Peacock Ju

Good old Low Cost Jet2 HR Department and recruitment office!

Now offering there own pilots Cash if they can recommend friends that are type rated pilots for the summer season !

Must be deep in the mire for summer then!!!!

Dont forget to dust down the compass testing equipment and microsoft sim pedals!!

endofeng

Its no biggy, just a referral scheme! It has been done before by others, and defo not unique to the Airline Industry!

What with easyJet announcing non-type rated recruitment and jet2 continuing to recruit with good forward expansion plans - surely a good thing?

DADDY-OH!

I think it only applies to B737 recruitment. The 757 recruitment isn't that manic... for now...!

A and C

The find a pilot and get £1000 is the clearest indication that Jet2's recruting is not going well, I can only ask how long will they continue to persist with the testing that puts more weight behind an hour of computer nonsense that thousands of hours in the log book ?

My guess is that the prospect of aircraft on the ground will sharpen the managnents view of the value of such tests.

Jet2 are not the only ones with a lack of pilots, it would seem that Jet air fly in Brussels are having the same sort of problems getting pilots.

These problems can only be good for the T&C'S that all the company's will have to offer to keep pilots.

flyhigh2fly

So why not open recruitment for non type rated pilots? I know at least 350 pilots who would happily join tomorrow to start a course.

Just a 3 year bond and you are done, you will have a reliable hard working motivated bunch of good guys and girls wanting to do a good job from A to B.

Anyway....

flyer19832007

Absolutely! They would fill the requirement in a week! Guaranteed!

endofeng

To be honest I think it's a clear indicator that there are very few type rated experienced 737 jockeys available not the recruitment itself (which has its flaws!). The 'behind the computer nonsense' is pretty standard industry wide now if you want to fly a shinny jet! Although I'm not a fan, I had to do it when I joined which was nearly 7 years ago!

I'm sure the non-type rated pilots wanting to join Jet2 will get their chance, but only after there are no more experienced guys out there, hence the referral scheme. The company is protecting itself by employing experience as it grows, there has to be a sensible balance between the two.

All in all Jet2 is expanding faster than any of us ever imagined, and with the demise of other operators has only fuelled the success (ie Globespan, BMIBaby etc...), so you either bitch on here or try to get on the gig and if at first you don't succeed (as many don't), try and try again!

Good Luck

flyer19832007

The sooner the better in my view. Plenty of very experienced non typed on 737 floating about, and of a very high standard to.(obviously it works both ways, but thats for the recruiters to filter out!)

SD.

If they re-opened a southern base, all crewing issues could be solved immediately!

Artie Fufkin

All they had to do was offer 100% contracts with immediate start back in the autumn and they would have hoovered up all the Baby crews and filled all vacancies 3 times over with type rated crews.

But HR knew better and we are where we are. My thoughts go out to the training department, who's workload has just gone up.

endofeng

It is obviously more desirable to have experienced type-rated guys over experienced non-rated guys, they know the aircraft better (especially the -300's which are a little older than most!) and they take less time to get on line. I guess the ideal will be to have as many experienced guys as possible to enhance skill/knowledge in the FD, especially as there are lots of and will be more low houred FO's. Eventually, as the pool of rated experienced pilots dries up, non-type rated guys will be invited to apply. Hopefully then there will be a good balance of experience across the FD!

Jet2 has been successful owing to its Industry renowned flexibility and readiness to react to market conditions. Its Jet2's success story!

Flexibility is 100% at the forefront of our commercial teams armoury, they react quickly especially to Charters and new routes/bases. The company is also very savvy, again contributing to its success, therefore their offer of Summer only contracts is a reaction to current market conditions. If the pilot pool dries up completely, believe you me, 100% contracts would be offered. In fact over the last few years most 70% contracts have been offered 100% at the end of Summer!

It is, after all, a business that needs to make a profit to keep the city and shareholders happy. We are but a small cog in the huge machine that is Jet2!

spider_man

These jobs start less than a week from now and are for 6 months. Last minute course no shows, extra airframes?

The problem is folk cannot leave permanent stable employment for 6 month only contracts.

Lord Spandex Masher

Watch this space.

Facelookbovvered

This has to be the greatest all time up by the HR department at Jet2 and everyone involved from baby management to Jet2 flight management knew this outcome was highly likely and said as much last Autumn, but CP (HR head honcho) was such an arrogant but hell if you can press a few pedals and buttons why do you need type rated people with thousands of hours of route & classic experience what can they possibly bring to Jet2 that getting top marks in "man on the moon" role plays can't.

