This week we welcome Charlie Venema, who is currently a major airline captain, as well as the owner of CheckedAndSet.net. Charlie is an expert at helping dreamers take the next step in their aviation career. He drops by the show this week to share some pro tips that could help you land on the flight deck of a major airline!
Check out more about Charlie Venema at CheckedAndSet.net! CheckedAndSet is ready to provide you with access to professional insight and advice on how to best represent yourself, your accomplishments, and your ambitions in this very competitive aviation marketplace. Our thanks to Charlie for stopping by to share some of his years of knowledge and experience with the Behind The Prop audience!
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4-mile final. This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What’s up Wally? Hey Bobby how are you, fantastic. Another guest the local guests and another major airline Captain joins the show. He's been here before. His name's Charlie Venema. Welcome to the show Charlie. Hey good morning, Bobby. So Charlie is a friend of the flight school and someone who is a major airline captain here in the Houston area and he also does another big job works for his own company called checkedandset.net and he is helping future. Pilots become professional pilots at the major airlines. I think Charlie came in and talked our CFI’s a couple of safety meetings ago and we welcome you back. Charlie and we look forward to having this conversation. Thanks Bobby, glad to be here. So Charlie worked in the training department for a major airline for fourteen years and ran the recruiting department for three full years and has obviously responsible for hiring hundreds of mainline pilots for a major airline and today helps many of us no matter where we're in our career go from probably a cargo job regional job or something else to one of the major airlines specializing in airline apps and resumes. From what I understand that correct right. So Charlie’s here today hopefully to answer most of your questions if you're listening. But we have worked with Charlie and we. We've got a few topics. want to cover today. So let's start right off with people come in here all the time, Charlie. They say they want to be a professional pilot. And I always say well we can help you get there but being professional pilot means a lot of different things. We've interviewed the chief pilot for Goodyear blimps. He probably has a little different path than your most of your clientele. What are you when you meet someone. Maybe at the swim team or out and about and they say Charlie. I want to be professional pilot. What's what does that mean to you. How do you answer that question. What do you tell them. They should be doing to start that career path. We got to start somewhere right and a lot of it depends are when I’m having a conversation. Are you eighteen or thirty-five or forty-five or fifty right because your paths and Your options are different depending on where you are in life and professional pilot. There's lot of different outcomes for that too right so professional pilot am I to be professional. Corporate pilot might be a professional airline pilot. Am I going to go fly helicopters. And I think I think so because we can't answer every one of those down to probably two groups all wanting to be an airline pilot that while some get close and don't quite get there that's probably the dream of Johnny or Sue when they come in to talk to me about flight training. Of course right so. Let's assume they want to go to one of the majors at some point in their future. That means they got to get got to get their first certificate. Obviously but let's assume there's two classes there the high school graduate and then the career change. I think we most often talk about those two categories. So I’m eighteen years old. I just graduated from high school. College does not seem like the route for me to be a veterinarian, a dentist. I don't know what I want to be. I want to be a pilot. I've always been an always kind of been looking up. Well what's the I guess. Adviser thought process that you have towards that young man or woman that's just graduated high school find a path right and the nice thing with airlines. Now is there helping people identify pathways. You'll even here that that word used a career. Pathway all of it of course has to include flight training and it almost always includes college and the college come in lots of different forms and fashions. But it's always in my opinion needs to be in that mix. I think we're going to talk about some of a little bit but does it have to be aviation college degree. I get that always all. No absolutely not it does not So it the flight training should be structured and when an airline recruiter looks at a pilot's background where they learned to fly is a component of that and so becoming through a flight school. That's part one forty-one for example versus learning to fly that or a Neighbor taught you to fly in a J-3 cub in a cow pasture in Iowa. The part one forty-one training program is going to be recognized as a defined program with clear objectives and benchmarks The other part of that becomes the college aspect right. We're not talking associates degree here. We're talking four-year degree while we can take in stepping-stones right so you don't have to go out with the four years. I think the four-year degree should be the prize. But I think it makes sense to take it into sections if you're not going to do a for your traditional like an Embry riddle program or there's lots of other schools If you're going to do it locally. I would consider looking to complete associate degree thing first and then moved to the bachelor's degree. And here's why on a major airline application.
