Very good, but very stressful experience

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Which Airline did you interview with? Delta
How many days between invite, interview, and listed availability? Almost 4 months after invite because I was in training elsewhere. They were very friendly and helpful with delaying the interview. Once I called back, availability was about 7 weeks out
Did you include volunteer work in your application? Yes
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 5,000-8,000
Total Turbine PIC Time
TPIC 121 hours 500-1000
TPIC Military hours 0
TPIC 91/135 0
General Overview of Experience Very good, but very stressful experience. The waiting is painful. I had heard and read that it’s a long day, but I guess I hadn’t thought specifically I’d be sitting there just waiting. Walking around campus and over to the museum and the 747 helped break up the day and de-stress.
Everyone was very friendly and helpful.
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? Possibly the scoring of all ExpressJet apps, or an internal rec submission.
How many internal recs did you have? 3-4
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 issues. I don’t remember reading about initialing various sections of the application, but don’t let that scare you. It seems like they ask everyone to initial a couple sections on the addendum.
How did you prepare for the JKT/COG portion of the interview? RST and Everything Explained for the Professional Pilot. That’s about all you need.
Technical Test Questions Don’t let yourself get bogged down by any one question. 60 minutes can go by fast if you don’t keep moving. I had about 15 minutes left after answering the last question and went back to check my confidence level with each question. Almost everything was very similar to RST. Do the practice tests and the studying and you should be fine.
What was the hardest technical question or content you experienced during the job knowledge test? I think I got lucky on the JKT because there were only 2-3 I wasn’t sure about. There were two questions I was surprised about. One was about pilots’ first actions if an FA calls up about smoke smell in cabin/galley, and another about electrical fire. None of the possible answers mentioned QRH or immediate action checklists. I answered the most safe and conservative each time which was don O2 mask and begin diversion. I had maybe two math questions, both of which were easy descent calculations. There was one question asking about which answer about lift was not correct, but there were two false statements so I answered which was more false. Finally, there was one about whether a .76 Mach transition to 330 KIAS will occur at a higher or lower altitude than if the transition speed was 250.
Cog Test Absolutely nothing to worry about. Take advantage of the practice sessions. Take your time. Each section is very short. I think I only saw 5-10 flagmen and had just 3-5 math questions. Listen to the podcast about it and don’t spend too much time practicing this stuff at home. Do a few practice tests, but just to learn the basics and the tips and tricks. The real one is different enough that it’s not a direct transfer, and it’s easier.
Cog Math Questions Relatively easy mental math. Take your time and read.
HR Questions I’m going to repeat what a lot of people have said. The panel interview absolutely flies by and actually is relatively pleasant. They started out by introducing themselves and then went through and had me initial a few items and then sign the application. Then they asked for my intro of approximately five minutes from high school unless there was something earlier I wanted them to know. They commended me on my performance in college and asked why I chose that school. What did I like and dislike about college and specifically that flight program. Did I like instructing? They asked about some volunteer work I did with recruiting and what made me want to do that work. Did I ever have a student that I couldn’t teach how to land? What do I like about my current employer? What do I think will be the most rewarding aspect of being a Delta pilot? “I see you live in Atlanta, but you have commuted in the past. Have you thought about if you will move, or commute?”
You’re down at the hotel bar with the captain and you’re coming up on 8 hours. How would you handle that?
-You’re going in to Narita and an hour out you find out the airport’s closed due to a natural disaster. What do you do? This was relatively straightforward. I mentioned telling the flight attendants and the passengers and then I was asked to give them the PA announcement I would make explaining the diversion.
-I did my best to remind the captain of the time, and try to convince him to leave the bar. The interviewer had the situation go a few different ways. “He say’s he’s going to have another drink.” I said I would tell the captain he can’t or we wouldn’t be able to leave in time in morning. “He says he’s just going to finish this one and then head upstairs.” Since we’re coming up on 8 hours, I said I’d hang out with him while he finishes. “He says thanks, but I’ve been eyeing these two girls over there and I’m hoping for fun later. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” I reminded him we needed to be rested for tomorrow and asked the interviewer if maybe we had a mutual friend I could call to help the captain think. He said no. So I left the captain down there and said I’d chat him up in the morning to see how he was doing, whether he had had more to drink, and if he was well enough rested. “Let’s say in the morning he doesn’t look good…like maybe he had a long night.” I told him he needs to call out and go back upstairs to recover. He needs to think about both of our careers, and about the public image of Delta. I also said I’d make a few calls in his best interest because if he’s making bad calls like that, he may have a problem. I really wasn’t pleased how I answered this question and thought I had lost the job here. All the time I spent thinking about the alcohol questions, I thought about the van in the morning, or at the airport, etc., but not at the bar the night before. But I’m positive that the reason I passed is that I looked out for safety, legality, Delta’s image, and his wellbeing.
-Tell us about a time during flight you had to make a tough decision. I used a story about a line of weather and which direction we should go. ATC wanted us to go one way, we wanted to go the other, but in the end I trusted ATC. He followed up with what would I have done if the way ATC pointed us didn’t look good. I said I’d say unable and go the way I wanted.
They finished up by asking how I had prepared for the interview and whether or not I thought it helped, and asked if I had any questions for them. I didn’t ask any.
I saw one of my panel interviewers about 30 minutes afterwards while I was walking off the nervous energy and he shook my hand and said “Nice job, we’ll see you tomorrow.” That certainly helped calm me, but the next two hours were still a terribly long wait while everyone else finished testing.
How long prior to the interview did you prepare for the HR portion of the interview? About 2 months, but I’ve studied off and on for years hoping for the invite. I had also just interviewed 6 months ago with another carrier and had studied/practiced some then.
Which HR Prep service did you use and did it help? ECIC. I had done 1 webinar a long time ago, a phone top-off for the other carrier, and then I did one more webinar and a top-off for this interview. Yes, I would say they helped mostly by helping me to think about what the interviewer is asking, what they want to hear, etc. I got the feeling Delta doesn’t want to hear the practiced SARR format answers. They want to have a conversation with you.
Any additional information you would like to add. Study HR. Talk out loud. You’re probably not going to get that many TMAAT or WWYD questions because a lot of the time will be spent with much more basic questions about your education and work history. Know and be able to talk about anything on your application. Don’t be a robot with your answers. Show them that you’re thinking about it now, not last week when you practiced that question. As others have said, it seems like they’re sitting there waiting for you to say “…and we need to look out for Delta” or “…take care of our passengers.” The second I said some of those feel-good phrases, all three looked down and started scribbling.
Is there anything you wish you could have done different to prepare you for this process? I would have started with HR study instead of RST study. Clearly, you need to do both, but at least for me, the HR was more nerve racking and studying that first and then RST closer to the interview would have helped me stress less.
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