It was a great group of people!

Home It was a great group of people!

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, , CJO Offered, Delta Ride Reports, 0
Which Airline did you interview with? Delta
How many days between invite, interview, and listed availability? 7 weeks invite to interview, 2 weeks availability
Did you include volunteer work in your application?
Did you receive a job offer? Yes
If you did not receive the CJO why do you think you weren’t chosen to continue in the process? N/A
What is your experience? 121
Total Flight Time 2,000-3,000
Total Turbine PIC Time
TPIC 121 hours 0
TPIC Military hours 0
TPIC 91/135 0
General Overview of Experience Arrive at 7:30, mingle with other applicants. They ended up hiring 13/16 of us, so it was a great group of people!

 Have all your paperwork that they requested in the exact order. You’ll hand this in first thing. No need for fancy folders for the document copies, I had to take mine out of the folders.
Then you go into a lounge where there’s coffee, tea, water, and snacks. They tell you to make yourself at home and they mean it. Around 8:00 am Captain Holmes comes in and makes an introduction, then guides everyone to the conference room for a briefing.
Captain Holmes re-emphasizes what all the ride reports say, which is that they want you to be there. He personally reviews your application and so he knows what kind of pilots are sitting in that room. He’ll give a briefing on the interview and hiring process, and what to expect for day 2 if you make it through.
Then you’re guided back into the lounge. The group is divided in 2 by alphabetical order. The first half will do HR in the morning, testing in the afternoon. The second half flip flops. For me, my HR interview wasn’t until 10:00 and that was literally the longest 1.5 hours of my life. My interviewers were extremely kind and welcoming. I’ve never interacted with such genuine HR representatives and pilot recruiters before.
The HR interview was straight forward. The first 30 minutes were all about me and my application. “Are you sure these are all your speeding tickets?” Tell me about your life since high school in 5 minutes followed by multiple questions based on my app. I have a lot of volunteer experience and I had a non-standard route to becoming a pilot, so they asked me a lot about how I got interested in flying and asked about my volunteer work. I’m a recent captain upgrade, so they asked what my biggest challenge has been as a new captain. It concluded with the obvious “Why Delta?”
The second 30 minutes was situational. WWYD if you’re a CA and the anti-skid inop light comes on in flight (would you declare an emergency and would anything prompt you to make a PA?). WWYD if you’re 20 minutes to departure and you’re 20 meals short but catering will take at least 30 minutes to get them to you. WWYD if a captain was flying 20 knots slower than planned speed and delaying every arrival. The one that kind of threw me for a loop was something along the lines of “In what situation would you as an FO take the controls from a CA?” Don’t forget to thank your interviewers for their time! They really do have a tough job to get to know you in an hour or less.
My HR prep was done through Cage Marshall. I did two hour-long sessions with Susan Hecht (she was amazing! I highly recommend her). Other than that, I just studied the Delta culture and researched as much as I could on the company.
After that I joined the other applicants at lunch, which was a much-needed break to decompress before the afternoon session.
After lunch I did the three-part testing. Part 1: cognitive testing. Part 2: psychological testing. Part 3: Job knowledge test.
Part 1: Cognitive. I’ve done Lumosity daily for years now so I didn’t feel the need to train a lot on the RST trainer, but I did it a few times to become familiar with the different types of tests. The only one that I was sure did me in was the one where you center the localizer and select the previously shown number. The test proctor Jackie had to reset my practice attempt twice, so after that I just convinced myself to do it even though I probably should have taken another few practice rounds. The localizer is definitely more sensitive than the RST one and speeds up as it nears the edge. Cog math was way easier than the RST practice… I had 3 reverse percentages.
Part 2: Personality test. Don’t overthink it, just be yourself.
Part 3: Job Knowledge Test. Mine was about 1/3 aero, 1/3 turbines, and 1/3 navigation. I only used bits and pieces of RST because I was going through a training event at my current airline while I was studying for the interview. Instead of doing the 15 day checklist and courses, if I was studying systems for my ground school, I’d study the system theories and FAA guidance before studying my aircraft systems (if that makes any sense). I didn’t see a need to reinvent the wheel. But… that being said, RST does have some great flash cards that helped me stay focused as the interview approached. If you haven’t been through a training event in a while I’d definitely recommend the entire RST course since a lot of my fellow applicants succeeded with that. At the end of the test I wasn’t sure on 8 of the 60 questions but I was too tired to go back and re-hash them.
