NPAS HR not so great ???

[Channel Flyer]

Do NPAS employ a fabulous HR system or are there some serious shortcomings? I was just sent these two emails from an applicant to NPAS, which I think must be made via the West Yorkshire Police site for some strange reason. He believes there is a problem with the recruitment process.
It seems to be a shame, probably preventing a number of suitable candidates being given a chance to advance further in the process. Is this an inherent problem with NPAS recruitment? Or is it so ‘closed-shop’ that its a waste of time actually applying as the positions are already taken? And no, I have no axe to grind, never worked for them. Probably never would as they don’t pay enough, unless you’re lucky enough to be employed on the old Met Police ‘Grandfather’ pay scale T’s and C’s which are considerably better than normal NPAS T’s and C’s. Wink wink. ;)


First Email received :-

Thank you for your application, I regret to advise that on this occasion your application for the position of: XP169 Rotary Line Pilot **External**, has not been successful at the shortlisting stage of the process.

As part of the application you were asked to provide responses to a series of questions, to include competency based questions. During the shortlisting process the shortlister(s) looks for written evidence in your responses to show you possess the skills and experience the Force is looking for.

To assist you should you wish to consider applying any future vacancies with us we have provided some general guidance notes about how we assess the competency based questions at the shortlisting stage. We hope you find these useful.

The shortlister(s) can only use evidence that is contained in your response to each of the questions, they cannot make assumptions. If it is not written down it cannot be assessed. In reviewing the responses the shortlister(s) will look for your contribution in the example you have provided. If it is not clear from the written response who did what, the shortlister(s) cannot attribute that example to you. The examples used to answer the questions can be drawn from your working life, school, domestic or social life, whichever best demonstrates that you possess the competency we are looking for. We do not expect the use of police type situations or your examples to be written using police terminology.

Finally, the shortlister(s) also assess your written communication skills by looking specifically at the conciseness and relevance of your responses, as well as your spelling and grammar.

We would like to thank you for your interest in West Yorkshire Police and hope you consider applying for other vacancies with us in the future.

Responses to this email are not monitored therefore should you require any assistance please email:- xxxxxxxx

Then to receive this not long afterwards???


email #2

Good morning,

Further to the system generated email that you have just received advising you that you have been unsuccessful at the shortlisting stage, please be advised that the content is inaccurate with regard to the competency based questions and evidence.

The shortlisting for line pilots is based upon evidence against the criteria set out in the advert.

We hope this clarifies the situation.



Yours Faithfully,



WYP Resourcing Team


So a system generated email (generic?) is sent but is it just a standard auto response?

Safe flying

[Brutal]

Hi CF,

You questioned the response coming from the West Yorkshire Police "for some strange reason"? They are in charge of running NPAS, hence from where the e-mail came from! Automated responses for different reasons help out HR reply to the amount of applications they have,
and maybe something is inaccurate in the first e-mail that they need to change in the wording or it didn't all apply in this particular case to this applicant? Not perfect I know, but at least they have the decency to respond unlike nearly all the other operators these days to applicants that may not be quite suitable :mad: :mad: :ugh:
Fly safe.
B.

[jayteeto]

Nothing wrong with their HR as such. The police have a VERY different system for job applications that any prospective candidate should take note of. My missus is a Detective Constable, she applied for a highly specialised role and was rejected at interview, which she thought had gone well. Luckily the boss offered her feedback that was amazing
The job spec will state certain criteria. The force website will list current policies. At application and interview, you score points for each thing that you mention. If, at the end of the interview, you haven’t mentioned something, they will ask if there is anything you would like to add? If you then rattle off a list of policies, you score a point for each one mentioned, even though you don’t discuss ANY detail. A couple of months later she did just that, mentioning 5 things at the end.
Got the job.
Imagine you are talking to someone with no aviation knowledge whatsoever.......

[Channel Flyer]

Then shouldn’t the person doing the interviewing / screening have some aviation knowledge?
So what if there were no policies to speak about? What if you met the criteria but were told you failed because you didn’t meet the criteria? The person applying is, I believe, more than qualified in aviation terms. I think the issue was more that they were turned down and notified by an incorrect email, which then was followed up with a further email basically reinforcing the first but with an apology for the mistakes. When a candidate doesn’t even have a chance to get past a website initial application process, doesn’t this say something about the recruitment system possibly having flaws?

Maybe the person applying would be a perfect candidate but never even had the chance to prove themselves or, as you mention, ‘score points’. Regardless, they didn’t get past stage one.

