Delta has a very solid interview process. Typically there are 8 interviewees each day. The interview last 2 days with a conditional job offer after day 1. They will book you a free airline ticket to Atlanta, but lodging and transportation are up to you.
We showed up before 0745 on the first day of the interview. We immediately turned in our log books/flight records and for military performance reports/fitness reports and flight evaluation folders. After that, we congregated in the waiting room that would be our home for the next day and a half.
At first, Arnie Kraby (retired Chief Pilot in charge of training) took us all into a room and explained the process to us. He gave a little info about Delta's new-hire planning (planning on hiring though the year but can't go public because investors balk at the addition of more pilots due to cost!).
The interviewees are divided (alphabetically) equally (that's 4 and 4 for non-math majors), with the former interviewing first and the latter completing testing first. I was in the testing first group.
The test consisted of 3 parts. FIRST (called the Cognitive Test) was a series of tests designed to test your cognitive skills. It consisted of a series of small modules from remembering series of number and repeating them in reverse order, recognition of a "stick man" holding a marshalling flag and determining what hand he was holding the flag in, to tests designed to test your multitasking abilities (keeping a moving object in one place while recognizing different number sequences in another place on the screen). Each question is timed, but the only time a question timed out on me was a "word" math problem that I was just about to answer when it moved on to the next question. Some people purchased accounts on "luminosity" to prepare them for this part of the exam, but I didn't. I think that as long as you concentrate and get a good nights sleep before, you should do OK. The SECOND part of the test was a personality test. You are presented with around 200 questions like "I feel uncomfortable in public". You can answer all questions with a Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, or a Strongly Agree. This is by far the easiest part of the test. The THIRD and last part of the test is a 60 question Job Knowledge test. You are given 60 minutes to complete the test, which is enough time. All questions are very ATP-like. This was the most difficult part of the testing. I left knowing I had a solid 60%, but probably did better than that. Everyone leaves this part of the test thinking they failed. They must set the bar pretty low since most people who prepare seem to pass.
After the testing, we went to the Delta cafeteria for lunch. We knew what time we had to be back for the interviews because they post a schedule of your testing and interview time. The lunch was good, but remember, don't eat anything you don't want to wear into the interview.
We returned to the waiting area for our interviews. Most interviews lasted about 30-45 minutes. The interview was very relaxed and I felt comfortable. There were three interviewers, an HR person, a retired Captain, and a current Captain. After talking to the others in my interview group, the interviews seem to be pretty standard. The HR rep has a copy of your application (from airlineapps.com) and one of the Captains is craniums-down looking through your records (to include OPRs and FEFs for military). The HR rep asked me to talk through my career starting with college. This was an opportunity to cover the highlights of my career--without belaboring the low points. Expect them to drill down into parts of your resume. They also asked a few other questions, such as "who was your inspiration to get into flying?", "how would you as a Delta pilot represent the company when you are off duty?", "You are the Captain, what would you do if (drunk people on plane/people showed concern of a Muslim cleric on the plane, etc.)". If you have any modifications to your application that need to be made, they will annotate the change and have you initial/sign the application. They will also go over your hours, and in the case of military, apply an adjustment of 1.2 (per sortie I believe).
After the interview, we all congregated in the waiting area waiting for Cpt Kraby to deliver the good/bad news. In our case it was all good news. Everyone got a "conditional" offer. This meant that we all would return the next morning (before 0645) for the remainder of the interview process. The last thing to do on day 1 was to get fingerprinted and get our pictures taken for our crew badges. They gave us paperwork and we just went downstairs at two offices to have this done. After this we were cleared off for the day.
The next day we returned to complete the process. Most people checked out of their hotels and just put their luggage in the waiting area at Delta--this was fine. It is advisable to bring a second shirt as you are expected to be in a suit/tie on day 2 as well.
First we all took a 567 question MMPI personality test. This one was agree/disagree but painfully long. Be honest, and don't try to skew the results by making yourself look too angelic. Word is that if you are too "perfect" the results will be invalid and you will have to retake the test. Not ideal considering it takes the better part of an hour.
After the MMPI test, you will meet with a psychologist. She started with "tell me about your family life". Then she will go into your career. She asked some questions that were asked in the interview the day before and referenced notes as I answered. She obviously had the results of the interview, making sure I answered the same. Fortunately I was consistent in my answers from the first to the second day. She asked what got me into flying and a couple questions like "what was the most challenging time of your life?" and "what are you most proud of?"
After the psychologist interview, the last thing to do is get the drug testing done. You can either do it at a place about 15 minutes away (private auto or cab) or do it later when you get home, but it has to be done in 48 business hours. Everyone in my group got it done in Atlanta--that was easiest.
After the P test, we were free to go. There was no group hug afterward, we just all went our separate ways. Most people checked out of their hotels that morning and left our bags in the Delta waiting area.
Our conditional job offers are based on a satisfactory background check. They say that we will get an e-mail about a month after the interview telling us the results of the background check so that we know where we stand. For our interview class (Feb 14) we were told to expect to be offered classes between Sept and December of 2014. An interesting aspect is that seniority within interview classes is by the last-4 of your social security number. Those with the highest social get the higher seniority.
There is a lot of gouge out there covering everything from the interview to the tests. The Delta folks understand that the gouge is out there and don't seem to have a problem with it. The biggest problem with the gouge is that Delta doesn't tell you how well you did on the test, only if you passed or not. So we don't know what a passing score is, or what the real answers are. Most of the gouge is good, but realize that most of the answers in the gouge are "what I put down", not necessarily the correct answers. I read Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators prior to the interview and read the gouge, verifying the answers that I could with that book or the Airman's Information Handbook (online). I do recommend studying a lot (I did) but the statistics are on our side. The interviewees have a good success rate. Just like Arnie Kraby said at the beginning of day 1, once you get called for the interview, the job is yours unless you fail the testing or interview. I also recommend Emerald Coast if you haven't done interview prep.
GOOD LUCK! |
