Why do you want to be an Airline Pilot?

Airline Pilot Selection
Written By Adam Howey

Transcripts are approximate. Email us if you have any questions.

Intro

00:02

Adam Sam. Why do you want to be an airline pilot? You want me to tell you all about why I want to be an airline pilot? Yeah, you could do. You probably answer that question. Quite a lot of times over your career formally and informally. Well, each talk about in an interview or in a written application.

00:23

Yes, exactly. Yeah, let's go back. I can tell you all about the magic of aeroplanes and yeah yeah. Do you want to hear that? Yeah, yeah. Tell me all about that. I don't think that's what you get. No what? What you want to hear. Well, it's the question. It always comes up.

00:38

Probably the most difficult to answer, but it's generally gonna come up early and it should really be your best answer. I agree is the only question you know that you're gonna get asked. Yeah. And if you're already a pilot and you're a direct entry, applicant is the variant of that, why do you want to work?

00:57

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Your Childhood Dreams

For us is the only question, you know, you're gonna get. Yep. So do these airlines want to hear about your childhood dreams and how much you love? Aviation how you got posters on your wall, and look at the birds and think, you know, it's a magical thing to fly.

01:15

Is that what they want to hear? There's definitely wrong ways to answer this question here, I can't tell you the specific right way to answer that question, but they're definitely you and I have read and listened to some very wrong ways. Yeah. And I feel quite confident just to say that.

01:34

Yeah, I agree. I think a ‘why’ question, I think the FBI say that one puts you on the defensive straight away, right? I think it frames people's response in the wrong way. If the airline or the flight training organisation was to ask you. What do you like about the idea of being a pilot or how are you working on becoming an airline pilot?

01:59

You would answer very differently. Yeah. Yeah. Why question? And that particular question. It's like you're on the Oprah Winfrey. No bad example. I don't know what's the reference these days like Parkinson and someone's, you know, this is your life. Someone's asking you like, why do you want to be a pilot?

02:16

And we're all gonna listen to like your most intimate feelings about why you want to be a pilot. That's what the question makes most people including me. Well, yeah, want to say, but I think what you're suggesting is a different response. We'll get you further than telling the interviewer about.

02:39

I don't know how you feel. When you see an aeroplane. Yeah, I I think a good point there, which I hadn't really thought about when anybody asks you why something. Yeah, you're right. You always on the defensive, why you doing that, why, why is he don't like that? He's kind of like an accusation, like why why do you want to do that?

02:57

Why do you want to be an airline pilot? But there is something about it. That makes you think you're supposed to tell this child, a story or at least a certain percentage of people feel like they have to tell this child a story and we would like to get away from that because there's nothing wrong with that.

03:14

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Evidence and Competencies

But this is an opportunity. When you're saying that interview or you're doing your written application, this is an opportunity for you to give a different answer. So my I actually wrote down how I would for the listener thinking about answering this question. Change the question in your head, to maybe what evidence do you have to show that you want to be an airline pilot would be a better way of the same question, effectively?

03:41

It's all about evidence, isn't it? We always talk about the evidence. Well, what are you getting out? And then so I'm getting at. Tell me about evidence evidence. Well, evidence is, is the why like, you know, what have you done? Why why do you have what's been airline pilot?

03:58

Because I'm passionate about it, but this is what I've done to show you that. I'm passionate about it, I've done this and I've worked at works here and work there and research this and and done that. And that's that's, that's the hard evidence to people side by side. And interview asked, why do you want to be airline pilot if they talk about their childhood dreams and how they feel about?

04:19

When I see an aeroplane and posters on their wall, that's not evidence. And you could have somebody that really does want to be a pilot and somebody that's never even considered it give that same answer. And as the interviewer, you wouldn't be able to tell who's telling the truth.

04:32

What posters did you have? I probably did have some places. I can't remember really, I had an aerial photo. Yeah, I just remembered that think I had like some VFR charts like and stuff on the wall every long time. Well I think we can be even more specific than what you're suggesting.

04:49

Well. Okay, there is an old fashioned idea of an interview and there is, what is exceedingly, more common now, which would be a competency based interview, or even a behavioural interview, which is maybe a slight variation. The point being that the recruiter, the airline the flight training organisation are looking for competencies to take off and your job is to give them evidence that demonstrates.

