Which Airline did you interview with? United Airlines
How many days between invite, interview, and listed availability? “2 weeks notice” on AirlineApps; 34 days invite to interview.
Did you receive a job offer? 12 months call back
If you did not receive the CJO why do you think you weren’t chosen to continue in the process? *At United your application goes back on file, entering you back into the large applicant pool. I believe I was not chosen to continue the process due to application issues. My HR portion felt at least average, but not disqualifying in itself.
What is your experience? 121 only
Total Flight Time 3,000-4,000
Total Turbine PIC Time < 1,000
General Overview of Experience Everyone at the training center is incredibly friendly and welcoming. There were three of us interviewing at the same time. We were invited into the main office reception area where we remained for the whole 3 hours. Dorris and Amy-Lynn took our paperwork and logbooks and then handed us the print-outs of our applications to make any necessary corrections to. Once that is complete, we waited our turns to complete the Tech portion and the HR portions, in no particular order. The Tech portion was done one-on-one with a current captain. The HR portion was done with one captain, one HR rep, and an HR rep who was learning how to conduct interviews. Afterwards you are told to expect to hear back one way or another in about a week.
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? I had a meet & greet setup for me by a United pilot that I knew with the Cleveland Chief Pilot, Mike Whitney. The meeting took place in February, 2015, about 13 months prior to receiving the Hogan Personality Inventory. At the time of my meeting, the CP’s were allowed essentially unlimited meet & greets, though I believe they are limited to 24/year each now.
I did attend WAI the year of my interview, but it was just after I received my Hogan test, so I would not consider the job fair to be a contributing factor.
How many internal recs did you have? 5+
How long was it from the time of your invite to the actual interview? 4 weeks
Did you have any issues with logbooks, application or paperwork? I believe this was the primary weak spot of my interview. At United, when you arrive for the interview, they hand you a red pen to make any corrections to your application. I was advised by Cage Consulting to make sure your application (minus changes to flight time) is identical to how it was prior to receiving the Hogan, because that is when they officially print off your application for use in the interview. When tasked to make corrections there were some quirky inconsistencies with the application they printed off versus my most updated copy I brought with me. For instance, under “Date of Availability” I had selected “2 weeks notice” approximately 4 months prior to receiving the invite, though the application they gave me stated November of 2015, which was the last time I manually entered a date on airlineapps. Also missing from the application was any volunteer work I had included a few months prior to receiving the invite. I asked Dorris if it would be appropriate to make those corrections and she said I should. The more significant application issues though are as follows:
1.) Added Speeding Ticket: A week prior to my interview, I came across a section in one of the Cage Marshall Consulting prep books detailing events that have occurred that aren’t on your record, and that these events should be included in your application. I had a speeding ticket in Indiana a few years previous that was never added to my record because I enrolled in a program that allows the event to be expunged under certain conditions. Therefore, I never added the event to my application. After reading this section, I emailed my contact at Cage, and they advised me to email Bill Kennedy about the matter. I told Mr. Kennedy that I had no intentions of not being forthright, but I wanted to make this instance known now. Mr. Kennedy told me to come to the interview and red ink the event on to my application when I arrive. I even brought copies of my emails between Mr. Kennedy and myself along to the interview to offer if confronted by my HR panel about the addition.
2.) Incorrect education dates: Prior to WAI, I consulted Cage to prep for the job fair, and I had fast passes for United and Delta. Cage advised me for the sake of Delta to include all my flight training dates on my airlineapps under the education section. I was on a trip when I received this advice so I went ahead and added approximate dates on airlineapps, and when I returned home, I updated the dates with more accurate dates. The day I updated the dates was the day I received the Hogan test. At the interview, the application they handed me had all the original, approximated dates on the application. Due to the previously listed event and my focus on integrity, I did not want to chance some circumstance coming up that would prove my dates to be incorrect, so I had to correct every date for each flight training education section entered.
3.) Added work history: While at WAI, I met with a Delta recruiter who liked a section on my resume I had about aerobatic instruction that I had provided in the past. I did not have this work history on my airlineapps as it was never a substantial job. Though, the recruiter encouraged me to add this work history to airlineapps, and I did so. While doing my interview prep work with Cage, they advised me of the importance of having your application as it was prior to the Hogan test, so with that in mind I intended to remove this work section, but somehow forgot to do so. On the application I received from United, there was no work history section of aerobatic instruction, even though my current airlineapps had the work history section. As with the education dates, I was concerned with what would happen if I didn’t make corrections, so on the back of one of the pages of the application, I wrote in a whole additional work history section.
I do not know what would have happened if I did not make the education and work history corrections or if they were necessary. The important lesson is to add things accurately the first time regardless of when you think you might get an invite.
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? No JKT/COG at United.
Technical Test Questions The technical portion of the United interview consists of a mock flight. You are given a few 737 profiles and some basic performance information when you receive the invite and are expected to know the profiles and demonstrate proficiency with them during the mock flight. I was asked very simple questions about RNAV SID/STAR procedures. It is inevitable that your flight will include a missed approach, followed by destination airport closing with limited fuel on board. They then want to see how you respond to the situation and catalog your thought process. This was the easiest part of the day.
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? N/A
Cog Test N/A
Cog Math Questions N/A
HR Questions 1.) Run us through your flying history…
2.) TMAAT you had to change your approach to deal with a coworker’s behavior…
3.) Tell me about your best customer service day…
4.) TMAAT you had a disagreement with a supervisor about a SOP…
5.) TMAAT you saw your CA break a policy or SOP…
6.) TMAAT you were distracted at work and how did it effect those around you…
7.) Why United?
8.) Anything to disclose?
9.) Any questions? Anything to add?
*The interviewers tell you up-front that if a certain question doesn’t apply, that you may ask for a different question. I should have asked for another question for #4. Also, for #5/#6, I thought of better stories by the time I was at the airport going home, even though I had thought of stories for nearly 100 different possible questions. If I were to self-critique, I believe a may have failed to show enough assertiveness in the stories that came to mind. This element, along with my application I’m sure put me over the edge for the state of my candidacy.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? Serious HR prep for one month, along with studying different gouges as far as 14 months prior.
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? Cage Marshall Consulting. I believe they really did do an excellent job a preparing me for the interview and what to expect. I just think there were some unfortunate circumstances regarding my application as listed, along with my own short-comings on certain aspects of my HR interview.
Any additional information you would like to add. With United, it takes about a week after the interview to receive your results. I received an email stating that they were not going to give me the CJO, and that I would be eligible to re-apply in 12 months. Make sure any entries to airlineapps are complete and accurate the first time they are entered and published. Many pilots I know who interviewed through the XJT CPP have been turned down at the interview for far fewer corrections that I had because they did not complete the app to its entirety the first time through.
Despite what I have detailed above, I still was very surprised when I got the news. I left the HR portion feeling really good, that I had conducted myself exactly as I wanted to, and made some real connections with the interviewers. Though, I had this feeling that if I didn’t get offered the job, it would be because of my application. In all honesty, there are probably elements of my interview that could have helped if I performed them better. Looking back, I would not have changed anything in the way I conducted myself, or the process in which I answered the questions. I would have maybe offered different stories on two of the questions, and I definitely would have liked to not make all those corrections to my app.
Is their anything you wish you could have done different to prepare you for this process? I wish I would have read the Cage Marshall book much earlier than I received it to make me aware of the issue with my speeding ticket, and that I would have entered specific items on my application correctly the first time.
 

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