business management
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business management
g'day all
I'm currently looking into some further studies upon the completion of my CPL, IREX, and ATP's, (but before CMEIR) and have decided to look into business management. Nothing over the top no majors ect, just a diploma/advanced diploma, maybe part time through TAFEWA or a-like.
I was having a chat with a lecturer from my flight school, which put the additional qualification on the to-do-list. He basically said, if your wanting to get to the airlines, and make captain/or check, if certainly wouldn't hurt knowing how to manage a dozen odd flight crew, a few hundred paying customers, a multi-million dollar machine, and anything else that may happen inflight. Plus it's an extra tick in the box come interview time, and gives you something to fall back on, should the DAME cancel your medical.
my question is simple, to those that have done something similar, how did you find it, would you recommend it to others or was it a complete waste of time, in a practicle sense, and if you did it in Australia, where abouts?
cheers, Chris
I'm currently looking into some further studies upon the completion of my CPL, IREX, and ATP's, (but before CMEIR) and have decided to look into business management. Nothing over the top no majors ect, just a diploma/advanced diploma, maybe part time through TAFEWA or a-like.
I was having a chat with a lecturer from my flight school, which put the additional qualification on the to-do-list. He basically said, if your wanting to get to the airlines, and make captain/or check, if certainly wouldn't hurt knowing how to manage a dozen odd flight crew, a few hundred paying customers, a multi-million dollar machine, and anything else that may happen inflight. Plus it's an extra tick in the box come interview time, and gives you something to fall back on, should the DAME cancel your medical.
my question is simple, to those that have done something similar, how did you find it, would you recommend it to others or was it a complete waste of time, in a practicle sense, and if you did it in Australia, where abouts?
cheers, Chris
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Having flown with those with qualifications and those without, I personally can't see any difference. It really gets down to common sense and good CRM skills. Have to agree that you need something to fall back on though.
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Your Lecturer is an idiot. If you wanna fly a desk and be part of the management squad then be seen in the office, drink suds with the 'right' people and make sure your political ideals match the main players.
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so you think you an airline wouldn't care if you had some background knowledge in business/management. Where you have a strong foundation on which the airline runs and operates from a business point of view, plus the added benifit of prior training in a management/leadership...
surely these qualities would rate quite high on the "future captain" checklist would they not?...
surely these qualities would rate quite high on the "future captain" checklist would they not?...
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Swanie
Trust me, do it. 
A pilot license is not worth the paper it is printed on outside the industry.
Besides it will make you a much more rounded and therefore more likely successful person than say touchncloth
Trust me, do it.
A pilot license is not worth the paper it is printed on outside the industry.
Besides it will make you a much more rounded and therefore more likely successful person than say touchncloth
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Go get a trade mate , they giving em out these days ( 2yrs) .
Its all a bit like doing Law or becoming a doctor or a mechanical Engineer if you aint got the experiance in it then that pretty bit of coloured paper aint worth ****. Congradulations you remembered everything we taught you a week after we taught you !!!!
If you plan on getting out of the industry to gain some experiance in a qualification like you are talking, then i reckon its a great idea but IMO i would not bother dude.you'll find it hard just finding the experiance required in flying .( which will never end )Absolutly nothing wrong with expanding horizons ect and got on you but hey Mate this is just my opinion . Have you thought about a trade within the industry like LAME or aviation welder . Something that if was ever looking for a pilot id find that a huge Plus over a a pretty bit of paper with business managment on it . IMO.
cheers
Its all a bit like doing Law or becoming a doctor or a mechanical Engineer if you aint got the experiance in it then that pretty bit of coloured paper aint worth ****. Congradulations you remembered everything we taught you a week after we taught you !!!!
