Overall, I was extremely nervous for the majority of day 1

Home Overall, I was extremely nervous for the majority of day 1

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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? Invite 2/26, Interview 4/24, Availability 6/1
Did you include volunteer work in your application? No
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? na
What is your experience? Military
Total Flight Time 2,000-3,000
Total Turbine PIC Time
TPIC 121 hours 0
TPIC Military hours 1000-2000
TPIC 91/135 0
General Overview of Experience Overall, I was extremely nervous for the majority of day 1, which made for a long and exceptionally stressful day, but I got the feeling that the Delta team is routing for you to get through it and that they want to hire you. The Delta folks were polite and friendly. The group I interviewed with was well-qualified. I really wanted the job offer.
How long did you have your application in before you received an invite? 6-12 months
Did you attend a job fair? No
Did you do anything special that triggered the interview invitation? Yes, internal recommendations.
How many internal recs did you have? 5+
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? Yes, I was unclear on what exactly to include in Stacks 1 and 2 when it came to copies/originals, so I included both. Don’t do this, they want copies only. You bring the originals in the event they need to burn a better, more legible copy. I had to get my original medical cert and FCC license back from the Delta team.
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? RST. I did the 15 day checklist in about 25-30 days with progressively increasing effort as the interview got closer. Luckily, I had the opportunity to use the COG trainer once or twice before it was taken down.
Technical Test Questions RST did a good job of getting me through a ton of material and I studied hard to learn it, but some of the concepts tested on this thing were out of left field and I threw a dart/went with the longest answer (it’s too long to be wrong). Questions I remember:
-Leading edge slats on left side fail to extend. Which direction will aircraft roll, and which direction will it yaw?
-Least favorable wind for wake turbulence?
-3 bar VASI in a 777, which bars do you use for glideslope reference?
-1500’AGL @ 230 kts. Your acft slows at a rate of 10kts/NM. How far from RW do you start to slow to an apch speed of 130kts?
-How many inHG does altimeter change per 100’?
-When referencing an apch plate: You’re on the 20DME arc passing the 050 radial. Where do you commence the procedure turn? I put that PT was not required when executing the approach from the arc
-When do you slow to holding airspeed? 3 or 5 mins prior, protected airspace…
-Know Jepp APD symbology. I was asked what a single white bar crossing a runway on the APD represented.
-You’re on the 185 radial at 10 DME going 200kts, and need to arc north on the 15DME arc. Which direction do you turn and at what DME do you commence the turn?
-AC Generators usually rated: 115VAC, 400HZ
-AC Generator Control Unit controls for? I put overvoltage, current limiting, and over frequency or something like that.
Such a crap shoot here on which questions the gonkulator selects for you to answer out of the 6000 question bank. I personally had no holding questions, but had several electrical questions, and a bunch of GTE questions. I make no claim to answering any of the above correctly, but are what I remember for you to get an idea. May luck always be in your favor!
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? Probably couldn’t even come up with the wording now, because I didn’t know what it was asking, picked a response and moved on…
Cog Test I was nervous going into the COG because I hadn’t been able to build my confidence with practice leading into gameday. I read the directions carefully, practiced as many times as I felt needed to get comfortable, and then went with it. Note: It’ll lock after two practice runs, but Jackie (test proctor) can unlock it as many times as you want. One guy locked a single phase of the test like 8 times because he couldn’t get it figured out, no aggravation from Jackie noted. Also, the actual COG tests occur quickly. I think I only had 4-5 flag men, and most exercises were shortened similarly when compared to the RST trainer.
Overall, I did well on this thing. Much easier than RSTs trainer, and I think that if I’d never seen any of them, I still would have passed without issue. But the ones I remember having some difficulty with were:
-The math: I was rushing to get a solution close to the answer choices and select it before the question timed out and a new one showed up, so I know for a fact that I got a couple math questions wrong.
-1a, 2b, 3c: I only made it to K or L before it timed out.
-The previous number (of 1,2,3 choices) coupled with the localizer bar gave me some issues. Try to clear your mind to get back on track.
Cog Math Questions I know for a fact I got a few wrong, and still got the invite, luckily, so do the best you can to come up with a quick response and go for it.
HR Questions INTRODUCE MYSELF IN TWO MINUTES OR LESS. Well, shit. I had prepped a 5 minute spiel, so I was shooting from the hip on a 2 minute deal. I told them about how my parents took me to Orlando International as a kid, talked quickly about HS, college, and broadly discussed how I’d greatly enjoyed my Naval career and the leadership opportunities that it had afforded me. Then gave my reason for getting out. Karen thanked me for keeping it under 2 minutes (mighta been 3), but definitely was not the full monty that I’d rehearsed.
For the next 30 minutes we talked through my APP and my record. Know everything that’s in your app! I feel like I was able to talk to just about everything in my 5 minute spiel throughout the course of this career review, but in more detail, and in a more conversational manner. They threw me some serious softballs and I felt like they were looking to hire me, not make things tough.
However, I didn’t have any community service listed on my app, and Karen asked me a pointed question about “my contributions to the community.” I tap danced around that one by saying that I contribute 100% of my efforts to my current team, the Navy. It was uncomfortable, so go to a soup kitchen or something to prevent having to explain your selfishness and lack of community service effort…
Then they transitioned to TMAAT’s and WWYD’s for 15-20 minutes:
-TMAAT that you had a conflict or disagreement in flight with a superior.
-Things are moving quickly here and there’s a good chance that you could be a CA in 2 years. So, WWYD if you’re on the 1st leg of a 4 day trip as a new CA, and your FO who has been at DAL for longer keeps crossing the cockpit, moving your switches, and completing your duties before you get a chance.
-There’s a Muslim Cleric on your flight and there are some other PAX taking exception. WWYD? This question was the one I punted in an ECIC webinar, so I feel like this 5 minute portion of the interview was completely attributable to paying the prep company to make me better.
-How would you handle a maintenance delay? Follow up question: they had previously told you 30 minutes, now they’re saying 1.5hrs to completion. WWYD now?
-How do you deal with stress? TMAAT you were off the flight schedule. I had a HFB that I discussed from my first tour. Taken off the schedule for a week, then put back on. Dave helped me out by saying to the other two that it sounded like “a very Navy way of handling things.” Maybe I said something I shouldn’t have, and he was helping me out…
-Any questions? I reinforced my excitement to be afforded the opportunity to join the Delta family, my appreciation of their time, and asked them for the job. Hopeful for it to be my first and last interview for the next 31 yrs.
Overall, they were very friendly and welcoming. When I was smiling, so were they. Eye contact wasn’t an issue and I was surprised by how few notes they took in the first half of the interview. During the second half for WWYD’s and TMAAT’s, the note-taking stepped up a bit.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? 2 months.
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? ECIC and yes, during a webinar I was asked the muslim cleric question, and didn’t have a very thorough response, got critiqued and had a much better answer during the interview. Mary’s framework to get ready helped me come up with prepared responses for a bunch of questions, some of which were even useful during the sit down with the psychologist.
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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