SWA DB- DING You suck!

[ExAF]

Pick Of The Litter

It's like anything else that has supply and demand. Large supply available and relatively small demand. They can afford to be picky and patient, so they are. Their hiring practices have been pretty consistent over the years and it works for them. If you were surprised at how many they selected, you didn't do your homework very well. Good luck and don't give up.

 

[gern_blanston]

WHAT DIGUSTS ME THE MOST ABOUT SWA!!! OR THE PROCESS!...
WHAT THE HELL??? WHERE IS THE LUV???
It's disgusting! SWA you should be ashamed of yourselves. Thanks for wasting all our time and money. If your not hiring than many pilots, stop fu#$ing calling guys for the interview. Stop boasting about your company culture and how great your company is and sending these poor little lambs to the slaughter. Give us a chance, and STOP lying to us, saying "We want to hire all of y'all" . I just feel like I got hustled out of $8000 and 3 weeks of vacation.

If you were interviewing a hundred people for 20 positions, would you hire a guy with your attitude?
Have you ever interviewed anyone? Not to be too condescending, but do you even know how an interview works? They're trying to find a few people who fit a certain profile. You didn't convince them that you do.
Don't take it personally. We've all had interviews where we didn't get hired. Jeez.

 

[Jetjockey]

Good people get looked over, and bad people sometimes get hired. That is a fact of life. What can you do? It's a very competitive industry with an abundance of qualified pilots. Is any interview process perfect? I hardly doubt it. I agree they seem to select far less than they invite, but that's thier call. Most everyone knows going in that SWA selects roughly 10-20% of applicants. I too was turned down by SWA after having references checked. Was I bummed out? You bet I was, especially since I was furloughed. I have had excellent track record in interviews. I did not think I had a perfect interview. None of my interviews ever were perfect. Buying a 737 type does not entitle me to a SWA job. It's the type of interview that you can be stepping all over yourself, and they would still be smiling and laid back. I'll really never know the reason, but all I can do is learn from failures and try again. This was my first rejection out of 6 sucessful airline interviews. (2 major airlines included). Since the rejection I have had two other interviews with positive results. I intend on re-applying to SWA, and trying again next spring.

It wasn't that long ago that people were complaining about United's hiring practices. Back in the late 80's, early 90's it seemed you had to be a Navy pilot to get hired by Delta. FedEx is now like an auxillary of the USAF. UPS you have to know someone in management to get an interview. It goes on and on. No airline has the perfect hiring practice. SWA is a great airline, it is not for everyone. I think you can find flying happiness outside of SWA, but if that's your ultimate goal, keep plugging away.

 

[Juvat]

Really wasnt going to post, but it suprises me than no one else has. I guess most of us are just lurkers.
To all purspective applicants and/or interviewers here's is the skinny, at least from recent hiring practices, specifically June .
Over the past year and before my interview with SWA the only thing I heard about the interview process, how great it was! We're different from other airlines! We're a big family! Feel they Luv'! If you fit the SWA family! Sounds great. Im in.
Here's my experience-
Interviewed in June, the whole process was enjoyable. Everyone I met extremely nice. Before the interview started, SWA recruiters told us how great it was to have us all there and stated several times "We want to hire all of you!".
After my day was complete, felt great about the whole process, I couldnt have be more pleased on how everything went. Did better than I thought I would. No regrets. Before lunchtime, less the 24 hours after my interview was complete, references were called. holla!!! 3 weeks later, DB met, calls went out, I got nothing. Boo freaking hoo. Oh well.
WHAT DIGUSTS ME THE MOST ABOUT SWA!!! OR THE PROCESS!
I met roughly 20 guys the day I interviewd, I'd say except for maybe 2 or 3 guys, all seemed to be very outgoing, friendly, all pretty decent guys, excited about being future SWA new hires, if all went well. Out of the 20 or so there, the SWA DB hired 4 of us. Roughly the same number from the other interview groups in June. Most of the ones hired. seemed to be retired military guys. I was told out of the 100 or so interviews in June, they hired 20 folks.
WHAT THE HELL??? WHERE IS THE LUV???
It's disgusting! SWA you should be ashamed of yourselves. Thanks for wasting all our time and money. If your not hiring than many pilots, stop fu#$ing calling guys for the interview. If you want military guys, call just Military guys. Have a soul, for gods sake. Stop boasting about your company culture and how great your company is and sending these poor little lambs to the slaughter. Give us a chance, and STOP lying to us, saying "We want to hire all of y'all" . I just feel like I got hustled out of $8000 and 3 weeks of vacation.

SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!

Whew...I feel better!

Hopefully you guys at the August DB have a better chance.

flame away, flamers!!!

Gatorade:

Your post appears to be addressed to Southwest Airlines. So I recommend that you just print it out, fold nicely, stuff it in an envelope and SEND IT to the company you're so apt to complain about. My guess is that you'll get a nice reply from SWA explaining that the purpose of a job interview is simply to help them decide who they want to hire out of a group of qualified candidates.

Remember, for every one person that gets the opportunity to interview at SWA, there are probably 100 others on the other side of the fence looking in, wishing they could take a shot at it like you did. My recommendation: reapply when able, keep flying and landing rubber side down, and you'll get another chance to interview (if you haven't drowned in your own vinegar by then).

By the way, as a former military pilot, I tend to bristle a bit when I hear civilian pilots claiming that SWA hires mostly pilots from the military. That is factually incorrect (and I think you know it). I understand that you're feeling badly about not being hired. Who wouldn't? But don't set up military pilots as your straw man so that you can somehow feel justified in your irrational rant. That demonstrates what we at SWA call a "bad attitude," and bad attitudes don't get hired.

Good luck in your attitudinal rehabilitation and future interviews.

 

[roughneck]

We have been interviewing and hiring for a long time. Recently we have been doing alot of it. As a result the application pool has been thinned out proportionally.

I think it is safe to say that out of the 100 that interviewed in June the experience level of that group as a whole was probably not as high as say June 04. This is not a ding or insult to anyone, just an observation. This may be the reason that not as many folks got hired as you thought should have. As time goes by the "avg" number for flight times etc will decrease. Thus the company will be interviewing guys with less overall flight time and experience.

I don't know if this applies to you or not, you may be very experienced, but i think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw about the recent number hired.

 

[MDP727]

You might as well start hating AA, DAL, UAL as well because that's how it's been at those places for years!

 

[Stan]

"You might as well start hating AA, DAL, UAL as well because that's how it's been at those places for years!"

That is the problem. Southwest is suppose to be better. In the late 90's UAL was interviewing between 4000 and 5000 a year to hire between 500 to 1000 a year. That policy sucked big time.

 

[K-Mart]

This has the potential to possibly be the longest thread in Flightinfo history. Let's keep it going guys! Ha!!

 

[gern_blanston]

In the late 90's UAL was interviewing between 4000 and 5000 a year to hire between 500 to 1000 a year. That policy sucked big time.

So all employers should hire everyone they interview? That policy would certainly lead to a loser airline. Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to go to the interview.

 

[Torpid]

I think it is safe to say that out of the 100 that interviewed in June the experience level of that group as a whole was probably not as high as say June 04. This is not a ding or insult to anyone, just an observation. This may be the reason that not as many folks got hired as you thought should have. As time goes by the "avg" number for flight times etc will decrease. Thus the company will be interviewing guys with less overall flight time and experience.

Don't forget about all the guys (and gals) rejected more than a year ago. Most of us rejects have high flight time and lots of good LOR's (hence the reason we were called early on in this hiring boom.) It's been over a year and I haven't re-applied, but if it's true that they only hire 20% of those interviewed, than there are lots of experienced pilots still hoping that the second (or third) time will be the charm.