My best performance ever

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, , CJO Not Offered, Delta Ride Reports, 0
Which Airline did you interview with? Delta
How many days between invite, interview, and listed availability? 2 months, 2 weeks availability
Did you include volunteer work in your application?
Did you receive a job offer? 12 months reapply
If you did not receive the CJO why do you think you weren’t chosen to continue in the process? HR interview
What is your experience? 121
Total Flight Time 5,000-8,000
Total Turbine PIC Time
TPIC 121 hours >2000
TPIC Military hours 0
TPIC 91/135 0
General Overview of Experience 5 year captain at a Delta regional partner flying the crj 700 and 900.
How long did you have your application in before you received an invite? 12 months +
Did you attend a job fair? No
Did you do anything special that triggered the interview invitation? Volunteer work and internal recs.
How many internal recs did you have? 1-2
How long was it from the time of your invite to the actual interview? 8 weeks
Did you have any issues with logbooks, application or paperwork? No
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? RST
Technical Test Questions Nothing out of the ordinary. A lot less math than I expected. VOR questions are in terms of bearing pointers, so dont think CDI where you twist a setting for your radials. Get in the mindset that everything is like an ADF.
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? Thrust limited aircraft. At what point is all lift converted to drag. 30/50/70/90 deg?
Cog Test I crushed it. My best performance ever. Exactly like the RST trainer before the revisions. Direction/color/border section is the old pink/white arrow, not the “finger”.
Cog Math Questions Pretty easy mental math. Know how to add up currency quickly. Calculate time (train takes 3 hour trip, makes three 15 min stops, leaves at a quarter to 8)
HR Questions Conversational and relaxed. TMAATW your captain authority was challenged. WWYD if your CA wanted to disregard noise abatement procedures. WWYD if your FA tells you she heard a loud bang from the back of the plane in the climb. Answered them all textbook ECIC, Aaron Hagen would be proud.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? Two months
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? ECIC. Yes and no. See below.
Any additional information you would like to add. This was my second interview. I was told I failed the test but passed HR last time. Accurate because I did get frustrated with my RST prep (specifically math) and definitely felt weak in the JKT. I know I made a few bonehead mistakes in the cog too by going too fast. I was stressed out as I was simultaneously planning my wedding.
My nerves were super low compared to my first time through as I felt extraordinarily prepared and knew what to expect in the process. I was truly performing at 110% and in very high spirits and genuinely enjoying the experience.
I was in the morning test group and absolutely dominated it. I crushed the JKT and cog. Was very proud of my performance and felt super. I went into my HR panel interview feeling great. It was 4 on 1 as we had one new interviewer observing, she didn’t speak and did not add any pressure, dunno if her presence swayed the panels decision. I took off my jacket and got settled. There were no errors on my app or paperwork issues aside from asking why I put “biological sciences” when my degree was in psychology. I told Dana that the drop down box on the app did not have psychology listed, and as my degree focused on the biological aspect of psychology (psychopharmacology, substance effects on brain development) I chose biological sciences as the best match. No problem there, and it gave me a chance to tell them more about my educational background.
My intro went smooth as butter. I was calm and hit every single bullet point I wanted to. This was the best run through of my story that I have ever told. Not a second over 5 minutes. I smiled and the panel smiled with me. A few run of the mill follow up questions going more in depth as to what got me into flying (yes this was in my intro but they wanted to converse more). I talked about my father who has a degree in aeronautical design and owned a freight forwarding company near JFK. Talked about my love of flight simulator games as a kid. Asked about my career choice to go into sales after college. Told them based on my degree I wanted to get into pharma sales but needed outside sales experience so I got a job selling copiers. Two years of that and I decided it was not for me, that’s when I pursued aviation.
The closest to an intentional “get me riled up and defensive” question I got was from the current pilot to my left who asked about two checkride failures. I owned it, showed humility, and reinforced the fact that I have a perfect safety and pt 121 training record.
The retired pilot asked me about a time when my ca authority was challenged. I paused, reached into my snowball bag, and hit them with a solid story following the ecic formula to a tee. I was given two wwyd scenarios that I was well prepared for. First was textbook ecic CUS word escalation in that I was an FO flying with a CA that wanted to violate noise abatement procedures. Made it clear that I was thinking “protect the brand” and eventually when the CA would not comply, even with a threat to get pro stands involved, I removed myself from the flight deck by feigning illness. Second wwyd was another easy lob, FA reports loud bang during climbout. I transferred positive a/c control, said we would run qrh, check gauges, did my 2in2out, arinc’ed MX, polled the audience (FO, jumpseater) before revealing my decision to return to the field, made PA. Perfect.
My personality shone through, I was calm, collected and professional. Did not get tripped up or stammer. I felt high walking out. Total interview was 45 min but felt like 20. An hour after I get out CA Holmes calls my name, pulls me into the conference room and says I scored very high on the test but failed the HR. I thought he was joking. I thought they mixed up my paperwork. I was stunned. He would not give me any info as to why because the interviewers “don’t tell him”. I said I felt so good about how it went. He said, our interviewers are supposed to do that, make you feel good. That was a really crappy thing to hear. Invited back in 12 months.
Is there anything you wish you could have done different to prepare you for this process? No. I prepared and performed at my best. It just wasn’t meant to be.
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