My DH is looking at applying to Soutwest. I have a couple quick questions about it (questions that I can think of right now at least
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I guess for starters, are they even hiring right now or are the only people going through training right now the one's that have been sitting in the pool for a while?
Right now they are training from the pool. The pool is almost drained though. They did interview in July and are interviewing in August...I haven't heard of anything after that yet.
How hard is it to get on there? I've always heard that they interview a lot of people at once, but then only a few will get the job....is that true?
DH had his application in there for years.....he finally started updating it after every trip starting in January of 2007. He got the email the end of March from a May interview. DH did not have the type. As for who they hire from each interview day.....its one of those things no one can figure out. Each interview day is about 16 guys (I am not sure how many now...they changed it to a 1/2 day interview instead of a whole day). When DH interviewed they took 12/16 guys. There were days they took 2/16 and days they took nobody. They have a DB (decision board) once a month where they review all the pilots that interviewed that month. They interviewed over 1600 pilots last year and hired less than 400.
Do you need to know people who work there to get the job? Or will he be ok b/c he doesn't think he know's anyone there.
Knowing people does help but it is not necessary. The reason it helps to know people is because the company posts a list of everyone interview that month. The pilots can then go and write an online recommendation up until the decision board date. DH even had some of his friends go and drop his name to their chief pilots before the DB (the CP are the ones on the DB so it helps to have a name dropped before since they are looking at tons of people that day).
DH doesn't have his 737 type yet, but he only has to get it if he gets the job right??
That is correct. My DH did not have the type when he interviewed. It is harder to get an interview without the type, especially now since there are so many people on the street that already have 737 types. DH said that right now that only 10% of the people they are interviewing do not have the type. Once you get hired you have 6 months to get the type. The day DH interviewed, I think only a couple of people didn't have the type. In DH new hire class, he might be the only one who didn't have the type.
Is there any word on a Denver base? They are huge here and I'm surprised there is no base here yet. Any idea if that would that be a Sr. base??
Not any time soon....we have heard rumblings of maybe a couple of years from now...but those are only rumors. They just openned Vegas as a base in October and Vegas was the city that they operated the most flights out of and it wasn't even a base until last year!
Hum......those are the only questions I can think of right now.
If he gets an interview, I'm sure he'd love any tips from your SO's.