Everyone is very professional and relaxed

Home Everyone is very professional and relaxed

admin@readysettakeoff.com

, , CJO Offered, Delta Ride Reports, 0
Which Airline did you interview with? Delta
How many days between invite, interview, and listed availability? Availability was 55 days out from invite. I was available 2 days before the interview.
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? Sent to PARB after day two but was cleared/hired 1.5 weeks later. Sucked but I’m grateful they have the PARB!
What is your experience? Military
Total Flight Time 3,000-4,000
Total Turbine PIC Time
TPIC 121 hours 0
TPIC Military hours >2000
TPIC 91/135 0
General Overview of Experience Class act from the beginning. Everyone is very professional and relaxed. Barry spends a good amount of time in the morning just giving you expectations and his opinion. It’s good info. First time I’d heard about the Pilot Applicant Review Board (PARB), which became a factor after day two. Well oiled machine. Expect to have a few hours of waiting around.
How long did you have your application in before you received an invite? 1-6 months
Did you attend a job fair? No
Did you do anything special that triggered the interview invitation? Had an email sent to HR by a friend.
How many internal recs did you have? 5+
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? Not during the interview but the background check did ask for my Master’s Transcripts. I apparently forgot to include them with my others when I turned everything in. I had a training report with my Masters GPA and courses but never submitted the transcript. Not a word was said about it during the two day interview so I’m guessing they didn’t realize it. I was able to get a PDF version and sent it to the background check agency as well as emailed it to Pilot Hiring dept. Turned out ok. It was best that I figured it out and sent it to the hiring team before they did I think.
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? RST. Solid. Took about 55 days to work through the 15 day program…After finishing I just reviewed some of the areas I felt weak in. By the time the interview came around I felt completely prepared. COG math was my weakness. COG test itself is easy if you are comfortable with the RST COG trainer.
Technical Test Questions A few about ground effect. Very easy math on the test. Decent gradient, distance. Mostly aero. Had some random NAV equipment questions that I most likely missed.
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? RST prepares you extremely well. Be able to think about the content and the relationships between different concepts because I saw very few questions that were on the RST test bank. Even so, understanding the material allowed me to easily choose the correct answer on most. I only had 5 total questions that I wasn’t really sure about. The hardest part was just working through some of the weird wording on the questions. Just read it carefully, you have plenty of time (60 mins). Most of the time two answers are easily eliminated.
Cog Test Pretty straight forward. Much shorter than the RST trainer. Only 13 events I think. Mine started with math which almost gave me a panic attack. After the first two questions, which I guessed the answer, I had to take a deep breath and relax. Then next few were fine. I think I was 3 for 5 math questions. I think I saw one question on the RST trainer. You get to practice on just about every event. Do the practice as many times as you want. I only did each once. The only one that can trick you is the symbol/number one. Repeat the symbol word to yourself periodically so you don’t forget it.
Cog Math Questions See above.
HR Questions Just a conversation. Very friendly but I was never too relaxed. First thing I had to do was sign the app and fix my availability date. I had 15 Jan which was two days prior to the interview. HR had me change it to “today”. Don’t get frazzled if you have to change anything. It happened to just about everyone in my group in some form. All but two received CJOs. After the three interviewers (Ret CA, current CA, ret HR) introduced themselves the HR dude asked me to tell them about myself and my career in 5 mins, including HS and give them only things that are relevant. They do NOT want prepared answers and can sniff them out. I did not memorize any answers going in but I did know what stories I would talk about and key things I wanted to mention. From there it was just off the cuff. My intro was decent, I mentioned my family very briefly only when I felt it was relevant to the story but it was mostly about my school and flying experience. Half of the interview was straight from the application. Asked why it took me one extra semester to finish college, Grades (they cracked a joke about my failed algebra class which I retook later which I thought was pretty funny), busted end of phase check ride in UPT, why do I like flying/why didn’t I take any aviation related classes in college? (they were avail) Why did I choose my degree? Easy stuff, just talk about yourself. Asked why I would be a great airline pilot/why should they hire me. The rest was WWYD scenarios. No TMAAT at all. Each interviewer asked a question. 1st = How would I motivate my team when arriving to the plane? Turned into two FAs were not listening to your brief, how would you handle that? BL: Pull them aside after and re-brief the important stuff and make sure they understand. I also mentioned I’d make sure they were ok first and that there was nothing distracting them from the mission (i.e. problems, family, etc). 2nd: CA drinking past 8 hour cutoff. BL: CA wouldn’t listen to me and kept drinking. I said I would expect him to take himself out of the flight; he didn’t so I called a friend for advice and ultimately went to the Chief Pilot. Final question was a few angry passengers while waiting in the de-icing line. They wanted off the plane. No info/help from the FA or the FO so I was pretty much on my own. BL: I said I’d make an announcement keeping the passengers informed of timing. Since we were taxiing I could not leave the cockpit so I asked the FA to remind the passenger(s) that IAW FAA regulations we could not re-open the doors or return to parking. Said I’d ask the FA to see if they wanted a Coke or water and left it at that. I felt weakest on this one. In hindsight I think I should have asked the FA if the passengers were getting out of line because the CA kept saying they were “really angry”. She never said they assaulted anyone so that’s why I just basically said, Sorry, have a Coke. I was really impressed with the interviewers during this portion. They really seemed to want me to do well and on two of the three asked me how I’d handle the same situation in the military. I felt like they were throwing me a bone and it really helped me explain to them my process. They seemed to like my answers I guess.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? Off and on for about two months. Pretty steady for 2 weeks.
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? Emerald Coast. Yes, it did. Delta is changing things up to keep the prepared responses to a minimum. They want to see you, not a memorized answer. I think the guys that struggled in HR were the ones that only had prepared answers. They’ll change the questions up so just relax, be confident and talk to pilots about flying. Don’t forget about the HR person though!
Any additional information you would like to add. Be familiar with the Delta Rules of the Road. I was able to bring a few of the concepts into the HR portion such as Safety first, excellent operations, being fair to all passengers (3rd question).
Is there anything you wish you could have done different to prepare you for this process? I don’t think it could have gone better.
Related Articles
 

©2024 Ready Set Takeoff

Log in with your credentials

Forgot your details?