05:24

You have that competency rather than using this as an opportunity to tell them about the moment. You realised you wanted to be an airline pilot the let's call it flight training organisation looking for future airline pilots and they are actually list the things that they're looking for and this is just another opportunity for you to demonstrate with evidence that you have.

05:49

Those things that they are looking for and that is the way that I would go about answering this. And all of the questions is, I would know what the competencies are in advance, what the behaviours that they're looking for, and even this question, which is not worded as a competency.

06:07

Type question, what's a competency type? Question example Sam. So you could say give an example of a time that you've led a team. Yeah I think they always start with giving example of a time. Tell me about a time, their competency style questions. Yeah. So you might have an interview with nine of those but you can guarantee this one will be at the front or the end of the interview.

06:29

Why do you want the job? Why should you have the job? Why do you want to work for us? Why do you want to be an airline pilot? But don't be deceived. This is a chance for you to provide evidence essentially to get marks on a tick sheet that demonstrate you have the competencies that they're looking for.

06:49

And without going and reading the job adverse of a recent airline recruitment or flight training, organisation or or a sponsorship, or anything like that, I can guarantee one of the, if not, the biggest thing that they're looking for is motivation. Enthusiasm, definitely, because you can train a lot of the skills to become an airline pilot.

07:18

It said that you can train nice people to become airline pilots but you can't train airline pilots to be nice people. So you've got to have the right person from the start, the motivation. The enthusiasm is something they're looking for, believe it or not there are people that wake up and think I want to be an airline pilot and then might not actually be able to see through the journey that it takes and to become an airline pilot.

07:43

It's not, you know, rocky. But you know, you need to, there's a lot of days where you need to. There's a couple of years of knuckling down to meet the steep learning curve, that it takes. And my point is, I think that's one of the biggest fears of hiring ab initio pilots.

08:00

I pilots, I haven't done any training yet is how do they prove that they really, really want this. So in your why should you be an airline pilot? There's a long list of competencies that you can try and give evidence for there, professionalism, teamwork, communication, all sorts of things, but I guarantee the one that you can really tick off or at least, you know, is going to be, there is motivation.

08:23

Enthusiasm definitely yet. So, yeah. So you can almost reword the question like that. Yeah. You know, give an example of the motivation, you have to become an airline pilot. Think of maybe the question in that terms. I mean, if you're offering a, some kind of sponsorship or sweet deal in any way, yeah, it's gonna be people who just happen across the advert, and apply.

08:45

So how does a recruiter I don’t usually use that word, recruiter. How does the, you know, the HR department of the airline separate the chances, from the people who have spent the last five years, making decisions about their schoolwork about their work experience about their part-time jobs. They've been making these decisions all towards becoming an airline pilot versus the person who just thought.

09:11

Let me Google airline pilot. Oh, this company's didn't sponsorships where we're along the process. Is this question likely to appear? Do you think were how many times we're going to see this through an average selection process? I think, I don't think I've done an interview where they haven't asked a version of this question, right?

09:30

No. However, every selection process I've done has begun with some kind of written phase, which has the same question in it. And why do you want the job? Basically. Yeah, he often has to answer twice and a problem is often in the interview. They'll then refer back to your written questions or they will just quickly read your written questions before you take your before you take your interview.

09:57

The thing is about evidence is that what what, what evidence we necessarily going to have, you've not worked as an airline pilot before, but another way to frame it is, what do you know about the job? You know, how do you know what you're applying for? Yeah, what does a day as an airline pilot look like to you?

10:19

How? What is a good day as an airline pilot look to you? So how are you gonna prove to the recruiter that you even know what you're replying for? Exactly. So the written answer is is an opportunity to show off your your knowledge really as well isn't it? Rather than yeah, rather than just sort of stating that you really want this job, you actually, you know, it's an opportunity for you to put down in words, your evidence, your motivation, your research, what, you know, about the job already.

10:49

Does that differ getting to? When you get asked it verbally? Not really, I don't think. But I think probably when you get asked it verbally, you've got less time and so you've got to really to coin a phrase from you like more more, steak less sizzle, all mouth and no trousers?

11:09

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you've got to, I well. Okay, let's go back to where you began this before. I took us on the tangent. Okay, so we've this, we've you and I happen to have read maybe a lot of wrong ways to do this. Yeah. All right. Give me an amalgamation of a wrong answer that sticks into in your mind of 200 words.

