Just did the interview... In the HR presentation never told us about any hold on further interviews us as mentioned by Ve764. In fact there was a slide in the presentation which said they needed 600 pilots for this year. No word on how many have been hired already this year.
Thanks a lot to everyone who responded to my questions. I have to admit it did little to calm my nerves going in but in hindsight the info was not much off the mark.
The test I got seemed to have some FAA questions too which I treasured but was sweating over a couple getting really mad at myself for not being too sure. No one failed the test or got sent back. Interview was all TMAAT type and has been very accurately described in many replies above. For example they do have a written set of questions and would ask you for scenarios to cover them all. I had some stories that covered more than one of their questions so in that column they wrote "Covered by # xx".
I shouldn't have to clarify that the goal is not to have stories that cover multiple points but to make sure that while answering the question you don't come across as someone they would like to have. For example the question I struggled with to come up with a story was "Tell me about an occasion where you did not follow your company policies".
I had thought about answering on Captain not taking directs on holidays coz we don't have a 'block or better' policy. They said it was not really against a policy, in that case I had already thought of cost index changes... Especially I told them that a captain showed me how to change the speed in FMS in a way that doesn't change the cost index thus the company wouldn't know. They didn't bite that one either, so I had to be quick is coming up with one that satisfied them. In trying to make me spill the beans they were like "comon, we all have times when we do things like that". I wasn't gonna take that bait either, lol. But luckily I was able to come up with one that was also true (very important to me personally) and didn't make me look too bad either.
Anyway again, everyone was congratulated and given the letter with the time of the sim evaluation. Coming from 737NG, I was assigned 777 but another guy (also on NG) was given the letter of A320. But they made it clear that the sim might change. I ended up doing it in the 777 with the guy who had been given the letter with A320.
We were 7 guys, 2 SO and 1 fast track. Experience ranged from a Captain with Embraer factory to 6000 hr FO on NG to a US regional FO for 7 years with Express Jet.
Everyone in our group made it to the end. Our sim instructor was from Egypt and a very nice gentleman. The presentation we got did not have too much in it but they said they were not looking for too much either.
In the case of me and my sim partner, we took both seats alternatively. I was first. We were told there would be 3 parts with the 1st one only to be done once. So I took off LNAV, VNAV, auto pilot/auto throttle and FD, the whole deal. Got a very straight forward medical emergency, were advised that the FA already had check, and found a doctor whose papers were already check and he determined it was serious heart-attack. So the decision to return was pretty clear. He then set us up for a visual, I ended up a little high on downwind thinking he might actually re-position us but he instead helped with speed brake. Wasn't my best but remained stable and landed fine. We had the autopilot at our discretion. I wanted to feel for the sim so I was flying manually until we got the FA call about the situation. We were told to have the auto pilot disconnected by the time we got the abeam point on the downwind.
Then took off again, had an engine failure on the runway after V1. I was lucky to almost have no heading change or major visible corrections. We were already told to simply climb straight ahead on runway heading. Unlike the NG we didn't have to change bank angle selector or set climb speed at E/O Accel height... OR to set MCT. Just needed to clean the airplane. We had FD and autothrottle but no autopilot for this maneuver.
Got paused and then set up on a 30 degree intercept to the ILS with single engine in IMC. Had flight director but no auto pilot. Got a little messy when I saw the runway, but asked my sim partner later if I went more than 1000fpm v/s before touchdown and was told no.
Then we switched and the other guy only did the V1 cut, pretty scary when you think about getting that as the first thing as you step into a 777 for the very first time. He got off a bit, maybe more than 10 degrees before getting it stable. Sim was paused and him told that given his experience he can do better than that (the instructor was very nice saying it can happen to the best of pilots sometimes). Next time was much better... got paused again and then he did the single engine ILS as well and it was over. We were told "good job" but that he can't say anything and that we will be contacted in a few weeks.
Not sure how well I did, but certainly it wasn't the worst that I could have done. Cautiously optimistic is how I would put it. They seem to need a lot of people and did not come across as trying to fail any one. Met a number of very nice new recruits in training and some line guys. Seemed like a nice atmosphere there.
Hope that helps anyone in the position I was not long ago.
Last edited by bravo45; 14th Aug 2015 at 03:57.