Almost every company will tell you that a bachelor's degree is preferred for some it's required delta airlines for example. If you don't have it four-year degree they're not even going to bring in the door but for those companies were a degree as preferred and that required their dropdown boxes. And one of the drop-down boxes is an associate degree. And then there's a bachelor's degree and then you've got a master's and a PhD getting from the high school/ GED box to the associate degree. Box adds value getting from the associate degree. Box to the bachelor's degree box adds value. So I think you can certainly go enroll in any particular program with the objective of getting the bachelor's degree. And I wouldn't stop when I got the associate degree but I think an associate degree is a logical hurdle. It's a feel-good moment. It's a pat yourself on the back moment you've got something and it and it has tangible value in the hiring environment but then keep going to the next level and I did the same thing in corporate America. I mean I got my associates and then went to a degree program which does exist for aviation that if you have an associate's degree it's a little quicker easier different online program to get that final merit badge of the bachelor's degree. Now let's take that eighteen-year-old person. We talked to that. Now I'm a career change. I'm thirty-five. No longer want to be an accountant. I have an associate's degree. Maybe in math or something. I've had a good ten or fifteen years run in my career. But I’m changing careers. What I want to be a professional pilot. What do you think or say to that person if you meet them on the street about where to go next. It's still flight training. I assume a has to be right. You got to get your ratings. Get your ticket but then you got to get a flight time right because one of the. It's not about not only having the ratings okay. But now I’ve got my ATP right because that's the pinnacle because you. You can't do anything until you meet the well. Let's recant that restricted. ATP minimums right so it. Because the first step would probably be go to into a regional airline because the United, Delta, American, Southwest, FedEx, Ups isn't going to pick up a pilot that doesn't have their ATP yet and typically competitive hours for those companies for civilian guys is anywhere between four to five thousand dollars a total time so that's down range from what we're talking about today. I got to get that pilot to that point. And he said restricted ATP. I think we've talked about on the show before What are the requirements to get to where you're qualified for restricted. ATP thousand hours as the number but a number of these degree programs help you get that right with a thousand hours. You have to have a four-year degree for right eligibility to restrict that. ATP you fifteen hundred hours for ATP. If you don't have the four-year big difference those could culminate to help in many ways and we know it. We've said it we'll talk more about today. Senioritis king so five hundred hours of flight time takes almost a year to get in most cases. You're a year ahead of your competition. Knock that four-year degree out whether you're thirty-five or eighteen. I think the story's pretty much the same flight training some combination thereof some college combination thereof. And then flight. Time to get to my number of hours that I need to even be considered to fill out an application and provide resume to a regional airline correct Now there's some other routes cargo, pipeline flying all these other ways to get these hours. Wally and I talk about it all the time and the best way to get there is being a flight instructor. I absolutely agree with you. And let me but let me rationalize it. Let's say a while just cart block almost every airline out. There believes that guys who'd been instructors make better students so let's make a baseline assumption that an airline subscribes to that theory and that's a safe assumption. And that's such a you said that before. And I’ve heard you say to me you're not saying that airlines think a flight instructor makes a better pilot. They make a better student. So when I get a job at the airlines the key is to be a great student what I’m hearing you say because that's really what you're doing when you get that first job. Absolutely just as an outsider not in this world for more than a few years. Now I pick up on that. That's a very