TIS
Wing, Nosewheel, Whatever
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2001
- Posts
- 366
I have been noticing an interesting and somewhat disturbing trend in the past three or four months. With jobs becoming more available now, I think it’s important that anyone vying for one of them understand what they’re getting into when they interview. The trend I’ve noticed is a distinct lack of recognition of the seriousness of personal character issues on the part of applicants with pending interviews.
Personal character is a key topic of inquiry in an airline interview and most applicants have nothing to worry about in this area. However, what I’m finding is that clearly some do and moreover, they don’t even know it, or they fail to properly grasp the seriousness of the things that will be found when their background is looked into.
Let’s start with the beginning. Questions about personal character abound in our society today. We see investigations into the way individuals conduct themselves at nearly every level of our society, right up to the President of the United States.
In an employment process however, questioning or investigating someone’s character and integrity is not simply the product of idle musing by malicious troublemakers. It may be a legal requirement, as is the case in aviation with the employment history and criminal history checks, or it may be that, on a very fundamental level, a company simply wants to know whether they are assuming an unreasonable or untenable liability when they decide to pick up the tab for a person’s wages, benefits, and retirement program.
No matter why a company chooses to investigate the background of a person they seek to hire, it is safe to assume that they do not do so lightly. Background checks are expensive, time consuming and sometimes yield results that all concerned would just as soon not have uncovered. For employers in aviation, an investigation that yields something of interest is an expensive way to find out someone is not a good candidate for employment with the company.
So what kinds of things matter to an aviation employer? Well, obviously, criminal things matter, but not everything will stop you dead in your tracks. When what is uncovered has a reasonable and acceptable explanation, the next most important thing that will matter to a potential employer is acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions if they led to a brief but definite foray across the line.
The fact is that all criminal things matter - to varying degrees. Some violent or drug related criminal convictions will automatically bar a person from being issued an airport SIDA badge. Such a thing on your record will pretty much end your airline pilot career right there. On the other hand, some criminal issues are contained in records that have either been expunged or sealed as juvenile records. These are generally things, which, while cause for concern, can generally be assigned to the “Things done while young and stupid,” pile as long as responsibility is accepted and a good record follows the suspect one.
If you have anything criminal in your background you will need to know the legal disposition of each and every issue that can be uncovered WELL BEFORE you go to the interview. You may need time to straighten a few things out. For example, if you had a minor in possession conviction when you were 16 you need to know that it has indeed been expunged from your record. If it hasn’t you’ll want to determine why not and get it done before you go into the interview. It’s really no one’s business once you’re over 18 with a clean record.
Another example lies in situations in which the court suspends judgment in order to give you a chance to prove that you’re a better person than the charges brought against you and the evidence supporting conviction might seem to indicate. Generally, you will be instructed that if you are able to keep your nose clean for some period of time – say anywhere from six months to two years – then your record will be cleaned up and returned to its former immaculate glory.
If you have one of these in your past, check you official record and make sure that the court and the clerks got the job done as promised. This is not a surprise you need popping up in an interview or worse, known to your interviewer as you deny any such things in your background in response to his inquiry.
Another group of items that matter more than one might think or than might seem reasonable are traffic tickets – particularly for speeding. The idea is that if you don’t care enough to obey something as simple as the rules of the road, how can you be counted on to safely operate a large airplane within its limitations and with in the regulations? It’s either that, or you’re not smart enough to conceal the bad things you do well enough to avoid getting caught.
Traffic convictions are looked at from a couple of different vantage points. First, there are the issues of how many … over what period of time … how long ago? Different combinations of these benchmark qualifiers will yield different images of the driver concerned. For example, five speeding tickets - in two years - 15 years prior - with nothing on the record since shows what may have been a cavalier attitude that has since been corrected without further incident.
On the other hand, a pattern of two tickets in the last three months with two more in the previous two years – during which a pilot is building time as a CFI – may indicate either a lack of concern about obeying speed laws or a complete disregard for the impact that excessive violations of this type will likely have on a budding flying career. If you claimed not to have understood this, the question might easily and rightly be asked, why you didn’t know enough about your chosen field of endeavor to know how important a good driving record is. Neither possibility is a positive interview subject and interviews need to stay positive as much as possible.
If you have a traffic ticket problem the reality is that you might simply have to wait before you can realistically interview for a position as an airline pilot. You might simply need time to a) not get any more tickets and, b) let the old ones drift off the back of your record. You won’t know until you get through an interview and learn the results. You might be able to figure it out though if most of your interview was spent discussing speeding tickets and the like. There’s a reason your aviation qualifications might have seemed to take a back seat – it could be that THEY DID!
Going hand-in-hand with speeding tickets are driver’s license suspensions, revocations, and restrictions. These are indicators that are commonly seen as serious red flags because they don’t happen simply because you got a ticket or two. These kinds of actions are taken by the courts either when a pattern of less than satisfactory road behavior is documented in numerous traffic citations, or when an individual fails to live up to civil obligations (fines) associated with their transgressions of the motor vehicle code. Neither is particularly indicative of a responsible person at the helm of a particular identity.
It is important to understand that these are legal terms and that each has specific meaning under the law. This means that in most cases there is a difference between them. For example, you might have been 18 when a judge decided to teach you a lesson about your driving. Some of your tickets might have been issued while you were still under 18 but as driving records, they are not removed from your record because they are not criminal history.
In his ire, the judge RESTRICTED your license so that you could drive only to and from work. This is not the same thing as the judge suspending your license so that you could not drive at all. So, in this scenario if you’re asked, “Has your license ever been SUSPENDED?” you can say that it has not. If you’re asked if your license has ever been RESTRICTED then you would have an obligation to reveal that it had.