[helicrazi]

Then shouldn’t the person doing the interviewing / screening have some aviation knowledge?
So what if there were no policies to speak about? What if you met the criteria but were told you failed because you didn’t meet the criteria? The person applying is, I believe, more than qualified in aviation terms. I think the issue was more that they were turned down and notified by an incorrect email, which then was followed up with a further email basically reinforcing the first but with an apology for the mistakes. When a candidate doesn’t even have a chance to get past a website initial application process, doesn’t this say something about the recruitment system possibly having flaws?

Maybe the person applying would be a perfect candidate but never even had the chance to prove themselves or, as you mention, ‘score points’. Regardless, they didn’t get past stage one.

thats the old recruitment process, the new process doesn't have any of the essay style questions.

[gsa]

Then shouldn’t the person doing the interviewing / screening have some aviation knowledge?


In there eyes it doesn’t matter what job it is the same criteria applies to the first hurdle. Fall at the shortlist and no matter whether you’ve qualifications coming out your arse and are the best in the world at the job you won’t even get an interview as in there eyes if you don’t look into how there system works you won’t be invited to move forward in the process.

Beware the social media things from the past, if you get past the first stage they will be going through that with a fine tooth comb and picking every comment you made and might ask you for it’s context.

[Channel Flyer]

They’d be exceptionally bored with my social media history. I don’t have one. I don’t even use the facebook or the telegram. .

[jayteeto]

HR people in most companies don’t know the job. They ask HR type questions. There is usually a specialist sits on the interview and gets a few questions in. In government organisations, you have to research the system and answer questions EXACTLY. That will get you through a sift by a non specialist

[Sloppy Link]

They’d be exceptionally bored with my social media history. I don’t have one. I don’t even use the facebook or the telegram. .
.....apart from pprune.....

[Channel Flyer]

HR people in most companies don’t know the job. They ask HR type questions. There is usually a specialist sits on the interview and gets a few questions in. In government organisations, you have to research the system and answer questions EXACTLY. That will get you through a sift by a non specialist


If someone were to actually get through to the interview stage, or in fact be asked questions. ???

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

I have 135, IR PBN and 135 TRI/TRE, few thousand plod hours in the past. Never crashed. They did not even respond to my application. Maybe I really am ****!

[helicrazi]

I have 135, IR PBN and 135 TRI/TRE, few thousand plod hours in the past. Never crashed. They did not even respond to my application. Maybe I really am ****!

In that case, it's your reputation that proceeds you :}

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

In that case, it's your reputation that proceeds you :}
Who knows but whatever the reason one might expect some kind of response. Seeing as my plod career was over 25 year ago and I literally know nobody in the current organisation it is odd.

[Sloppy Link]

Who knows but whatever the reason one might expect some kind of response. Seeing as my plod career was over 25 year ago and I literally know nobody in the current organisation it is odd.
Aviation, in any branch, has an elephantine memory...but at 57, are you worth the investment? Just sayin’ like.

[hueyracer]

I have 135, IR PBN and 135 TRI/TRE, few thousand plod hours in the past. Never crashed. They did not even respond to my application. Maybe I really am ****!

I assumed you were happy with your current job?!
Or are you already looking at finding a "retirement job"?

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

Huey.....just speculating and yes always looking forward.

[Same again]

Aviation, in any branch, has an elephantine memory...but at 57, are you worth the investment? Just sayin’ like.

If the man is already fully qualified what investment would there be?

[helimutt]

Double Bogey would be an ideal candidate, ticks the necessary boxes in the advert. He could even be kept on as TRI/TRE once he hits 60? Wouldn’t that be sensible? Does NPAS do sensible? Apparently not if this thread and other comments on other threads are to be believed.

[Sloppy Link]

If the man is already fully qualified what investment would there be?
25 year break will require induction, line training, uniform to name a few. Let’s be generous, he is an effective member of the workforce at his 58th birthday. In under two years time, the whole process will have to start all over again with the attendant costs on trainers time, administrators time, aircraft hours, more procurement when the original hasn’t had its five year expected life and so on. Type rating and experience from 25 years ago helps but doesn’t mean you can be recruited on Tuesday and be on shift at the weekend. We don’t know what was put on the application, location of applicant, distance to travel, prepared to move, where vacancies were he would accept and so on. Harsh but, business is business.