If you plan on getting out of the industry to gain some experiance in a qualification like you are talking, then i reckon its a great idea but IMO i would not bother dude.you'll find it hard just finding the experiance required in flying .( which will never end )Absolutly nothing wrong with expanding horizons ect and got on you but hey Mate this is just my opinion . Have you thought about a trade within the industry like LAME or aviation welder . Something that if was ever looking for a pilot id find that a huge Plus over a a pretty bit of paper with business managment on it . IMO.
cheers
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wouldn't being PIC count as experience in a management role though?...
to be honest i did think about a LAME but the 4 year apprentiship at $6.00 and hour didn't seem to compare to a 6 month part time course that could be put to practicle use in the work place
to be honest i did think about a LAME but the 4 year apprentiship at $6.00 and hour didn't seem to compare to a 6 month part time course that could be put to practicle use in the work place
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Of course , but we all do that and we don't all have a certificate for it . This does not mean you would manage your fuel better than the next guy or you manage anything better than the next guy . I can't help but feel that this is all just so you can look good at the QF interview . and with the pilot shortage on its way and the attitude you have mate i doubt you will have any dramas . see how you feel chris after 15 exams ( CPL , ATPLs and IREX and see how much you wanna study) .
All the best either way chris .
cheers
All the best either way chris .
cheers
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my experience
Swannie, I spent three years at uni, came out with degree in Aviation, and then another two years to complete a degree in Business.
I know all of the nay sayers on pprune would say that the degree is not worth the paper it is written on, however in this day and age you need to have backup plans and have to be as competitive as possible when applying for a job.
Has it helped me so far? Maybe not. Will it help me in the future? Maybe not. But if two pilots with exactly the same flying hours and qualifications turn up to an interview, which one do they choose? The guy with the degree or the guy who did straight flying? Maybe the person conducting the interview might see that you are willing to go further than the bare minimum, willing to learn as much as you can in order to get the job.
All comes down to life experience.
Good luck. If you do choose to do some form of business course I can guarantee that you will enjoy it!
DD.
I know all of the nay sayers on pprune would say that the degree is not worth the paper it is written on, however in this day and age you need to have backup plans and have to be as competitive as possible when applying for a job.
Has it helped me so far? Maybe not. Will it help me in the future? Maybe not. But if two pilots with exactly the same flying hours and qualifications turn up to an interview, which one do they choose? The guy with the degree or the guy who did straight flying? Maybe the person conducting the interview might see that you are willing to go further than the bare minimum, willing to learn as much as you can in order to get the job.
All comes down to life experience.
Good luck. If you do choose to do some form of business course I can guarantee that you will enjoy it!
DD.
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I think it really depends on what you want out of it (which might sound an obvious thing to say, but bear with me).
Will having a business degree help you get a job in aviation? No.
Will having a pilot's licence help you get a job in business? No.
As aircabbie said, if the only thing you're interested in is being a pilot, best get yourself into whatever aviation related job you can find. For example, having any sort of maintenance qualification or experience will make you much more employable on an airfield than a BBus from Griffith uni or wherever.
Once you're in and established, think about doing the business degree then - you can do plenty of them externally, and being a pilot involves a LOT of time sitting around which you can use to study.
Then, as you get more experienced at both business and flying, you can use the two together. Charter operators and flying schools are the classic low-margin small businesses - accounting, cash flow management, capital investment and all the other stuff you learn about in business school will make a whole lot more sense if you've got some experience in the real world.
The combination of practical and theoretical skills will then make you employable in a much wider range of roles than someone with a basic CPL. And into the future, if you want to be Chief Pilot at QF, understanding revenue, investment and so on would be indispensable!
But as an aside, flying an aircraft is not "management experience" if you're talking about wanting a job in a non-aviation commercial business. I discovered this myself a couple of years back - I had several thousand flying hours, all the "leadership and man management" skills that the military could provide, and an expensive MBA from Harvard.
All that didn't mean much when I was shopping myself around the big end of town here in Sydney - all they wanted to know was what consulting firm I'd worked at, how good I was at modelling cash flows and what profit and loss repsonsibility I'd had in the past. Took a while to convince people of my "personal value proposition" as they put it in the executive headhunting world these days....
But don't let that put you off for a minute - the business degree (particularly when combined with some practical experience) is all about generating options for yourself - and that right there is the key, particularly in a cyclical industry like this one.
