FreightDawg,
I agree with most of what you say with few exceptions.
True, lately letters can only help you once you get the interview; true, most of the recent new-hires with heavy experience go to ANC as it is our junior base.
In the past, I’d been to numerous job fairs attended by UPS and remember that for several years they kept talking about switching to an automated selection system, a la JetBlue’s, to avoid having people bugging them about their friends they wanted hired. They said they were swamped with visits, phone calls, faxes, emails, etc, etc.
Two years ago, they even said that eventually they'd stop accepting resumes at job fairs; however they would gladly review them to let you know if you met all their basic minimums, and to make sure your name was in the computer system, etc.
The ANC deal where the FAA and UPS were nervous over pairing new-hire FOs with new captains who maybe only had domestic experience was a totally separate issue – that’s why they created the transoceanic over-water requirement. Even then, it was a temporary fix and the requirement is gone.
So basically I agree with you that in the past a recommendation helped you to get an interview – once you got the call for the interview it was up to you to get hired.
Nowadays, YOU have to get selected for the interview (largely by a computer system) and then your recommendations are reviewed. They will especially come in handy if you struggled through some areas of the interview. It's a system they long advocated, at least at the job fairs they attended at the time - it just took them a while to have it implemented.
JetBlue has been using a similar computer based system for years and some people like it and some people hate it.
The main objective was to give the HR folks some breathing room and whether that succeeded or not, only they can tell. I’d imagine that once people realize how the system works they might be left alone - at least until someone's friend gets his/her interview scheduled…Then I bet you there will be folks knocking on that door all over again…
I agree with most of what you say with few exceptions.
True, lately letters can only help you once you get the interview; true, most of the recent new-hires with heavy experience go to ANC as it is our junior base.
In the past, I’d been to numerous job fairs attended by UPS and remember that for several years they kept talking about switching to an automated selection system, a la JetBlue’s, to avoid having people bugging them about their friends they wanted hired. They said they were swamped with visits, phone calls, faxes, emails, etc, etc.
Two years ago, they even said that eventually they'd stop accepting resumes at job fairs; however they would gladly review them to let you know if you met all their basic minimums, and to make sure your name was in the computer system, etc.
The ANC deal where the FAA and UPS were nervous over pairing new-hire FOs with new captains who maybe only had domestic experience was a totally separate issue – that’s why they created the transoceanic over-water requirement. Even then, it was a temporary fix and the requirement is gone.
So basically I agree with you that in the past a recommendation helped you to get an interview – once you got the call for the interview it was up to you to get hired.
Nowadays, YOU have to get selected for the interview (largely by a computer system) and then your recommendations are reviewed. They will especially come in handy if you struggled through some areas of the interview. It's a system they long advocated, at least at the job fairs they attended at the time - it just took them a while to have it implemented.
JetBlue has been using a similar computer based system for years and some people like it and some people hate it.
The main objective was to give the HR folks some breathing room and whether that succeeded or not, only they can tell. I’d imagine that once people realize how the system works they might be left alone - at least until someone's friend gets his/her interview scheduled…Then I bet you there will be folks knocking on that door all over again…