Cont'd in Part II
http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=37159
Personal character is a key topic of inquiry in an airline interview and most applicants have nothing to worry about in this area. However, what I’m finding is that clearly some do and moreover, they don’t even know it, or they fail to properly grasp the seriousness of the things that will be found when their background is looked into.
Let’s start with the beginning. Questions about personal character abound in our society today. We see investigations into the way individuals conduct themselves at nearly every level of our society, right up to the President of the United States.
In an employment process however, questioning or investigating someone’s character and integrity is not simply the product of idle musing by malicious troublemakers. It may be a legal requirement, as is the case in aviation with the employment history and criminal history checks, or it may be that, on a very fundamental level, a company simply wants to know whether they are assuming an unreasonable or untenable liability when they decide to pick up the tab for a person’s wages, benefits, and retirement program.
No matter why a company chooses to investigate the background of a person they seek to hire, it is safe to assume that they do not do so lightly. Background checks are expensive, time consuming and sometimes yield results that all concerned would just as soon not have uncovered. For employers in aviation, an investigation that yields something of interest is an expensive way to find out someone is not a good candidate for employment with the company.
So what kinds of things matter to an aviation employer? Well, obviously, criminal things matter, but not everything will stop you dead in your tracks. When what is uncovered has a reasonable and acceptable explanation, the next most important thing that will matter to a potential employer is acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions if they led to a brief but definite foray across the line.
The fact is that all criminal things matter - to varying degrees. Some violent or drug related criminal convictions will automatically bar a person from being issued an airport SIDA badge. Such a thing on your record will pretty much end your airline pilot career right there. On the other hand, some criminal issues are contained in records that have either been expunged or sealed as juvenile records. These are generally things, which, while cause for concern, can generally be assigned to the “Things done while young and stupid,” pile as long as responsibility is accepted and a good record follows the suspect one.
If you have anything criminal in your background you will need to know the legal disposition of each and every issue that can be uncovered WELL BEFORE you go to the interview. You may need time to straighten a few things out. For example, if you had a minor in possession conviction when you were 16 you need to know that it has indeed been expunged from your record. If it hasn’t you’ll want to determine why not and get it done before you go into the interview. It’s really no one’s business once you’re over 18 with a clean record.
Another example lies in situations in which the court suspends judgment in order to give you a chance to prove that you’re a better person than the charges brought against you and the evidence supporting conviction might seem to indicate. Generally, you will be instructed that if you are able to keep your nose clean for some period of time – say anywhere from six months to two years – then your record will be cleaned up and returned to its former immaculate glory.
If you have one of these in your past, check you official record and make sure that the court and the clerks got the job done as promised. This is not a surprise you need popping up in an interview or worse, known to your interviewer as you deny any such things in your background in response to his inquiry.
Another group of items that matter more than one might think or than might seem reasonable are traffic tickets – particularly for speeding. The idea is that if you don’t care enough to obey something as simple as the rules of the road, how can you be counted on to safely operate a large airplane within its limitations and with in the regulations? It’s either that, or you’re not smart enough to conceal the bad things you do well enough to avoid getting caught.
Traffic convictions are looked at from a couple of different vantage points. First, there are the issues of how many … over what period of time … how long ago? Different combinations of these benchmark qualifiers will yield different images of the driver concerned. For example, five speeding tickets - in two years - 15 years prior - with nothing on the record since shows what may have been a cavalier attitude that has since been corrected without further incident.
On the other hand, a pattern of two tickets in the last three months with two more in the previous two years – during which a pilot is building time as a CFI – may indicate either a lack of concern about obeying speed laws or a complete disregard for the impact that excessive violations of this type will likely have on a budding flying career. If you claimed not to have understood this, the question might easily and rightly be asked, why you didn’t know enough about your chosen field of endeavor to know how important a good driving record is. Neither possibility is a positive interview subject and interviews need to stay positive as much as possible.
If you have a traffic ticket problem the reality is that you might simply have to wait before you can realistically interview for a position as an airline pilot. You might simply need time to a) not get any more tickets and, b) let the old ones drift off the back of your record. You won’t know until you get through an interview and learn the results. You might be able to figure it out though if most of your interview was spent discussing speeding tickets and the like. There’s a reason your aviation qualifications might have seemed to take a back seat – it could be that THEY DID!
Going hand-in-hand with speeding tickets are driver’s license suspensions, revocations, and restrictions. These are indicators that are commonly seen as serious red flags because they don’t happen simply because you got a ticket or two. These kinds of actions are taken by the courts either when a pattern of less than satisfactory road behavior is documented in numerous traffic citations, or when an individual fails to live up to civil obligations (fines) associated with their transgressions of the motor vehicle code. Neither is particularly indicative of a responsible person at the helm of a particular identity.
It is important to understand that these are legal terms and that each has specific meaning under the law. This means that in most cases there is a difference between them. For example, you might have been 18 when a judge decided to teach you a lesson about your driving. Some of your tickets might have been issued while you were still under 18 but as driving records, they are not removed from your record because they are not criminal history.
In his ire, the judge RESTRICTED your license so that you could drive only to and from work. This is not the same thing as the judge suspending your license so that you could not drive at all. So, in this scenario if you’re asked, “Has your license ever been SUSPENDED?” you can say that it has not. If you’re asked if your license has ever been RESTRICTED then you would have an obligation to reveal that it had.
Cont'd in Part II
http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=37159
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