Best way to recruit F.I's
 

Hi all,

Need some advice on the best way to recruit F.I's.

Where I am at the moment is that I am looking at the work ahead and it tells me I need some extra F.I's to cover it.

Primarily, it's weekend work and our primary driver is to turn a large number of trail lessons into ppl students.

I dont have a massive advertising budget and timescales are very short.

There's plenty of flying hours for them, I'm just not sure the best way to get that message out.

Any ideas would be much appreciated

Bb

Where are you based?

Advertise on AFORS? (which is free)

Pay Pprune/Internet-Brands for a banner advert?

Phone up some of the better regarded FIC schools (WAC, On-track, Pilot Centre....) and ask if they can give you details, or pass on details of recent graduates they think are looking for jobs?

G

F.I.
 

Robert Weaver is no doubt looking for a job!

Don't mention loads of trial lessons most will run a mile , keep that one under your hat ! If there qenuine people that want to learn to fly thats slightly different.

(unless trail is a new type of venture, best suited to 4 x 4s I think ,not aeroplanes, I would be interested sounds fun)

Out of interest, what conversion rate (from trial lesson to PPL student) are you expecting the FI to achieve?

The initial site is just outside Oxford (working on others). There is no expectation on conversion rates, but with such a large number of trials coming through the door, it's our aim to generate a longer-term interest.

My point is that I don't want to just process trials, I want help with converting to ppl. It's in my interest and of course, that of the instructor.

I mention the trials as most places are slow right now, but we're completely the reverse. We've got 6-7 hrs next sat and 4 sunday. What I want is F.I.'s willing to take this sort of load and help me build their own longer-term tuition. Whilst most work at the moment is weekend, that's simply down to lack of cover. I can't opening the doors during the week right now as I need the instructors - hence my call for help

Bb

Try advertising in Flight Training News, not sure how much it costs but it's the type of thing a job-hunting FI would read.

just phone up the FII's of your choice and ask them if they have anyone that they reckon will be any good.

if you advertise you will get hundreds of CV's which you might actually use. You will then get another 100 or so that want to get them a visa and pay thier converstion costs to a UK license.

Out of the 100's you will have no really way of telling if they are useless or not. Mrs Poolie, Kev Rowel, ontrack will tell you if you are potentially employing a knob or not.

What aircraft have you got?

C150/pa28/pa38, also use TMG's

Use the tmg's for both trials and a popular route to the ppl(a) so I'd like to get the F.I's converted over at some point ( dual-trained)

Id bite your hand off for an FI job if I had my CPl and FI rating sorted. as I'm sure many others would.

Might be worth stating weather you want restricted or unrestricted FIs. Seems to me there are lots of newly minted guys on the market. Can't comment on whether there lots of more experienced guys looking. I know the chap who runs the FI course at BCFT (Bournemouth) is very busy getting guys/gals qualified. Might be worth giving them a call.

My CFI did say to me the other day that although there are lots of people on the market. Good staff are still hard to come by. As always, referral is best.

Best of luck

Thanks everyone for the help, but having joined the club only a few weeks ago, I was told the CAA are investigating the club and I discovered what I believe is a manipulation of time on the tech logs. I reported this to the owner yesterday, who promptly fired me, which was nice!

So no more recruiting from me.

So, obviously, if you know anywhere that's looking for an experienced FI with enough integrity to lose their job over a breach of safety, please let me know!!

Ok I will bite whats wrong with advertising the jobs in the correct press , interviewing prospective candidates then offering the ones you like the job ? why is aviation so far behind the rest of the world ?????:ugh:

because you just get a overload of complete unknowns.

You get a large percentage that want to get a work visa and transfer thier licenses and think they are doing you a favour.

You then get a heap of folk that will apply anyway but have no interest what so ever about moving location. And even if they do they will get home sick when mummy doesn't tuck them up in bed with warm milk and does thier washing for them.

You then have a heap of FI's who have done the course but in reality they arn't suited to doing the job.

Then you have the very small amount that you would be interested in speaking to. Then its down to if thier personality fits.

Now even sifting through all the CV's will take alot of time, even more if you do the decent thing and reply to them.

Then there is the time wasters and incompetents you can't drag that out of them seeing them for 30 mins or more.

So the best bet is the opinion of someone you trust and knows the score and the knows the person over several weeks. Doesn't always work out mind. But you tend to get the right person without as much time and effort put in.

And to be honest other industrys are exactly the same with head hunting.

Big Buddha36

If you've any interest in some part-time PM me your location.

I'm sure that you are right Jock, I just can't see why that is any different to recruiting into any other professional job.

G

Thats because as much as people would like to believe its not a professional job.

The nearest thing you would get is a car driving instructor for PPL or HGV instructor for CPL.

Once you get away from thinking flying is special. Your just into employing any form of trainer be it IT, health and safety or any of the other vocational training out there. And it doesn't follow with flying that you are good at the job then move sideways into training because you have been seen to have a knack for it. Your just stuck into it when your experence level means your pretty much clueless.

The bit that instructing falls over with is that the very large majority of instructors its a means to an end to getting further up the career ladder which to be honest at the moment is broken in the middle.

Alot of people also forget is that the school is the sum of its instructors. You get even one that isn't up to grade and it pulls the whole place down very rapidly. Any falling out with the boss with a good/bad instructor that gets on with the punters also means a real hit to the cash flow. Which is why no doudt the OP got the boot as soon as they spoke up. The boss will want them out the door ASAP so that the slagging them off behind their back can commence to try and damage limit the fall out.

You get quite a few that have the gift of the gab with the punters but are utterly ****e at doing the job. This then bites you later when folk are taking 90-100 hours because all the instructor is interested in is getting 1000 hours in thier log book and the school reputation gets pulled down.