interesting way to have that dialogue. Not that they're better pilots. They’re Better students and we can make them what we want them to be. How they how they should fly the aircraft which means my company culture my company way. That's very interesting. And that's a great way to encapsulate it. When an airline is going to you. Have the you have the fundamental skills. Pullback houses get smaller pushback houses. Get bigger again. What an airline wants to do is they want to in. It's actually called basic indoctrination training. Right they want to indoctrinate you into how that airline operates How they operate the airframes how they what. The culture of the company is how they engage with their with their pilots and flight attendants and with their customers. So being able to be a good student is a critical component of that because if you have the functional capacity to learn while then that's half my battle because I but if I can't teach someone out learn so if I if you've got that skill when you come in then we're miles ahead so with your CFI, if I’ve got two pilots. And I’m making a hiring decision. I've got to two resumes sitting on my desk. And everything is the same except one pilot has been an instructor and had not just has. The ratings has completed the job. There's fundamental difference there to the right. Okay you have the certificate fantastic but have you done the mission thousand hours of dual given right. That's an easy choice. The person who's been an instructor we'll get an interview for the person who hasn't. Wally, you've obviously flown with a lot of first officers and have been a check airman in many different capacities. I'm sure different airframes etc. You've said it many times on the show. The flight structure makes the pilot. I think we've talked about that but Hearing him say students very interesting what is your experience. Been flying with those first officers that have come up through. The ranks may be been an instructor at a regional. Does that hold true to you. Well I think what. Charlie has said about a better student That this is a this is an “ah ha” moment for me. I mean a light bulb just went off in my head. I have said over and over and over again that I believe. CFI’s make better pilots. And I’m going to. I'm going to change what I say because we're all students. We are all students every day. I'm learning. I'm learning from one applying. I'm learning from my first officers. They'll say let me show you something you know and Wow geez that's something down in the FMC. That I’ve never seen you know and we're all students and as a DPE. I'm a student. I'm learning things every day. Especially with you know. I see applicants do things with some of the electronic flight bags with foreflight. Like wow how'd you do that. And they show me but anyway. I'm going to start using that and I think that's a great way to look at it and I think it's a great way to approach the job as I mean. We're all students so Again I’ve always said that. I usually can tell when someone has some instructing experience and you know a lot of people have the CFI and they've never really used it. And that's a huge difference because we at my airline. I've seen some data that shows the best way to learn. Something is to teach something. And so what I have tried to impart to. CFI’s is the best way to teach. Their students are to tell them okay. Tomorrow we're going to work on Power off stalls. So what I want you to do tomorrow. Is I want you to come in and teach me and this is a ten-hour student pilot coming in and teaching the CFI maybe that's the best way for that student to learn is to actually. Come in and teach you how to do it in the briefing room. Obviously yeah very interesting. I think it was a powerful statement that we've we all picked up on. But I think being a student is maybe something that we can talk about. Best practice later to that they approach it even being a CFI is still being continuing student because there's no doubt we've probably all met cocky. We've probably all flew with the cocky CFI the one who thought they knew it all and the ones that are really great. The ones we're talking about now. They're still humble fifteen hundred hours in and know that they still have a lot to learn which is probably what the recruiting department and major airlines are thinking about when they get to that point any in keeping this kind of in buckets. We're talking about the.
