Stoked27

When choosing a Regional airline for your first airline job (goal of getting hired by a Major/Legacy), how much should someone care about a "Guaranteed Interview" program? For instance, Endeavor's program for Delta.

Does any extra emphasis get placed on actually hiring these interviewees, or could it be the opposite? Interview doesn't mean hire. Also, the program details state "The number of DGIs may be reduced by Endeavor if the total number of CJOs to Delta in any given calendar year is projected to exceed 20% of the total number of active status Captains at Endeavor."

Additionally, Endeavor isn't advertising larger Delta hiring rates than other Regionals (if the interview program yielded a better hire percentage to Delta, that would be a stat they would be bragging about).

http://www.endeavorair.com/documents...rogram_FAQ.PDF

To me, this means that Delta will most likely interview you after two years as a Captain at Endeavor, but they will be restricted from cannibalizing more than 20% of Endeavor captains. If hiring is in full swing, this tells me that there's a greater chance of getting hired onto Delta without growing through the 'blockage' constraints of their own regional carrier agreements. Therefore if someone wants to increase their odds of getting hired by Delta (Hired, not Interviewed), they should avoid Endeavor.

Am I wrong in my thinking? Is there something that I'm not understanding about the benefit of this program?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

rickair7777

I might well pick a regional for guaranteed flow, but I wouldn't grant much weight to a guaranteed interview. Several problems with that, one is if they get in a staff crunch they might well be inclined to interview, but not hire, their own regional feed pilots. So it's possible your odds could be worse than off-the-street.

Stoked27

Thanks Rickair. I still have a lot to learn about hiring, flows, etc before I reach that point, so it helps to know that I'm not evaluating that completely wrong. It sounds like it's a "bird in the hand" to know that you'll at least get interviewed, but there's more in the bush elsewhere.

Milksheikh

That's kind of what I was thinking as well. Why would delta take an endeavor guy when they can hire someone from one of the aa regionals and keep endeavor staffed. Its almost like they just go through the motions of "interviewing" the next dgi/ssp guy who otherwise wouldn't have been called and knowing full well they're not going to hire them. There may be some truth in this as the success rate is I bielieve just above 50% or something like that.

Baradium

The EDV program is the same interview as anyone else gets. The difference is you aren't fighting to get the interview. Keep in mind though that since you aren't fighting to get the interview you are being compared to people who scored that much higher on their application when you do get interviewed. There isn't a quota or anything else for the interviewers, but Delta might have the most difficult interview of any airline.

If Delta is where you really want to go, I think it's a good program and a way to at least get the shot. And you can still get an off the street interview even if you're at EDV.

As far as them intentionally denying people, I do not believe that in the slightest. They want EDV to be a supplier of pilots to mainline and the movement and opportunity to attract pilots to EDV. The movement is controlled by number of interviews on the front end to make sure all the CAs don't leave at once but that's based on how many were already accepted, there is no incentive to deny pilots to staff because that would just mean more interviews granted and more pilots now looking to go to the other majors.

Stoked27

Great points and feedback all around.

Milksheikh

So I guess the question becomes do the interviewers know they're interviewing an ssp/dgi guy? You say "you are being compared to people who score much higher on their application" which to me implies at best you have a mountain to climb to score the job at worst.. well you know. If you would not have scored the interview on your resume alone, will they still hire you?

Baradium

They'll know you're coming from EDV from the application. I do not believe they actually know the score. Under SSP the interviews were done on specific SSP days, DGI interviews are going to be with everyone else on normal interview days.

Let me rephrase. For a given person I don't think that the fact that you are DGI or OTS will affect the result of the interview. It's just that there are going to be people who interview on the DGI who would normally not be given one. And many of those will end up getting hired, but it also means there could be a higher percentage that don't than those who are more thoroughly vetted to get the interview in the first place.

Not having the "score" to normally get an interview doesn't mean they aren't going to hire you. But you might have a harder time with some scenarios or the tests because your background may not be as extensive. Basically, the idea is you are held to the same standards in the interview as anyone else, if your background is less extensive it doesn't give you a pass.

There were SSP interviewees who didn't have a college degree, they weren't even eligible to apply for OTS but at least some of them got hired. I don't know what the pass rate is, but even if that was a hill to climb (I'm sure it was), that was the only way to get to the proverbial top if that was where they wanted to be with their qualifications.

If Delta is where you want to go, you have a better chance of being there if you interview than if you never get the chance. There are lots of people out there who could pass the interview who can't even get one.

Milksheikh

Thanks for clearing it up. That makes a lot more sense now. As for this part:
Delta does want to keep their regional fully staffed, correct? In a similar fashion to how aa meters the flow down to the minimum contractual amount from envoy, when push comes to shove and retirements really start to ramp up, will Delta cut back on the hiring of endeavor guys to keep them running? Is there a certain percentage or agreement in place to dictate how many come to delta from edv? and can delta change that based on "operational needs" like aa can?

Baradium

I'm not at EDV anymore, so I don't have the exact numbers handy.

There is a limit to x% of the CAs can go to Delta in a year, if the number is projected to exceed that then they can slow down the interviews. Everyone still goes right away when they interview and once you have an interview date you still have it. Remember, they are using this program to attract people to backfill those seats, so stopping movement is counter productive.

The entire idea for this program is to make EDV an attractive place to go and secure a supply of pilots to Delta, the supply of pilots to mainline is supposed to be the primary of the two. AA is using the flow simply as a carrot and reducing the amount to staff the regional. EDV is part of Delta's hiring plan for mainline as retirements increase.