Many of my candidates have contacted me recently in frustration wondering if they are the only ones not out interviewing. Some are old friends who are at the Regionals, others are working for corporations, or the Fractionals, and still others are instructing. They all have the same questions and frustrations. The most frequent question I am being asked is what they can be doing to make themselves more marketable. Everyone is looking to be somewhere else. It is quite amusing to observe from the sidelines: Regional pilots are trying to go the corporate route, while corporate pilots are trying to land at the regionals, etc. While this is interesting for me, it is evident how difficult it is trying to make it through one of the worst downturns this industry has seen. I thought I would try and lend some advice as to what you can be doing in the meantime depending on where you are and what your situation may be.
Continue reading What Can I Do to Wait Out the Downturn?
Yearly Archives: 2009
Ask the Counselor
WFFF in cooperation with Aviation Interview Prep LLC is happy to offer a new free service to our visitors! We have started a new section in our pilot forums called “Ask the Counselor.”
“Ask the Counselor” is your resource for all of your interview questions. We hope that our visitors make full use of this new forum to ask the experts questions about pilot interviews and how to advance their career. Your questions to the “The Counselor” will be answered by one of Aviation Interview Prep LLC’s team members. With this new service available to you, we look forward to helping your career take flight!
Updated Pilot Forums
We have recently updated our pilot forums section of our website. We are sure that you will find this new updated version to be easier to read and very user friendly.
Unlike many other pilot forums websites, ours is still FREE! We hope that you take advantage of this excellent resource.
To help jump start our new forums, we are offering a free membership to one of our forum members that makes a post this month. We will randomly choose one member from all the members that post in the month of October. Each post will count as another entry, so the more you post the more opportunities you have to win!
Visit our new forums today at http://www.willflyforfood.com/pilotforums/
I have sent a bunch of resumes out and still haven’t heard anything!?
Is this something that has happened to you? Are you constantly scrolling through the job postings at Will Fly for Food and feeling like you aren’t getting anywhere? In this article, I will try to help you identify potential challenges and make progress in this tough process.
First, consider having a professional resume service review your resume for you. It is not uncommon to miss obvious mistakes on our own resume, and these mistakes can actually cost you the opportunity to interview. Remember, the recruiters and Chief pilots are looking for any reason to start trimming the stack of resumes on their desks. Don’t let yours be the one that is passed over. You want yours to be as close to perfect as possible, so that you increase your chance of obtaining an interview.
Continue reading I have sent a bunch of resumes out and still haven’t heard anything!?
Interview Day Tips to Make You Stand Out!
Our mission at Aviation Interview Prep Services Llc., is to coach you through the actual interview, however, there some things you can do prior to the interview to help put your best foot forward. Getting yourself in the right frame of mind will give you a leg up on the competition.
First, it is critical that you do as much research on your prospective company as possible. Use the web to obtain as much information as possible. Start by reviewing the company’s website, but also search other industry or financial sites to get additional information on the company. This will help you guage how the company is doing but more importantly it will give you perspective on the company from outside sources. After sorting all this information, you should have a firm grasp of the health of the company, and where the company is headed. You can also use the different analyst reports to come up with some good questions for the end of the interview. It is very customary for companies to give you the chance to ask questions. Don’t take this step lightly- it’s an essential part of the interview. By asking key questions, you communicate to the prospective company that you have done your homework and that you are serious about them as a possibly future employer. Continue reading Interview Day Tips to Make You Stand Out!
Airline Pilot Salary Section Updated!
It is with great pleasure that we are announcing our newly updated Airline Pilot Salary information section! Our new pilot salary information section provides the latest pilot pay scales for over 72 U.S. based and three foreign based carriers. We hope to add more airlines, especially foreign based Non-U.S. carriers, in the near future.
We have now automated our entire pay scale information resource. Now pilots can make small or large changes or additions to our pay scale pages simply through the use of our easy to use pay update forms that correspond to each airlines link found at: http://www.willflyforfood.com/airline-pilot-salary/. To make additions or changes to an airlines pay information simply click the “Edit This Pay Rate Data” link in the upper right corner of each airlines pilot salary page. No longer will it take days or even weeks for pay scales to be updated. Now updates will usually be made within minutes after being accepted by administrators!
Another new feature we have added is the ability to graph and compare pay rates for multiple airlines or multiple positions. You can also right click on these graphs to save them as jpeg images or print on your personal printer. We are sure this new graphing feature will be a valuable tool for pilots and union negotiators.
If you have updated pilot pay scale information please click the corresponding airlines link in our Pilot Salaries section. If you have a new airline to submit please click here.
Add Pilot Jobs Listings to Your Website or Blog!
It’s easy to add our latest pilot job listings to you website or blog! Jobs are automatically updated within minutes of posting on Will Fly For Food. You can use our content on your site for free.
Copy and Paste the following code into your website or blog:
It will look like this on your site:
Alaska Airlines Pilots reach tentative agreement
Alaska Airlines and the union for its 1,500 pilots say they have a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract.
The Air Line Pilots Association is expected to announce results of a vote in the third week in May.
The contract has been in negotiation for more than two years. Terms were not announced Wednesday, but the union’s Bill Shivers says it meets goals of improving or protecting pay, job security, retirement and health benefits.
| Tentative Agreement Pilot Pay Scale | ||
| Year | Captains | First Officers |
| 12 | $172.00 | $115.60 |
| 11 | $168.43 | $113.08 |
| 10 | $165.92 | $111.60 |
| 9 | $161.28 | $108.29 |
| 8 | $157.84 | $105.97 |
| 7 | $154.55 | $104.10 |
| 6 | $152.71 | $102.26 |
| 5 | $151.19 | $99.67 |
| 4 | $149.78 | $93.26 |
| 3 | $148.32 | $84.92 |
| 2 | $146.87 | $71.75 |
| 1 | $145.87 | $45.54 |
The Benefits of the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB)
For many pilots, the idea of an Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) is the stuff that dreams are made of (dreams geared towards reducing job-related paperwork that is). As much as we all love flying we hate the paperwork. Unfortunately paperwork is a necessary part of our job. The good news is that with the advances in technology and newly certified products, some visionary airlines have realized the vision of a paperless cockpit and are saving money in the process.
Getting rid of the paper maintenance logbook is particularly difficult because it’s so data-entry centric. Unlike charts in which information is only referenced, the maintenance logbook is constantly being updated by pilots as well as by maintenance. It’s the one place where Flight Operations and Maintenance Operations use the same paperwork, which oh by the way just happens to be the official maintenance record that’s auditable by the regulatory authorities. No page can be lost or misplaced which is one reason why all log pages are serialized. The airline must keep logbook entries for the life of an aircraft, yet we immediately dump old charts the day they expire. Big difference! Continue reading The Benefits of the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB)
SLAYING THE 3AM DRAGONS
Feeling a bit anxious lately? Worrying about everything from the light bill to world peace? Waking up at 3am with the worry dragons breathing down your neck?
Allow me to begin by stating the obvious: the past 18 months have been an unprecedented time of anxiety for the majority of Americans. Between job losses, national security and business scandals it can all add up to feeling as though you have lost control of your destiny.
But, hold the phone for good news! During my years of consulting with individuals facing job adversity (company bankruptcy, termination, health issues) I have identified four specific steps that can help you prioritize your worries and regain control of your outlook and, ultimately, regain control of your destiny.
Big results can come from a little focused effort. Although these suggestions are not earth shattering, they can make the difference between fighting the 3am dragons on a nightly basis or slaying them and actually getting a good night’s sleep. Let’s begin.