I want to be a professional pilot. One day any other early on advice beyond get your certificates. Get your training. Get your flight time. Think about college. Whether it's a twostep process the you would tell and early on pilot that wants to be a professional pilot to be thinking about. All life decisions matter right and whether it's excessive exposure on social media or just it's crazy. I have four. Kids are all older an I used to. Just tell them you know what you're doing is going to make different somewhere else later and none of them would believe me but they all eventually in time have learned that I actually was correct. That late night party that turns into a public intoxication best. They're the drive home that turns into a DUI that you have to plead down to reckless the just. There are just all kinds of things that that we can do. That can get ourselves in trouble and when you have that obstacle to overcome in addition to everything else it becomes difficult so just it if that's your prize and if that's your goal and your objective is to become a professional pilot realize that and knock-on wood right that the world watches you and they and they look through a different lens they really do and I think they hold us to a different standard. Which I’m not saying it's bad thing but you have to be aware that the standard is different if forty thousand feet and the instill cone with a bunch of people behind this big responsibility right so higher standard. No question in probably justifiable at every sense. I do think man well. I never thought I’d be sitting here at a flight. School being a professional pilot myself. So maybe some of my college decisions weren't thinking about that but the eighteen-year-old definitely wants to be a fresh pilot needs to be thinking about that the thirty-five-year-old before they can before they spent one hundred thousand dollars maybe to get their four-year degree in their professional pilot certificates might need to look back and think. Is there anything holding me back right. I know with take it off line but there are some external services that could search your profiles on social medias and help you clean up with it might be a real thing for some people. I know in corporate America. I did not make some hires. Because of what was on my space page Facebook page the just would kind of show you. The true colors of someone in the recruiting departments at airlines are doing the same thing. I'm sure looking at some companies. they are. Yeah so. I guess what we all want. I think when people have that professional pilot conversation is the thing they need. The most is an interview right. And whether they know that when they're sitting in my office talking about flight training or not that's where they're going to start two thousand hours like where. How do I get to the table. And I think regionals is step one. We won't call them associates degree but it's the path one to a major airline agreed. So they got to get to the table a regional first and that might be a little easier today as we come out of this pandemic. Everyone's looking to hire everyone's looking to beef up. The hours are going to be important but showing values going to be key right. We talk about. How do I get my resume to look better at fifteen hundred hours than the other. Four thousand people that say fifteen hundred hours as well. What would be your advice for those CFI’s those cargo people those whatever they are that got the time to get there. ATP now or maybe they have an ATP. How do I get to the table when we have to go on the on the baseline that there's competition right so in the competition can be too and I just got beat out one other person right so I end before you get to the table. Your entire persona is encapsulated on either an application or a resume and that's it. The person making a decision on the other end has not met. You have never seen you and doesn't know anything about unless you have chosen to tell them that about you and that's where the documentations are helpful. That's where the resume helps. That's worth application helps. You've got opportunity to present yourself in a favorable light and over the years with the thousands and thousands of resumes and applications. That that I’ve looked at some people excel in that area where others do not and so we try and help people think differently and one of the things that I talk about when I have a client that comes to us with a resume that's essentially blank other than their name and their address and in a very short list of where they've worked as I was talking about transferable skills and what's a transferable skill. What are you doing in your job right now that adds value to your employer and would be value added to a future employer. What did you do in your job before that. There was a transferable skill and it doesn't have to be a pilot skill right. It can be a leadership skill. It could be followership skill. It can be a communication skill. it can be a teaching skill. But how have you added value to where you are where you are now and perhaps where you've been and how as the person reading your document am I. Picking up on. Is that going to be value added to my company so people listen and I have a thought as I heard a tow bar think crunchy crunch. In the in the hangar.