11:29

Why do you want to be an airline pilot? Okay. I have wanted to be an airline pilot since I was a young boy. I wanted to the flight deck and saw a great view out of the window of the mountains. And I thought this is the job for me since then I thought about this job and career a lot and I've done everything, I can towards becoming an airline pilot Every day.

11:59

When I see a plane in the sky it makes me think. Wow, I'd love to do that job. It must be a really great career and I just couldn't wait for the first opportunity to apply. Okay. Well, I was lovely. Now. I think you're being kind because I've read.

12:18

Oh yeah, Ive read worse for sure. Yeah, one day I was in the garden and I looked up and I saw this shiny object in the sky and I said, mummy what's that? And she said that's a plane and people fly those and that's when I knew, now, mine's quite funny.

12:37

But both of these answers have something in common which is they provide? No evidence. No, it might be people, I mean there are like shows but it's passionate. Yeah, there's people out there who want to listen to your, you know, intimate feelings about your like goals. There's probably six of them in the world, right?

13:00

Everyone else is busy pilots. Yeah. And they're very risk averse. They do not want to hire the wrong person thing. If they need 10 pilots, and they've got a thousand applicants, they know that all 1,000 of you are going to be passionate, otherwise, you wouldn't be here. So, it's, it's differentiating between those that are passionate, which you all will be to, actually, who's got some evidence that they're passionate.

13:24

And who's done, you've done some work, who's motivated? Who's, who can shine me? Give me an example. Then some like you and I start an airline today and we want a sponsor somebody to be our first pilot. Okay. Let's just imagine what what's this person done? Except they're not being a pilot before.

13:43

Yeah, okay, okay, tell me what this magic evidence is so it doesn't need to be anything you like you say it doesn't need. They don't need to have had time in a jet before but think little things like I'm thinking back to our own CVs, you work an airfield, any sort of part-time job, that is related to aviation and just getting close to aeroplanes essentially dispatching, bad bloating working on check-in customer services, anything like that.

14:14

But it doesn't even have to be a job in aviation, just a job shows that you're actually hard work, as evidence of hard work, you know, motivated to, you know, whatever you've done within that job. You know how to be flexible, had a good attendance, even that is this, you know, a little bit of evidence in there, but trying to give relatable evidence, we talked about voluntary work, academic academic.

14:39

Yes. So you might have studied a degree in aviation or aeronautical, engineering, even you could probably even if you were coming straight out of college. You could say well I tailored my A levels to what was recommended as the best for becoming an airline pilot mathematics physics, English geography, those kind of subjects.

14:58

So if we, if we had like the ideal candidate, no, not the idea if we had somebody with a very easy CV to read, like they were in the, a typical, they're in the air. Squadron they studied aviation at university or aeronautical engineering. They worked as a dispatcher and now they're applying to this program.

15:18

Plus they worked for us as a volunteer last year or something like that. Okay, great. There's a lot of evidence for motivation there. And we might be looking for communication, let's say, and teamwork as well. We've put that in our advert. And so during this and so they could also use those examples just to give examples of evidence of communication and teamwork but double bonus.

15:45

Those examples are also extremely relevant. So you've given a list of things that give strong evidence of your motivation of why you want to be an airline pilot just to flip the coin, to the other side, a lot often. The people are quite young, they've not had all the opportunities to get exceedingly relevant work experience.

16:05

But what I guess you're saying is it doesn't have to be. And, you know, you might have worked in Tesco or Morrisons in the bakery Sam. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I've just found my list actually of what I wrote down as evidence. So we talked about previous employment, but I've got here education, subjects, any volunteering work.

16:26

Even spoke to someone spoke to an airline pilot. That is evidence that you are motivated or that's exactly what I wanted to get to. How do you relate your decisions to the job? Right. How do you know what the job of an airline pilot is? Yep. So you've got to tie together your evidence with what you actually know what you're applying for.

16:48

Yeah. Yeah. Because the job advert, you know, for a barman might say, serves drinks makes cocktails cleans the bar cashes up or something kind of tells you like exactly their different roles, but their job adverts for airline pilots, they normally say what a pilot really does just as desirable person should be a bit like this and like that.

17:09

Yeah. So as anybody ever contacted you to ask, I want to be a pilot. Can I give you a phone call? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I've had quite a few students. But I've also had like, you know, friends of friends children of emails or in fact, my plumbers son, who is 16 and is keen on being an airline pilot, he spoke to me.