So by all means do it - but think carefully about when. A couple of years from now might be a better proposition I think...
hope that helps, and good luck.
SW
Will having a business degree help you get a job in aviation? No.
Will having a pilot's licence help you get a job in business? No.
As aircabbie said, if the only thing you're interested in is being a pilot, best get yourself into whatever aviation related job you can find. For example, having any sort of maintenance qualification or experience will make you much more employable on an airfield than a BBus from Griffith uni or wherever.
Once you're in and established, think about doing the business degree then - you can do plenty of them externally, and being a pilot involves a LOT of time sitting around which you can use to study.
Then, as you get more experienced at both business and flying, you can use the two together. Charter operators and flying schools are the classic low-margin small businesses - accounting, cash flow management, capital investment and all the other stuff you learn about in business school will make a whole lot more sense if you've got some experience in the real world.
The combination of practical and theoretical skills will then make you employable in a much wider range of roles than someone with a basic CPL. And into the future, if you want to be Chief Pilot at QF, understanding revenue, investment and so on would be indispensable!
But as an aside, flying an aircraft is not "management experience" if you're talking about wanting a job in a non-aviation commercial business. I discovered this myself a couple of years back - I had several thousand flying hours, all the "leadership and man management" skills that the military could provide, and an expensive MBA from Harvard.
All that didn't mean much when I was shopping myself around the big end of town here in Sydney - all they wanted to know was what consulting firm I'd worked at, how good I was at modelling cash flows and what profit and loss repsonsibility I'd had in the past. Took a while to convince people of my "personal value proposition" as they put it in the executive headhunting world these days....
But don't let that put you off for a minute - the business degree (particularly when combined with some practical experience) is all about generating options for yourself - and that right there is the key, particularly in a cyclical industry like this one.
So by all means do it - but think carefully about when. A couple of years from now might be a better proposition I think...
hope that helps, and good luck.
SW
Evertonian
Swanie, if you want to get into Airline Management, you need networking skills & more suction than a Hoover! I wouldn't bother.
However, I would still do another degree/diploma whatever. If management is your "thang", you will need these. The PIC as management won't cut the mustard I reckon. Sure, it will help and I agree that there are many people skills that you will utilise in this role however, they will cut you down with "What kind of performance management did you employ in the PIC role?" and "What size budget were you working with?". Those are the types of questions that will negate the "management" skills a PIC possesses, if that is your only leadership role.
After Ansett fell over...(queue violins)
...the Diploma of Management helped me get on with a career away from aviation however, it's been a bit of a slog as you have to start at the bottom & work your way up. What also helps is cleverly translating what you have done in the airlines into words that reflect real world terminology. I am still just shy of where I was income wise after the collapse, to give you an example, but I'm on the way.
Bottom line, in a nutshell, at the end of the day...(pick your favourite)...I would do the course, but not as a means of climbing the aviation food chain, I would do it as a failsafe for if things go pear shaped in your chosen line of work.
Go get 'em tiger!
However, I would still do another degree/diploma whatever. If management is your "thang", you will need these. The PIC as management won't cut the mustard I reckon. Sure, it will help and I agree that there are many people skills that you will utilise in this role however, they will cut you down with "What kind of performance management did you employ in the PIC role?" and "What size budget were you working with?". Those are the types of questions that will negate the "management" skills a PIC possesses, if that is your only leadership role.
After Ansett fell over...(queue violins)
...the Diploma of Management helped me get on with a career away from aviation however, it's been a bit of a slog as you have to start at the bottom & work your way up. What also helps is cleverly translating what you have done in the airlines into words that reflect real world terminology. I am still just shy of where I was income wise after the collapse, to give you an example, but I'm on the way.Bottom line, in a nutshell, at the end of the day...(pick your favourite)...I would do the course, but not as a means of climbing the aviation food chain, I would do it as a failsafe for if things go pear shaped in your chosen line of work.
Go get 'em tiger!
