lgaflyer

what do u think they do in sim eval anyway? In all my sim eval with US carriers, they simply want to check your "trainability". I flew a 2 eng ILS following the FD. Oversea carriers would at least give me a v1 cut and see if I knew the procedure.

None of my sim eval asked me to recover from stalls or fly unreliable airspeed.

If he already had a type rating or 2, he should have no problem passing a sim eval.

hercretired

^^^ gets it

60av8tor

Or maybe he would've. No one will ever know. I think that's the point.

TiredSoul

Sim eval can be a useful tool for very specific purposes.
But for general screening purposes where 90% of your candidates have no time in type it’s just a guessing game.
You can come up with a dozen reasons why.
The OP bailed in basic systems training, never got to the sim.
So unless there’s a blatantly obvious reason such as divorce or death of an immediate family member….we’re still waiting on the reason why.
Like I’m saying for the 4th time now, that reason needs to be dealt with before you go about your ways learning how to sweet talk a failure.
Again, a resume is part of a job application ​​​​​​ and not your one and only component.

zerozero

It pleases me to read this, although the parenthesis aren't necessary.

As you'll remember I'm sure, the union was removed from the hiring process late 2016 (prior to the hiring of Conrad) by Flight Ops management.

It's good to have the union back in the loop.

lgaflyer

why is the union involvment in hiring necessary?

Atlasvet

Let me answer that as I have been involved in the Altas hiring process for a long time, with the Union participating and without.

Probably the most important aspect is that when you have the Union Reps on the panel they bring another set of Flight Ops eyes into the process. HR Reps bring thier perspective, but just don't really understand what the job entails. HR is good at weeding out sociopaths, criminals and other deviants (in most cases), but are kind of clueless as to what makes a good crew member. They also don't really understand aviation training, incidents or accidents or much about different aircraft types and flight operations. For example, they might just look at hours as an entry point, but don't understand the difference between towing banners and flying multiple legs in and out of complex airspace.

Under our system we commonly use senior, retired Captains, often with management and XCA backgrounds. We also use CPs when they are available. The Union Members bring the important element of recency, knowledge of current conditions like scheduling, basing and the most recent contract changes. They almost always bring a realistic approach to the interviews and are the best advocates for Atlas, the good, the bad and the ugly. Recruiters sometimes blow a little smoke, current pilots can help explain the realities.

At the end of the interview process, it is generally a consensus whether a candidate gets an offer or not. HR can down a person that doesn't smell right, but Flight Ops always has the final say, I.e. the ultimate responsibility. As mentioned the more pilot eyes on the individual, the better.

One other possible consideration is that Union involvement helps dampen the critics. It is not uncommon the hear;

"How did this guy get hired" or "Just who are you guys hiring"

It helps that the Union Hiring Committee has participation and direct feedback to senior Flight Ops personnel.

zerozero

Well said, thank you.

lgaflyer

i dont get it. Why is contract change/schedule/basing relevant in hiring? I assume Atlas has a technical interview conducted by a pilot (retired or not). Is that not enough to "understand the diff between banner towing vs. Complex airspace"? Is that not enough to see "what makes a good crew member"?

Elevation

We want a lot of diverse input in hiring and traiing because evaluators are human, and humans are fallible. What makes a good crewmember? I'd argue a trainable banner-tow pilot may be a better hire than a high time pilot at another ACMI who perpetually has some reason to find another job, and it's always some other jerk's fault. There are faults in my thinking. Others would place some value on people who have been flying similar equipment in similar environments. There are faults in their thinking. So it takes a lot of checking, screening and re-screening to ensure the person we send to the line is a person we want on the line.

People working for us have their own problems too. We have pressures to get people to the line. We have nepotism. We have conflicts of interest. Multiple perspectives and lots of input evens out these individual issues. At least that's the hope. Sometimes the whole thing still fails.