What if I’m just a ramper. And I’ll ever gone really has pulled planes in out. How am I going to share that value to future employer like regional airline. And that's a fabulous question Bobby. And there's a story that I tell from my early management days. I had a single direct report and he was a ground instructor at my company and he would call himself “Justa” and he would come into my office Charlie. I'm just “Justa” ground instructor. And my biggest challenge for him was to get him to realize that he wasn't just a ground instructor and he was the only guy in our building that knew about doors emergency equipment and the CFR’s ours that were related to that. He was the only guy that had subject matter expertise on a lot of different things and he was a critical breakpoint. And I needed him to embrace the fact that he was much more than what he set himself out to be on an org chart chur positions down towards the bottom. But it's not about that. It's not wearing on the org chart. Even that guy in the bottom adds value. Your ramp guy is adding value. Hopefully he didn't ding the airplane right. But you but my point is that it is. It's about perspective. Well and I. And I try to teach them to this conversation that they are the customer service faced this this organization whether the windshields cleaning I clean as part of their duties but it changes the game when. Wally gets in the plane to do check ride and has a reflection moment on. Is this a great place or not a great place. Are they preparing their aircraft. The right way. Do I need to worry about where the oil is at right now. The windshields dirty is need to start worrying about the tires. it is a reflection. I had a. I had break-up moment with my team. Arguing about a full trash can this week because it did not provide the Bucky’s experience. And if you don't live in Texas you probably know what Bucky’s is but they make billions of dollars a year for clean bathrooms right. It's an it's an experience thing it's not. It's just a convenience store but it's just a different experience than any other convenience store. And that's what I’m hoping to strive for here. And I think a ramper could say I was the janitorial lead along with the customer service representative safety free for all four hundred sixty-two days of my time and you could turn that quote unquote lowest square on a work chart into something. That sounds like the most important person at the company because quite frankly they are if they don't bend airplanes it in and I agree with you with a caveat and the caveat is anything that that you choose to write on an application or resume considerate as fodder for the interview right. So if I come in with an and we're going to interview. I'm going to use as the interviewer. I'm a use your resume as a source of things to converse about. So if you write it you must be able to sell it. And so that's at a hundred percent on board with you. But I just I want the asterisk on the end. That says they don't overdo it correct. Yeah right because I tell my clients all the time write what you want to sell. Don't write what you can't sell and also the other reason that we don't write for our clients. So when I engage with somebody I don't do I don't put the words on paper for client. I'll guide the client to the objective. And I tell him why. I'm like listen when it comes time when you get the interview. I'm not there to sell it for you. And so if you're trying to sell what I wrote you may or may not do well but if you're going to sell what you wrote you're always going to knock it out of the park will question. I see where there's probably a lot of resumes out there with a stretch marks on them were bent that line a little bit from where they were. I've heard horror stories of just out right out lies on resumes right. We're not suggesting any of that. We're suggesting challenge. Your manager challenged around you. If you don't know if I you provide ask people would value. Did I provide in the last twelve months yourself. Look in the mirror yeah right. Don't come to work in clock in and then clock out and go home or am I- the instructor that says to a student or when a student comes to me and says Charlie. I'm just. I'm struggling I’m not. I'm not understanding what it is that we're trying to do on this kind of approach. Am I the kind of instructor that says. Don't worry about it. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Or am I the instructor. It says you know what. Let's peel in this briefing room over here open. Let's go spend fifteen minutes on it. And see if I can get you your brain wrapped around this so that tomorrow's flights a little easier making the difference right and I it doesn't have to be a billable moment it can be a professional moment. What about other things as it relates to the resume right we. We've talked in the past about volunteerism you know. How do I volunteer.
