What's the format for a pilot CV?

[WX Man]

Read with interest Watford's [very useful] comments about sitting in on a meeting where a pile of wannabes' CVs were being sifted through.

Made me think... is there a reccomended format for pilots' CVs? I mean by this, how best does one put onto paper one's experience; would it be best in the form of a table? Or maybe a long list of types/ hours, followed by a long list of P1/P2/Dual time split into SE Day, SE Night, ME Day and ME Night?

Thanks in advance.

WX.

[Capt PPRuNe]

Please remember that a CV will never get you a job. It is only a tool to help you get an application form followed by an interview. Listing your lifes achievements from kindergarden to your umpteenth job is futile.

Think what the person who reads it is going to be looking for. Your aim (to be a pilot for the company), your qualifications (licence type and any ratings), your hours (total P1, P2 Pu/t and any split in ME/SE and/or turbine/jet), where you trained and how (509, self improver etc).

All else that is needed is a list of your present and previous employers (just name and address with dates), any higher education details and of course your personal details such as name, address, telephone and if you feel it to be necessary DOB. Keep it to one side of A4 and supply a covering letter which is suitably polite but eyecatching enough to make the reader want to check your CV.

Please, please make sure your grammar and spelling are correct though. Some of you may not think it is important on this forum but believe you me, it will affect your career if you don't pay enough attention to it. A covering letter from an applicant who makes basic spelling mistakes and cannot put together the basics of grammar will probably have wasted the ink he or she used for their CV as it will probably not even get looked at.

Don't forget that your CV should be just enough info to make them want to call you to find out more about you. If you give it all away on the CV there are two distict possibilities,

1) It is so long and looks like the back of a Consumer Credit Agreement that it will be used to line the bottom of the Chief Pilots budgie cage or

2) They know so much about you now that they won't bother calling you for an interview. In fact they won't bother calling you at all and you have wasted postage and they haven't even had to make a phone call.

Hopefully your CV will elicit an application form for employment which will be used at your interview to glean further information if required. Also, if you are trying to get an interview for a job that you are not qualified for then don't necessarily expect a reply. Most of the Chief Pilots get tens of CV's a week and are snowed under if they try to reply to them all. That's just a fact of life.

Try and find out through PPRuNe what the requirements are for each company you are interested in joining. If you are 509'er with 300 hours TT and want to join Air 2000 then you are going to be wasting your time. They require 2,500 hours TT and previous airline (regional) or military experience. You may want to start sending your CV when you have reached 2,000 hours so that by the time you have completed the application form you will probably be of interest and you'll probably get an application form.

Also, try and find out when the particular company does its recruiting. Air 2000 for instance usually starts around August and September through October with interviews and then conversion courses for the successful applicants start around November and carry on through to about March. There are variations but if you are going to send a CV try and find out the best time to send it. Six months before interviews start can be a fruitless excercise.

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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[This message has been edited by Capt PPRuNe (edited 30 October 1999).]

[Grandad Flyer]

Wx Man, hi. I have a sample CV on Word if it is any help, to give you an idea of how to set it out (and how to fit the important stuff onto one side of A4!)

[Daifly]

Nice one Cap'n.

The one thing that I hate to read on CV's - which I see before the CP is that stupid aim statement on the top.

"To be a Commercial Pilot" - what!?! No sh*t!!! There's a shocker!

Don't bother putting that in - as the Cap'n said, the basics. Hours, types, passes, work, brief education. Done.

[JJflyer]

In my older CV's I listed my objective to be
" Career or contract employment" depending who was the recipient, where in the world was the operator located or what were the requirments of the job.
Content too would be different every time.

CV or Resume is quite different in US than it is in Europe and emplouers expect to see different things.
Basics are the same though.
Capt PPrune had some very good points ,as did everyone else.I have subsuquently modified my current CV...Thank you.

JJ

[This message has been edited by JJflyer (edited 31 October 1999).]

[redsnail]

To sum up, Keep It Simple. Relevant details only, + expiry dates of Instrument renewals etc.
I have found that the resume that weighs the most (eg 5 pages) usually has the least hours.

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reddo
Life is good 'till the next stuff up.

[FL245]

What about putting a passport size photo on CV's ?

FL245

[JJflyer]

Yes some firms request that... If it not requested .. I won't attach a picture
( with my face it would be lethal )
hahahahah

JJ