They ended up hiring 13/16 of us! Great applicants, great result.
Day 2
We arrived at 6:30 to turn in paperwork and almost immediately took the MMPI-2 test. The test is over 560 questions and that’s all I’ve got to say about that. It’s long and tiring test that I have no desire to ever take again (although some people had to take it twice, which is normal). I’d highly recommend showing up well-rested because, although I slept much better before day 2 than day 1, my brain still wanted to shut down about halfway through the test so it was hard to interpret all the double negatives in the questions.
After the MMPI we waited for the physchologists to interview us. While waiting (there were 2 psychologists, 13 of us) we rotated in and out of drug testing, fingerprinting, and photos for our badge. The psychologist interview was pretty straightforward and there’s obviously no way (or reason) to prepare for that. They just want to get to know you as a person. I had Dr. King and she was extremely welcoming and laid back.
I had completed all my items by 10:30 and was back at my hotel by 10:45. They try to get everyone out of there by noon-ish. I got my “Day 2 Successful” email around 12:30.
Overall it was a fantastic experience. I learned a lot about the company and their culture just through the hiring process— Delta runs a tight ship and after experiencing their process it’s obvious why they’re such a powerhouse. Good luck to everyone else who gets the invite!
How long did you have your application in before you received an invite? 12 months +
Did you attend a job fair? Yes
Did you do anything special that triggered the interview invitation? no.
How many internal recs did you have? 0
How long was it from the time of your invite to the actual interview? 7 weeks
Did you have any issues with logbooks, application or paperwork? I received my Complete Airman File after my interview invite and realized/remembered that I had failed two written exams back in college. I honestly suppressed the memory because I had completely forgotten about them until I saw the “Take 2” on the copies. So I called the recruiting office and explained my story and asked if that counted as a “training failure.” They said to include them on the application and I had to explain it during the interview. In the end it was a non-issue. Honesty is the best policy, and even though I may not have had to put them on there I was glad I did just so it didn’t open a can of worms later down the road. Otherwise, no paperwork issues.
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? I only used bits and pieces of RST because I was going through a training event at my current airline while I was studying for the interview. Instead of doing the 15 day checklist and courses, if I was studying systems for my ground school, I’d study the system theories and FAA guidance before studying my aircraft systems (if that makes any sense). I didn’t see a need to reinvent the wheel. But… that being said, RST does have some great flash cards that helped me stay focused as the interview approached. If you haven’t been through a training event in a while I’d definitely recommend the entire RST course since a lot of my fellow applicants succeeded with that.
I’ve done Lumosity daily for years now so I didn’t feel the need to train a lot on the RST trainer, but I did it a few times to become familiar with the different types of tests. The only one that I was sure did me in was the one where you center the localizer and select the previously shown number. The test proctor Jackie had to reset my practice attempt twice, so after that I just convinced myself to do it even though I probably should have taken another few practice rounds. The localizer is definitely more sensitive than the RST one and speeds up as it nears the edge. Cog math was way easier than the RST practice… I had 3 reverse percentages.
Technical Test Questions I can’t remember specifics. Sorry.
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? One that stumped me was the standard process for cross feeding fuel. The aircraft I fly has a pretty automatic process so I was pretty clueless.
Cog Test
Cog Math Questions
HR Questions WWYD if you’re a CA and the anti-skid inop light comes on in flight (would you declare an emergency and would anything prompt you to make a PA?). WWYD if you’re 20 minutes to departure and you’re 20 meals short but catering will take at least 30 minutes to get them to you. WWYD if a captain was flying 20 knots slower than planned speed and delaying every arrival. The one that kind of threw me for a loop was something along the lines of “In what situation would you as an FO take the controls from a CA?” Don’t forget to thank your interviewers for their time! They really do have a tough job to get to know you in an hour or less.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? Two 1-hour prep sessions with Cage Marshall.
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? Cage Marshall- Susan Hecht. Yes!! She was amazing.
Any additional information you would like to add.
Is there anything you wish you could have done different to prepare you for this process?
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