17:36

So what do you tell them? Yeah. Well what did they ask? You asked what the job was like? Is it a worthwhile career? And what are the benefits? What are the downsides really sensible questions for 16 year old really well, what are you expecting? Well no, but you know, along the right light, he was asking along the right line of not only does he want to know for himself but he will be able to use that in evidence in an interview.

18:03

I, you know, I gave him some knowledge that you wouldn't get, you know like like you said the the application form doesn't say be able to fly an ILS approach and, you know, be able to perform a rejected takeoff. You know, it doesn't specifically list the tasks that you'll be required to do.

18:17

So, he was asking me about what the jobs like and so what could he do with? What did you tell him? Lots of good stuff because I, you know, as you know, you love it. I love this job but I did give him. I wouldn't say for me, they're not downsides, but they're things that you need to consider, you know, things like working at weekends working over holidays Christmas like I say, for me, not downsides, but definitely considerations possibly working abroad and so, at least, he will be able to go one day maybe into an interview and say I've spoken to it as you know, as evidence.

18:50

I spoke evidence was motivation. I spoke to an airline captain. He told me this about the job and that about the job. And this is a really good thing and this is what I'm looking forward to. Because he told me that this is what it's like, you know, that that is evidence in a very simple form and so he's got evidence that he spoke to you which is is his form motivation.

19:10

But also let's say he works in the bakery at Morrisons which if you don't know is a supermarket chain. Yeah. Sam used to overfill the doughnuts custom doughnuts. So you know, he might find that his time in part-time employment and he learnt to be a leader on the morning shift and having spoken to Captain, Sam Carley about that and he realises that leadership is a part of being an airline pilot.

19:40

Regardless of whether you're a captain or a first officer, or the most junior cabin crew member throughout the day, the teamwork involves aspects of leadership and you've really enjoyed that in your part-time job and you've managed to learn about it from the manager or role model, you know, from somebody else.

19:59

So speaking to you is evidence but also learning to connect what he now understands about the job with skills, that he believes he has, and then he wants to give evidence for. Yep, say why do you want to be a pilot? Well, having spoken to Sam . He says, you know, although there's big technical aspects to the role of an airline pilot, the non-technical aspects like teamwork make or break the day and and working, you know, part-time in Morrisons, as unconnected as it seems.

20:29

Actually, I've realised, that teamwork makes the the job enjoyable or not. And Sam says that, you know, that's either the most enjoyable or least enjoyable part of the job. So there you go, straight away. You've said a sudden like a great answer, thanks very much. I really like that.

20:44

Yeah, that's good. Say you know you're giving evidence that you perhaps have a skill or certain behaviour and relating it to the job specifically. Yeah and maybe expand that as wide as you can and you know if you're gonna speak to an airline pilot because by the way you will have no problem finding an airline pilot talk to you and you probably won't be able to shut them up and you might regret it.

21:07

If you called me, I'd be like oh yeah. Let me tell you how it's the greatest job in the world. Yeah, for too long you might want to ask in 20 years. What the the job might look like to you? Personally, what do you want to work towards? Well, this particular airline has a long haul and although I realise that might be a longer term ambition, that's something I'd love to work towards or, you know, the idea of being a captain is something toward to work towards or a particular aircraft type because that happened to be fascinated with that or of studied that.

21:39

And that's a way to be quite specific about whoever you're applying to in the same way that if you're applying to a training school in particular, they would hope that you understand a bit about that training school and the route that you're about to take because they want you to be a good airline pilot, but they don't want you to flake out the next 18 months.

21:59

So if you understand the different stages that you're going to go through, yeah, you might be able to espouse are the, this phase apparently is really challenging but, you know, I like that because I had this project at school, that we had a lot of mathematics in that. And that's a bit like the ATPL navigation, or something like that.

22:18

So your demonstrating, you understand the training? Yeah, any path as well until really want to. I don't, if you and I should go on now about why it's the best job in the world. If you ask me, maybe a little bit. But one thing I would say is that at different times of your life and the benefits and drawbacks of the job are different anyway.

22:40

Yeah. So as a young person, what I enjoyed about the job is different to what I enjoy about it now than if you agree. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, for sure. But you don't want to say where you get paid a lot. It's okay to say you travel the world that's quite cliche, all.

22:57

I've always wanted to travel and things like that, but you want to unpack it a bit more. And yeah, they're not you're not giving evidence if you say well I like the staff travel. Yeah of why you should be an airline pilot and everything comes back to the question isn't really?