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

25 year break will require induction, line training, uniform to name a few. Let’s be generous, he is an effective member of the workforce at his 58th birthday. In under two years time, the whole process will have to start all over again with the attendant costs on trainers time, administrators time, aircraft hours, more procurement when the original hasn’t had its five year expected life and so on. Type rating and experience from 25 years ago helps but doesn’t mean you can be recruited on Tuesday and be on shift at the weekend. We don’t know what was put on the application, location of applicant, distance to travel, prepared to move, where vacancies were he would accept and so on. Harsh but, business is business.

All valid points but I really feel it costs nothing to respond to an application with an indication that it at least, was read and assimilated. Hey, I am probably old and have had a full, varied and interesting career flying helicopters. However, I feel really sad for the new guys, trying hard to get on when they are ignored by organisations who place adverts then can’t be bothered to show show respect for all their applicants. There are no excuses really for this.

[hueyracer]

25 year break will require induction, line training, uniform to name a few. Let’s be generous, he is an effective member of the workforce at his 58th birthday. In under two years time, the whole process will have to start all over again with the attendant costs on trainers time, administrators time, aircraft hours, more procurement when the original hasn’t had its five year expected life and so on. Type rating and experience from 25 years ago helps but doesn’t mean you can be recruited on Tuesday and be on shift at the weekend. We don’t know what was put on the application, location of applicant, distance to travel, prepared to move, where vacancies were he would accept and so on. Harsh but, business is business.


I guess that´s where the difference between "HR-people" and "Chief Pilots" is....

An HR person would argue exactly like you do.

A Chief Pilot would tell you that certain jobs require certain experience-flying Single pilot at night under NVG in an urban environment, chasing down a car or attending to an accident where no HEMS helicopter would fly any more can not be done by someone who just ticked the 1000 hour box mark, or who just had his "5 hours of theoretical night vision goggle training" done.

The downside of the current and ongoing situation (which in the helicopter world must have started sometime around the year 2000, as i am still waiting for the "demand" that flight schools have been promising since the mid 90´s) is that "experience" does not count any more....

Take the German ADAC for example:
They claim they are desperate for pilots due to retirement and expansion-but they let experience pilots "fail" their weird tests, which were originally designed to evaluate whether an applicant for a pilot license would be successful in getting his license or not; now they even outsource the process by training their own pilots-in the US...

Other companies (like NHV, Babcock) need experienced pilots to fly in high-risk countries, but rather employ very young pilots with almost nil experience, but they are coming with the correct type rating, rather than hiring experienced pilots and train them on type...

But this has never been any different-at least from my point of view....

Companies always look at money first-and they do not complete the math where "money spent" should equal "experience bringing" to the company....



Huey.....just speculating and yes always looking forward.
Sounds like me!
I am already looking for that "retirement job" now......preferably some place warm!

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

25 year break will require induction, line training, uniform to name a few. Let’s be generous, he is an effective member of the workforce at his 58th birthday. In under two years time, the whole process will have to start all over again with the attendant costs on trainers time, administrators time, aircraft hours, more procurement when the original hasn’t had its five year expected life and so on. Type rating and experience from 25 years ago helps but doesn’t mean you can be recruited on Tuesday and be on shift at the weekend. We don’t know what was put on the application, location of applicant, distance to travel, prepared to move, where vacancies were he would accept and so on. Harsh but, business is business.
Sloppy........just a note on your first points. All new entrants require an OCC even on UKPAOC. Amount of training minimum but deemed as required by NPCT. I would suggest that a TRI TRE on Type might be at the minimum end of that spectrum.

[B87]

I have 135, IR PBN and 135 TRI/TRE, few thousand plod hours in the past. Never crashed. They did not even respond to my application. Maybe I really am ****!
If it helps at all, that makes me feel a little better about getting rejected - I'm just short of the minimums and was well on track to exceed them until coronavirus came along!

[DOUBLE BOGEY]

If it helps at all, that makes me feel a little better about getting rejected - I'm just short of the minimums and was well on track to exceed them until coronavirus came along!

Hi B87, I am sorry to hear that. did they actually reject you or simply not respond?

Are you EC135 Qualified (PM me...no IR required).

[B87]

Hi B87, I am sorry to hear that. did they actually reject you or simply not respond?

Are you EC135 Qualified (PM me...no IR required).
I got the same emails quoted in the first message in this thread. The second email is a new one - I applied a few months back (for the North Weald vacancies) and only got the first email that time around. I can't say I was surprised but figured I had a better chance than if I didn't apply at all!

I'll PM you now