Advice Please Making the 121-91 Career Change

[Stearmandriver]

Thanks to all who have given advice.

The term regional/major is an airline that, by DOT standards is classified as a major, but by pay and aircraft size is a regional.

I have tried on my resume to highlight the previous corporate work I have done but it doesn't seem to help. I have been trying to get back to the 91 side of things for 3 years. It is very hard to even get an interview. In that time I have had 1 interview and I obviously did not get the job offer (see above post for details). I agree that contacts are vital, but how are you supposed to get them? I have literally 2, and I bug them both to death. They are good friends but they don't have a lot of pull in their areas. I go in person to hand out resumes, but the majority of the time no one is around the office so I end up leaving it with a receptionist or at the least, sliding it under the door. It has yielded no results. Any ideas on how to even get an interview?

Strange, I've found that chief pilots (of the good depts, anyway, which are the only ones I'm really pursuing) are more than happy to talk to me. Most of them don't seem to mind the airline thing at all, as long as I'm not furloughed. They admit they don't want to touch a furloughed guy, but they seem to respect someone who honestly wants a career change, and isn't just coming to them because he needs a job. I'm an airline guy now, but I've spent the last couple years working on forming relationships with the CP's of places I'd like to work, and I think I've been pretty successful. Impossible to say until the time comes that one of them needs to hire, but I do think I'm in the running for interviews at a couple places. I don't think these CP's would take time out to call me out of the blue to discuss getting together, etc., if they were really just blowing me off. Who knows though, maybe I'm just dreaming...

Really though, I think if you're persistent and follow up regularly with good departments, you'll probably see even the ones that brushed you off at first start to warm up a little. I've found an interesting thing... it's the chief pilots of good departments (you know, the places you'd want to make a career) that are most willing to spend time talking to an applicant they like, even if they don't expect to hire for a while. These are the guys that know the value of having a pool of good people to choose from when the unexpected comes up. They plan ahead, and it says alot about them, and their company's policy. The places that ignore you until they need a pilot, and call you out of the blue a year after you sent your last resume and offer an interview, are the places I worry about.

Good luck, hang in there, and keep pursuing contacts. Nothing will happen overnight, but if you're persistent, you might find yourself in the running for a good job a couple years down the road!

 

[hotwing]

Just stay with it...

When I left my regional for the corporate position I hold now, I stayed in touch bi weekly. I built an impressive resume and made several true friends in the corporate network who helped me plan and carry out my goals. I had fun at the regional and learned a lot and my flight dept. liked previous regional time. We do operate a shuttle, but I am not part of that operation. If you really want to be a part of the corporation, build a "family" and set your goals...