Cathay interview debrief
 

Following all the private messages I'm receiving to know how my interview went, I'll just dedicate a new post to it, this way everyone will know!

So, first you have to take this short tech quizz (multiple choice answers), 30 questions in 30 mn. I'm really not a technical expert of aviation, however, I did it in 5 mn! All the questions are in "preparing for your CX interview", so just practice them!
Then, your answer sheet is handed to one of the interviewers who will take 5 mn to look at it I suppose since I wasn't with him yet.

Then, in you go, I had my interview with two young guys who are just starting in aviation: the chief flight instructor of the Airbus fleet and the Boeing fleet manager !!! Anyway, they were both very nice and made me feel at ease, the boeing manager started the interview by asking me about my present job, how I got into aviation, why I wanted to go to Asia, if I had ever had emergencies on board... The typical human resource interview, strengths and weaknesses, things like these. However, not one question about Cathay Pacific or Hong-Kong, which I was a little bit disappointed about because I had studied that a lot and felt I would have scored points there.

Then, the Airbus CFI asked me the technical stuff. I had a model of a A340 and a 747 on the table and he started asking me:
. why swept wings, which led to the critical Mach number.
. what are winglets for?
. what is the difference between leading edge flaps and
leading edge slats?
. What do you know about fan engines? What's on the 747,
how much thrust? (according to the airbus guy the answer
is: enough!)
. I fly a high tailplane, rear mounted engine aircraft, they
asked me about the drawbacks of this setting.
. Why fuel in the stabilizer? Why do you want the aircraft to
have an aft CG?
. What is dry adiabatic lapse rate?
. There is a thunderstorm on final, what do you think about?
What does windshear do, what is your procedure if you
encounter it?
. Coming to the stand, we hit the winglet, can we fly back and
where would we find out?

I think that's it. One very good thing with this gentleman is that he tries to lead you to the answer if you don't know it. For instance, I thought that leading edge flaps were slats, so I obviously didn't know the difference between them! I told him and he put me on the way, that was very good.

That's all I can remember. If you still have some questions, put them here so that everyone can benefit from the answers.

info
 

Thanks for the info!

thanks for that altyre

Thanks Altyre
 

Nice of you to take the time Altyre. I am curious, if again you have the time, where did you interview? I have just interviewed in NYC this past week. Your review of the interview questions were accurate in relation to what I experieced, however, there was not one single question on the tech written exam that was previously addressed in any review book (A,B,C or X,Y,Z) that I have read. Perhaps I missed a book? Maybe my written was different than yours? In review, it seems as if a full review by CPA test designers of all prep books has occured and the questions were organized to exclude any covered. It took me almost the full 30 minutes to take this test, and I normally finish tests more rapidly than my peers.
Unless one was previously exposed to these very questions, I find it difficult to accept a five minute completion time was possible for the test that I took. I am simply asking to alert and assist others about to take their interview. In no way am I attempting to imply that you are inaccurate in your account. I wish you the best in the outcome of your interview.

interview in paris
 

This is weird, another guy from this forum was in Paris too, and we wrote me he couldn´t recognize one question from the "Prepare" book. Probably they use different tests ??. Or the Editions of the "Prepare" books include other questions. Next Monday i knew more. Thanks anyhow to everybody to find the time and answers to our questions

cbe64

CaptUno
As I said, I'm not trying to flatter myself because I am really not a technical specialist, but it really took me 5 mn to do 27 questions and then the other 25 for the last 3 for which I had no clue because they were about stuff I had never heard about before.
The questions I had were the same or very similar to the ones I had practised on captain X,Yand Z. A few involving numbers were exactly the same.
Studying handling the big jets also helped me a lot so there might be some that I knew because of this. Anyway, it made me feel a lot better when I saw the questions and realized I knew most of the answers. I'm not saying you should just learn the answers from this book and not study anything else, because obviously, from what you're saying, you could have different questions, but for me, it was a great help.
By the way, my interview was in Paris on the 6th of September and I just found out this morning that I had succeeded. The final interview will be in 2005. So thanks to all of you for answering my questions and especially to Silberfuchs for all his precious knowledge.

Congrats Altyre, and good luck!

Altyre,

Any chance you could elaborate on the "last 3 for which I had no clue?" Thanks in advance for any tips.

congrats
 

Thanks for the debrief! What are your flight times and how long did you wait for the interview? :ok:

Why is SSB (single side band) a better way of communication? Never heard of SSB before!
You enter an FIR and have not been assigned a transponder code
Do you squawk: A2400, A2000 or standby? I picked 2000 but I'm not too sure, except that stanby wouldn't be very smart in an FIR
And I can't remember the last one...
Texan, I have 4500 hrs mostly commercially, including 1300hrs as Captain on ERJ 145 for European airlines, it took me around 8 months before they called me for an interview.

Altyre,
did you get my pm?

Without wanting to start an arguement those questions seem to me to be general knowledge items that do not need to be studied for. Either you know your stuff or you don't. What is the point in Cathay hiring somebody who crammed exclusively from one book but doesn't know the basics?

Yes Goingdown, I did.

I have to agree with the last post, you have to know the basics, but the questions can be quite in depth and I don't remember everything about the ATPL. For example, I was asked what the dry adiabatic lapse rate is.I knew it had to do with temperature and altitude but I couldn't really explain it.
you might know everything about aviation, unfortunately, I don't. Since I really want this job, I made sure I was as prepared as possible to succeed and cover the subjects where I thought I was the weakest. it seems to have worked so far!

Hi All, I was in Paris as well, Can anyone shed any info on how long we need to wait for some good or bad news from Cathay? It has been over 2 weeks and so far no comment?

Is that normal then, to phone them and not the other way around?
How long after interview do you have to wait?
Or do they tell you to phone on a specific day?

Silberfuchs, many thanks for that.

It's a jolly good thing that the CX interview team have never heard of PPrune and thus aren't smart enough to read these posts and various recommended publications by Capts X Y and Z etc. and change the questions.

Seriously, I wish you all good luck. It is still a great airline to work for despite what you might hear to the contrary.

Tech Interview
 

Actually you are wrong they changed the questions. Some get the old ones some totally different tech quizes. I spoke to three guys which didn´t recognized one question. None from the Prepare book none from HBJ. So what now?

preperation for cx 1st interview
 

... be sure they already changed the style of the tec quizz, I have read all, really all books you need for the interview and to be honest no question I really recognized out of any of these. Oh yes I remebered one of these: "What is a frise aileron? Good question, isn`t it? Tthey asked some things about weather, cyclone, typhone and a lot of aerodynamics !

The interview itself was very relaxed, but they asked all lot about engines, aerodynamics, weather again, procedures, especially if you have long range expierence .....

Good luck everybody

What time do the ladies in recruitment go home on a Friday?
Tried phoning this morning (1530 HK time) but only answer machines.
I'll try again tomorrow or are they not back in untill Monday morning now?