23:11

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Competency Based Answers

Why do you want to be an airline pilot is, why should you be an airline pilot? Yeah. Why should we hire you as an airline pilot? Why should we throw money at you to become an airline pilot? Exactly. So competency based questions or behavioural questions are often answered in a certain format like Sam.

23:31

And I we talk about C A R. Yes. Which stands for context action Result, star. Same thing situation task action result, but the point is that in a typical competency question, like give an example of time, you've communicated something really well. You will give and 20% context yet, less 20 or 10 to 20 year.

23:56

Okay, say I was working at Morrisons at the bakery and it was bank holiday weekends. So we had twice as much stuff and people had called in sick action. How much percentage of your answer is action? That's gonna be so 60, 70%. So why is action the bigger part of their?

24:13

Because that is the evidence. Yes, so that's where you give the evidence. Yeah. And then result, we lived happily ever after, or I learnt this from their situation. Nice way to round it off. So it's harder perhaps to kind of squeeze that acronym into, why don't be an airline pilot, but still, keep that in mind and I'm sure we'll have a podcast where we talk about the CAR and yeah, method and competency-based questions another time.

24:37

But we're just specifically talking about, why do you want to be an airline pilot but with that method where you give 20% context and mostly action and you round it off? Nicely with resolve and we lived highly every after. Now I don't know, I don't think you should rehearse your answers and you can't you'll never know the questions you're going to get.

25:01

You will know the competencies are going to guess. You're going to get asked question about leadership communication or perhaps, even a lot more specific than that. Like, you know, difficult leadership of large teams or leadership of, you know, they'll be Interview, but you still can't ever. No what question is coming.

25:27

So this is what I wanted to move on to the the kind of not the specifics of the question, but there. Yeah. The okay, the preparation of the question if that makes sense. All right. Yeah. So no, you sorry, I interrupt you, really? Yeah, not really. So this question is coming at least once in your application process, definitely in your interview.

25:49

I mean, I can't think I must have had 10 interviews for different stuff in my career. How many things you've been applying right now? But I mean, like, if any had like three jobs, maybe, I mean, like outside of aviation. Okay. And I, you know, why do you want to work in the morrison's bakery?

26:02

You know, so it's always gonna come over. I remember that far back. It's always gonna. It's always gonna be near the start. Probably, I think. Say. And so the reason for making your best answer is twofold because you know, it's gonna come up and it's an important question. But also in my experience of interviews, if you get off on the right start and the right tone and you just give an impressive first, it just sells you in nicely to your interview.

26:29

If you give a, if you make a mess of your first answer, it can throw you off for the rest of the interview. So it's kind of twofold the importance of that question. I mean, think about it, if, if I start a business tomorrow. Yeah, and I want my first employee, and they can't answer.

26:48

Why do you want the job? Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're not up for it. No. So, you know, this question is coming, we've talked about how to and how not to answer it. So just touching on what you're saying there about the preparation of it. I agree with. You shouldn't be scripted.

27:09
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Preparation

You don't want to sound rehearsed. You want to sound natural but probably a little preparation. Would you say, is this definitely a difference between script it? Yeah. And you answer it in your preparation a thousand times. Yeah. The two are different. There's no limits to the amount. You should prepare for this question.

27:28

No. And if you do as we always teach the is it the socratic? Socratic. I can never remember method. Yeah, I sent essentially talking out loud filming yourself or getting somebody to interview you and hear your answer. Even if you do that a thousand times I can guarantee your answer will differ every single time very slightly by a few words here and there.

27:53

So there is a very real difference between scripted and prepared if that makes. Yeah. And I also that separate this out then let's talk about interviews. Yeah, not to obviously written applications where you will drive there everywhere again. Yeah. The the idea of practising out loud and the socratic method like the brains, got to learn to say this out loud.

28:20

I wouldn't, I would brainstorm over and over again on a piece of paper and I would start to weave in my competencies and the examples I want to give and the things I want to get in and weave into my answer. But apart from that every minute of the day walking around the house driving to work in the shower, on the toilet, whatever.

28:42

As embarrassing as it is, I would be not saying it in my head, not doing it on paper. I'll be saying it out loud. And once you put into practise, there was the way to say it. When she you put your mouth in gear, yeah, it does something to your brain and obviously, that's what you've got to do in the end anyway.

