Pilot CV Format Question to those that secured interviews recently

[gwizzaviatior]

Hi guys!

I’d like to get some input from those that were successful in getting interviews for airlines/flying jobs over the last few years.

I’m in the process of writing my CV so that I can join the queue of other (f)ATPL newbie’s trying to secure that first job. I’ve been given some advice that I should write it in an “aviation cv” format, which basically would consist of the flying training and hours at the top, followed by one liners of my career and education history. This CV would only be 1 page long. This I have been told is apparently because the airline pilot recruiters are looking for a quick, short and concise glimpse of my background, and given the high frequency of CVs they receive they want the details as concise as possible.

However, I personally would prefer to use the standard CV format of two pages with bullet points about duties/responsibilities in previous posts – purely because I feel that this would give more understanding to the employer of my experience and skills which I believe would be relevant to working in a cockpit environment and increase my chances of securing an interview.

So, to those who have been successful over the last few years in getting an interview, may I kindly ask whether you had a “1 page aviation cv” format or whether you used a standard non pilot style regular cv template. It would be interesting to know if the cv template makes any difference to the probability of getting a job interview.

Thanks in advance guys.

[paco]

Why not compromise? Do a one-pager with the essential stuff on the front and an expanded one that can be read or ignored as required. I always preferred people to send in the full information when I was recruiting, because I don't want to have to ring up to ask more questions. But then I'm weird like that :)

"the airline pilot recruiters are looking for a quick, short and concise glimpse of my background"

That's true - so they find an excuse not to give you an interview quicker. That's what resumes are for - filtering. You therefore need to write it without such an excuse on it.

Don't forget formatting and white space are important (plenty of good templates in Word). It will remind them of what you were like months later.