I think we both agree volunteering as important. Might find something you're passionate about. What about Extra work around companies the flight school participating in a podcast. maybe whatever. those things might be. Does that really start to add up not just for conversational topics but hey I am going above and beyond Well. It adds up while one of course it can. It's something that you can talk about in an interview but to if you choose to do other things you develop like Wally was talking about earlier your student. If I’m still continuing to soak things up in learn all it does is make me a better professional. So if you're thinking to yourself. Man what can I do. I need something to write on a resume. Take a look around where you are right now. Where is there a need whereas their avoid. Where's their niche. Where is there something that you have an interest in the last thing you want to do is be the go-to person for something that you dread right because we know what your performance is going to be like. If you don't like doing what you're doing it's going to be dreadful. It has to be something that you've got a little bit of interest in. We’re not trying to kiss anyone's caboose. You're trying to develop yourself personally and professionally. And there are some tangible benefits to that development. Along the way well as I have a very different history. But I’ve been doing this for the last four or five years now Wally he was gracious enough to teach a free course in our flight school. I think we called it over coming. Check writing anxiety had never which blew my mind is a corporate America. Guy had never built a PowerPoint and we work through it. He built a PowerPoint. It was on his iPad. Think pages are was x. Or something yeah. And he came in and we worked through getting it on the screen and it was amazing but even at his age thirty years plus into a major airline job. You can learn things that don't necessarily apply to the major airline job and still give back to aviation. I think right And if he was a young man trying to get on with an airline. I bet he would talk about doing presentations for junior pilots. And helping them overcoming anxiety and that would provide some conversational topic in some weight in that interview and but in a totally agree and a pro pages or whatever the application just you are a better not only a better pilot but a better person right. Because you've taken that opportunity to help somebody else. Which I think is what the whole purpose behind the prop is right. I think so all good stuff so far. Let's try and put a bow on this episode and talk a little bit of best practices. Charlie I hear it all the time from flight. Instructors students they fail their private. They just talked to him four months before and they wanted to be a professional pilot. Now they fail that first check ride. They think they're doomed. They're done they'll never get a job with an airline. How true is that and what other what other things are urban legends that we could dismay with people today. Training failures happen it’s an ego bruise when does I can relate personally that the issue is about patterns of behavior. So if you've had a private pilot failure and that's your first one and you've got to go redo it take it as a learning moment right. Reflect back and say to yourself okay. Now when I’m going to work on my answering my commercial. I know what my level of performance needs to be in the game. Am I ready for that game. And don't take the check ride until you're ready for the game but it's what an airline would be looking for a be a pattern of failures right. If you failed your private and then you failed your instrument and then you failed you commercial and then you fail your multi-engine that's a rough start. That's going to be hard to recover right. A single failure even two failures are not going to be difficult to recover from. But you got to own them and you have to take ownership of that. No airline is looking for perfect pilot. Bobby one doesn't exist right. Not even Wally and so. It's a bow in the analogy. That I like to use. It's never about the fumble. It's always about the recovery right. You fumbled the ball. It's okay right. You go to the sideline who would next time. You come out on the field. They're going to give you the ball again. I promise you
Are you going to be to the point choking just say oh my gosh. I can't believe they want me to do this again. I screwed it up so bad. The last time. Or you're going to go for the end zone and get a touchdown so it's you have to embrace the fact that it all training is a challenge. But you got to rise to the occasion on it so if you have a failure. It's okay if you have two. That's okay but you're want to keep things from becoming habitual and patterns of habitual behavior. Generally not good indicators. So let's jump to the resume. We talked a little bit about resumes in an earlier segment of the show. We talked about adding things. If I’m that ramper and I put all these embellish all his greatness that I accomplished and it becomes two pages three pages four pages. What's too much on a resume for an airline industry. Standard is one page document. You're lucky if anyone who's reading it spends more than twenty to thirty seconds gone through the document. How fancy does that document. He doesn't need that. my picture. A bunch of swirls and the whole hard and no. She's a me in plane. My solo pictures in fact at the level of were I’m playing the game at the major airline. Level should not include a picture at all No airline can make a decision hiring decision based on age of necessity race gender cetera. So if you are showing me and you're playing that card it's technically should not be in my field of view as a recruiter. So no I would not include a photo on my resume. Please don't include the airline's logo on your resume. That's trademark owned by the airline that you're applying to don't take their stuff and put on your document it's not yours to have if you want to put their colors as a border. I'm okay with that right. But if we're applying to FedEx don't put a FedEx logo on the on your FedEx resume bad form purples who good color. you know. everyone gets what you're trying to do there. And you can be subliminal. I'm not trying to make all resumes for FedEx purple but just think about twenty to thirty