29:03

Yeah. And it's really hard work. I don't know after I've done like two practises or they might have lasted 10 minutes, total I feel tired, but that's how you need your brains life going for it. It was really powerful to me. So I remember this from back in our days at university when we were playing for our sponsorship CTC and I remember you came to interview me for the first time.

29:26

First time anyone had ever done anything like this and I hadn't really been rehearsing my answers out loud and I can't remember what what tool we must have used in those days, but maybe like a laptop that had recording on it or something or maybe just audio recording but you recorded me and played it back.

29:42

I'm sure it was on video. It must have been on a laptop and you played it back to me and I was like horrified at how bad I sounded and how how many ears and ums and how monotone and how I was in a fixed. Yeah, exactly. I listened to yourself.

29:56

It was the biggest, wake up call ever. I couldn't believe how powerful, like, seeing myself like that was and I just remember, you asked me with it again and again, and again, and again, and again, and it was unbelievable. The, the difference when you, when you see yourself and hear yourself actually talking out loud and how you can just improve it by, look at everything, you got to practise out loud Idea.

30:22

And then ideally, you've got to get someone around to interview you and we sort of strain into interview territory now. Yeah, obviously, but we could talk about interviews for a long time, but trying to stick to the wide, you want to be a pilot but then ultimately, you should be.

30:38

I can't even bring myself. You got to be filming yourself on you a new phone and perhaps not for everybody for me, that is cringe. It's horrible, it's awful. But if you watch that back I guarantee you're not gonna slouch again. Yeah, you're not gonna say as many times and so that's what you need to be doing for your entire interview practise that the proof here is that this, this is the question that, you know, is coming and say, this is the one you need to start with and start getting your answer really good.

31:12

But the downside is, it will to degree become rehearsed and that's not what you want and you don't want to fake being real but at the end of the day, you've got to be real. So people need to ask you questions. You've not thought will ask you this question and a slightly different way.

31:31

I guess. If you watch yourself enough times, you might start to see the interview robot and then you like, no, I need the personality back in there. Yeah. But at first, you need to get rid of all the awkwardness. If you have any and you need to get over of all their negative body language and and as well, but more more than that though.

31:55

Practising out loud and listening back to your answer. It's about it's just about rehearsing. You can't practise on paper or in your head so you just got to practise out loud and the 50th time you do. It will be exponentially better than the first and the second time you've done it but it's so tiring and you've got a cram in all your other interview practise.

32:17

So it's the same as the rest of the questions. Apart from this one is a bit of a trick question because it's not really a question about why. And you're not being an interviewed for a magazine about why you became a pilot, no, what we want is utility we want to know why you should be a pilot.

32:37

It's a shame that the airlines and the flight schools can't make it easy for us and just ask us what they really want to know which is what motivation have. You got to be a pilot or rather that rather than rather than leading you down this. Why do you want to be a pilot?

32:51

Yeah, well that's interviews. Become more objective and structured. Yeah, you almost just feel like, well, we're just playing a game. Say again, I just like, you know, we're word match and drag across my words to the other side of the screen and then there's like give you a tick I guess the, the clear the clear there, right?

33:12

Is once you've mastered this objective, task this hurdle of they're gonna, they're gonna ask you this riddle. Why do you want to be a pilot and the answer to the riddle if you, if you get it right? The wizard will open the door on your pilgrimage to becoming a pilot, right say?

33:32

So it's not easy. Everything is not quite what. It seems, you've got to play this game of giving them the evidence so they can tick and mark and say, this person really should be our well, want this person, they should be a pilot but at some level it's like why do we have humans to fly planes and not robots?

33:51

What people crave you can't always put into words. Now you've got to have that person sit down in front of you physically and yeah, actually sometimes now interviews or first stage interviews could be remote. Even you got to get the measure of the person. Definitely, and it might be a person you never imagine would come in the front door and all of a sudden you really want to hire that person.

34:15

Now, whoever's listening to this who knows? They want to be a pilot that's great but you've got to learn to add substance and substantiate that dream, and that's what we're trying to get across. There is a game to be played here. But, you know, there's always room for you to play the game.

34:34

Add the flare that you want to add to it. And that's your chance. You're not trying to fit the mould, you just want to fill in as much mould as like they want the foundation. You want to see all of that's there. And then on top of that, right?

34:49

You're going to bring the real person. Yep. Which a lot of people aren't able to do because they're so nervous or they haven't managed to fill up that foundation and then on top of that, you played the game of the competitions for you worked out the riddle, which is the question.