I feel deeply sorry for the Jet2 pilot management who have been badly let down by their own inept HR dept, what were they thinking? when class companies like Monarch are happy with sight of licence, log book and a 50 minute informal chat, no silly games & toy flight sims for pilots with 1000's of hours under their belts, perhaps if the hapless HR people ever come before me for an interview i will give them some crayons and ask them to draw an aeroplane then read out aloud from Janet & John books, utter i'd sack the lot of them.

They are now hiring people who failed the tests, so what was the point?

dwshimoda

I'm sorry you failed the assessment and are obviously deeply hurt. But... For a start CP isn't HR Head Honcho, just a very overworked, under resourced person who is trying to do their best and doesn't deserve your very public outburst.

For what it's worth, I don't agree with Compass tests unless it is for a complete rookie. For experienced Pilot's it should be an informal chat to see if you can sit next to them for 10 hours in a cramped flight deck.

You are obviously very bitter - I hope you can get over it.

Babylon

Facelookbovvered, I can only say that, you hit the Nail on the head spot on. I find my self in total agreement with you, as for any one who is saying failure is the reason behind your comment, he is either don't know what he is talking about, or he is a company boys.

kumbaya

If they would offer FULL TIME contracts I would have applied yesterday !
How can they think that a rated pilot with a full time job (aviation or non-aviation) will give up everything to fly a summer contract....

A and C

I think you make some very good points, when I was interviewed for a Jet2 job the pilot doing the interview admitted that in his opinion the computer tests resulted in some very experienced people not getting jobs ( largely because the tests are aimed at assessing training risk for non pilots, not skill levels of current pilots). This has come to bite Jet2 in the but as they now scrape the bottom of the bottom of the barrel having rejected qualified candidates earlier in the year.

A few months back I was on a CRM course run by an Educational Psychologist from a Scandinavian university who had done a lot of research into pilot recruiting for both the airlines and military, his research had found that the types of tests that Jet2 employ are valid for non pilots as they are a good indicator of training risk, however once you become a pilot these tests are not good indicators as some of the tests require the experienced candidate to "unlearn" habits that have been ingrained in years of flying to pass the test. Add to this a Mathematics test aimed at school leavers and you have a system that discriminates against the the very experienced pilot.

If this Educational Psycologist is correct it can be proven by simply rostering a few of the older line pilots for the tests, my guess is this the HR people would strongly object to this as it is likely to result in a large proportion of the guys being tested finding that acording to HR they are unfit to do the job they are currently employed to do !

The Educational Psychologist was of the opinion following research that the best way to screen experienced pilots was an interview with two pilots and if considered OK a Sim check.

As always the problem for expanding airlines is getting the experienced pilots who have a lot of command time under their belts not 200 hour flying school graduates. I have no doubt that by offering type 737 ratings that could get some experienced captains from the military and other civil operators but these guys won't be able to fill the seats this summer season.

Finally I would like to thank the HR people at Jet2 as for me the Jet2 screening was a total sucsess their choice to reject the value of 13,000 hours flying (4000 PIC B737) in favoir of the compass test that apparently I failed resulted in me not being committed to a job in Jet2 and being able to take a position with an airline that has newer eqipment, better T&C'S and a base on my doorstep rather than oop north.

Facelookbovvered

You have completely missed the point of my post, for the record I was offered a position, but basing & 70% salary did not suit me, I declined, so no bitterness at all on my part, i think Jet2 are a good company to work for, but what is the point of any assessment if it does not meet the need of the airline, if HR are overworked then they are either a) under resourced b) failing to manage their own work load, if Monarch, Norwegian, BA City Flyer, Eithad, Skymark, China Air post, FlyDubai, Eastern Airways to name a few have all recruited ex bmibaby pilots, some of whom didn't make the grade(sic) with Jet2 it speaks volumes about process rather than pilot quality, the reason that Qatar, Eithad and a number of other renowned international airline sent recruitment teams half across the globe (thanks in a large part to the ex bmibaby Chief Pilot) it was because they recognised a well trained, disciplined pilot work force with amongst the highest safe standards in aviation.

Not one of the above companies is offering a bounty to its staff for recruiting pilots, so draw your own conclusions!, its not about pilot quality, or Jet2 T&C's which are excellent, but rather a recruitment system design by HR who clearly thought that there would be lots of babies looking for adoption, its called arrogance.

A and C

Following the above posts I can't help feeling that the Jet2 management have been suckerd into letting the HR department have the upper hand in pilot recruitment, no doubt the reason for this is that they are very aware of the politically correct HR need for an absolute measure of a candidate that is not based on the human perception.

This attitude from the HR department is reinforced by the fear that Jet2 may find its self in court on some sort of discrimination case, using the compass tests gives them a way of fending off this sort of accusation.

The problem is that this system is deeply flawed and has failed to get the pilots into the company, it is clear that it is now time for the management pilots to take back the upper hand in the recruitment of pilots.

HR people are good servants but bad masters !