Hi All,
Got a lot of private mails asking about my assessment and don't have the time to reply to all......
As I already said, the team were brilliant, very relaxed and friendly. That made a huge difference for me and helped ease the nerves.
First I had the HR / Technical interview and it was as decribed numerous times on this thread. Just study like mad and make some notes on the questions already on here. The HR side was about me, why I want to work for Ryanair etc. The technical side was a combination of "rapid fire" questions with brief answers and a few questions which needed a bit of explaining and thinking. No tricks, again lots of the questions have already been put on here.
Then onto the sim, again as described here. I flew an FNPT II sim for my MCC, and flying the 737-800 sim for the first time, whilst being assessed, I found my self very maxed out. I'd like to think I handled the aircraft well, but was running at 120% capacity. The notes in the briefing pack beforehand say the aircraft pitches up when thrust is added and vice versa. Does it ever! Lots of re-trimming needed with any power change. Also being used to SEP aircraft, getting used to a nose up attitude when straight and level as well as on the approach was an interesting difference.
You get a good brief on the sim beforehand, I'd advise you listen intently, especially with regard to pitch attitudes and thrust settings. As we were told, if the attitude is correct and the thrust is in the ball park area, you wont have to much to do to correct it.
All in all, a nice interview with decent people, and an enjoyable sim trip which I found a challenge but still enjoyed.
In terms of waiting, from application to assessment invite it as 4.5 months for me, with 6 days to prepare for the assessment. This is day 6 waiting for the results and from what I've seen, the longer the better, but bad news can come 7/8 days later, so my fingers are crossed for now
PS nice mix of people on the day, 8 of us; 4 Brits, 1 Spanish, 1 Dutch, 1 Swedish, 1 Belgian if I'm not mistaken