overall the selection wasn't hard apart from the verbal reasoning and the always uncomfortable interview. I prepared myself by reading a few practise books on verbal and numerical reasoning. There are several helpful books you can find on amazon. The SHL booklets they send out before the actual test are very similar to what you get despite the fact it only contains 5 questions for both the numerical and verbal tests. I suggest you get the actual SHL test. It will cost you some money but it is money well spend. I thought the online numerical practise test with SHL was completely unhelpful and totally different to the actual thing.

They informed us that we would find out our results in just under a week. They will NOT call you in the evening. They will send you and email after about five days after the assessment when they have reviewed all of the applicants of that week. This email either contains the invite to the sim or it is a rejection email.

Regarding the assessment duration within British Airways, the people within BA informed us on our assessment day that they received over 1400 applications in less than four days. They decided to cut the closing date short because they simply weren't able to deal with al the applications. They did however tell us that they will go through ALL applications. They will invite people as they go along. So if your name hasn't come up yet it doesn't mean anything. Most guys in my group were all very very fast with submitting their applications. They will also open up the online portal ones they have gone through the initial group. This will be fairly soon, based on what they themselves expect. They are looking for many many pilots. Over 200, with a very few on 737 and the absolute majority on A320. If you are 737 rated and they have run out airbus rated people they will train in you on the airbus. There will be no need initially for a hold pool because of the huge number of pilots they need. If a pool would be created the principle will be, first in first out, type rated people first, based on entry in pool then non rated people to be trained up based on date of entry into pool.

May I suggest we keep this thread "CLEAN" and only add posts relevant to the actual assessment and assessment details. It took me forever to read through the other threads looking for helpful selection data. It would be great and most helpful if the next posts only contained info regarding the content of the assessment. Lets keep the, " Has anybody heard anything?" and "I wonder what is happening" posts to the other threads.

Thnx and good luck to you all!!!!