Hi all,
Just thought i would share my experience to date for those interested in the L1 and L2 process. I recently spoke to one of the people at Qantas People Services overseeing the applications for the Traineeship (not D/E), querying what the expected time frames would be to hear back on receiving the first stage of Assessment (Psychometric Testing with SHL).
At this stage, they apparently have no plan to send out assessment invites to any of the L1 & L2 applications (unless in some instances they have significant command experience and TT, in which case they are moving them across to the D/E Stream). The reason for this is that they don't have a clear plan for them in place at the moment i.e. progression pathways etc. They are also concerned that if they hire a tonne of green pilots that they will all come up for command around the same time, with limited opportunities available. They will then do what a lot of the prior trainees did and bail for another airline, essentially negating all of the effort that has been put into getting them there in the fist place.
There are apparently a lot of discussions going on about creating a pathway from QLink into Mainline or other companies in the group to make sure that all pilots recruited are, as much as possible, recruited for a career, not a 5 year stint.
Apparently they are also not prioritising D/E once this is in place (they are only looking at D/E at the moment though), as they can then put L1 and L2 candidates through with a few D/E candidates, so there are varying experience levels providing mentoring for the less experienced, as well as ensuring that you don't all come up for command at the same time with the same experience levels. This also allows the process to be competitive on both levels, aviation experience and life/employment experience and suitability. As i think someone mentioned in the thread earlier, there are no doubt always going to be plenty of pilots who will meet Direct Entry requirements, but they aren't all necessarily going to be suitable.
When pressed for a date that assessment would be sent out, I was told at this stage hopefully June, possibly July, so those who keep saying patience, you are on the money
Therefore I am just working my butt off to get my final ATPL's done to hopefully give me a better chance and also keeping an eye on options for moving north for work.