35:03

Why'd you want to be a pilot? You've actually answered with all this evidence. And on top of that, here's the real me, okay? Because I'm giving all these answers with the passion. The enthusiasm the motivation. They're so sincere that you wouldn't be able to, even be able to do this in a, in a, like, on a tick sheet or something like that.

35:22

Yeah. Because we're gonna hire this person and we can't get rid of them, right? Because you can train, nice people to be pilots, but you can't train pilots to be nice people. Once we hire a decade, we're stuck with a dick head and this is your chance to show them that I'm real.

35:38

I'm sincere. I'm the real deal. However, you want to articulate that. So, don't fall at the first total, which is thinking, this is a chance for you to talk about how when you're a child. You, you know, had you. Well, you watched Topgun and that's led you to this interview today.

35:58

Think about how this HR person and this pilot that's come off the line want to see that this person. Now of, you know, this is the neighbour, they always wanted the person who has done everything they can to give themselves the best chance today, and why lovely person that we'd love to mould into our employee.

36:18
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Why are you an Airline Pilot? 

Yeah, perfect. So, you need to speak to a pilot. I love that. I love that side of the job and just not have not. I still after 13 years of flying, I the day, the roster comes out is very exciting for me. I love seeing my roster and just seeing what, what I've gotten, where I'm going and what I'm doing, and who I'm with which, you know, do I recognise any of the names that I've flown with before?

37:39

That'll be a great day out. That'll be cool because that's a late start, or I'll be good because that's a night in wherever Madrid, that will be, they'll be fun because it's a long flight. And, you know, I like going there because the views are great. And I like the people there and I like the coffee there, you know, just anything, just all that.

37:59

Sounds like you just love it all. Well, yeah, but but never easy thing on day. Well, if I've got the stuff planned and stuff, but I just I guess I'm so made out like my favourite part is reading my roster which is done, which is no. I mean that is my worst part is the variety.

38:15

I just love the variety. Basically, I love the variety of the job. So if somebody asked you that and got that answer, they could get so much out of that. Even if they disagree with it, they don't think. Well, I'm, I like stability by understand that, you know, you can see that or look for variety.

38:31

Yeah, I think what you touched on might be the best thing for me, which is it's either the best job in the world. All the worst job in the world and the differences, the people that you're working with. Yeah, which changes every day. Yeah. So when they ask you when they give when the deer interview really, they're looking for somebody that you could be locked in a telephone box with for eight hours and still want to go for a drink with afterwards.

38:58

Like, you know, yeah, this is guy. You that sort of person. Yeah. And I think yeah, the cabin crew and the pilots are working with either make it the best day out or the worst day out. But like I said, as I've got older different things of meant more to me, and I think being able to earn a reasonable salary, but go home and be totally switched off from work.

39:22

I don't think about tomorrow, I don't look at the weather. Even I don't think about where I'm going. I don't worry about sales targets, I don't worry about monthly this that I don't worry about year end, you know. Yeah, don't worry about Clive and Sandra breathing down my neck.

39:38

Oh yeah, compliance reports, nothing. So to have a job and where the objective is clear. I have to get the passengers from A to B. And, you know, if you've done a good job or not because safety being the first priority is very obvious, if crashed. Yeah. And you go home and really the definition of a professional is nobody's gonna call me on the way home and say, why did you that?

40:05

Why do that? It's got to be exceedingly, bad. I mean, I could divert the aircraft and still nobody's gonna call me and go. Why did you make that decision on the day? It's up to you to act safely and efficiently If you're driving home anything. You know what I acted indifferent today that's on.

40:22

You you got a debrief yourself and tomorrow, you get to act as a professional. If all go home switch off and not what you know the job is either done or it's not done. So that makes sense. Definitely say why do you want to be a pilot as far as I'm concerned?

40:40

I'm sorry but it's the best job in the world and I had high expectations about becoming a pilot and it definitely exceeded all of them you say and so hopefully we've given listeners some ideas that they could use but also the way to answer this question and the fact that they know it's going to come up, they know it's going to be there.

41:02

Hopefully we've we've given you some suggestions and ideas. There's no right way to answer this but it's definitely, it's definitely a wrong way. Yeah, exactly. And down, right? We have say. So hopefully you'll find that useful. Cool. Cheers.


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Adam Howey
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