seconds. What do I want my audience to know. They got to know how to contact me right. They got to know what my qualifications are. Do you meet the minimums. So that's going to be at the top of the document. How much time do I have does. Is it applicable for the job to have the ratings that I need to have this job and then you're going to have an I don't call it work experience. I caught professional experience. Bobby works Job. we're talking about a profession right and this is something that I think all of us are into this because we got bit by the bug and we love to fly so in my mind thinks that our aviation wrapped around this is about your profession. Not your job and so you go in and take. We're not writing an autobiography. We’re talking about high level nuggets of information. Those transferable skills that you're right to tell story about your you're planting those seeds on her resume and it's a one-page document right. Just think about twenty thirty seconds when somebody picks up eh needs to be clear needs to be clean and easy to read no wing. Dings no pictures. No fancy things you know. If you're literally putting it on paper it goes on a on a white off wider or linen colored paper cream colored linen paper. It doesn't have glitter doesn't have sparkles. Doesn't smell pretty doesn't read like a tweet either. Though right I mean there's got to have some professionalism, so comic sans font versus another while. While font does matter right size of the font. You know the same font. Maybe what should be the same right yeah. I've seen a lot of resumes with three four different types of fonts and then the font will vary and we could have a whole podcast just on that it but presentation matters. How do you look on paper because how you look on. Paper is going to preset my brain. How you're going to look when you're sitting in my office when I’m interviewing you and I’m an ex-Microsoft guy so when something's not into the right way I see it and I don't know if airline recruiter sees but it just shows to me it shows a level of not caring almost like I don't get this is out of whack. Its attention to detail to write and my first client that I had this afternoon. I've got a coach him that he used his wife's name on a document. That's autofill mistake right so. Take the time to proofread your work. Yup Wally I've spent most of the show talking to Charlie.
What final thoughts do you have. I know you have children. They want to be professional pilots. One day and I’m sure you've been a big mentor to them. What what's your guidance to them. And I guess to that point. I'll ask you but you'd be thinking about Charlie what about acronyms on those resumes. Have you proved your own daughters resume and you have a thought on acronyms and how many acronyms they have versus real words. I think that we get caught up in this we've said. ATP a dozen times and the person that walks in this room and wants to be a professional pilot. They have no idea what that stands for right so does that matter and aviation and recruiting and hiring. And what are your thoughts on that. I'll let Charlie speak to that. But I would say I would want to resume because not only is a pilot going to be reviewing resume but someone who's working in. HR is going to be reviewing resume. Course they're going to be working for an airline so they're going to know things like ATP and everything but You know there could be some aviation acronyms that get down in the weeds You know we you know as professional airline pilots. We're doing a PA to the people in the back. We try to tell them what. The weather is at our destination. We don't say it's six hundred broken you know it's mostly cloudy skies. That's what the person wants to know. We don't give a flying domestically. I don't give him a temperature in centigrade. I give it to him in Fahrenheit. So I want them to know what the weather is partly cloudy skies. Eighty-two degrees is what they what they want to know So yeah I would on the surface. I would think you would want to stay away from a lot of some of the acronyms. I don't know. Charlie maybe can expand on that a little bit. I think a lot of. I'm trying to think with the level. I'm eighteen or applied to my first regional job. There wouldn't be a lot of those and most of the ones that you like. ATP for example. Right if i were putting on a resume I would spell out airline transport pilot but then I would put AMEL. at the end right and or you could just if we're handcuffed by real estate on a resume and one pages tough. If you're doing no acronyms right. If you spell everything then we could run into that trouble. So there are widely accepted things with that. But I’m trying to in in my brain. I'm rack through things that I would expect to have seen on a resume from. That's a flight instructor. And I don't see it rich in acronyms. If you're getting to the point where you're talking about types of approaches and it's that's minutia. CFI, CFII It seems to me early normal. Very normal Charlie. It seems to me there was something on my daughter's resume that she had She had CFI and CFII with a gold seal and how she had it worded You suggested something a little bit differently. I don't recall the exact okay but words could matter and the way that we present ourselves as I think the key acronym sound to be okay. Probably not to where it sounds like. You're speaking in tongues but be smart. Ask another pilot to review it. Maybe someone in aviation doesn't not in aviation that doesn't understand all those to review it and does it read and make enough sense to present a someone one part of it to see the flip side to keep in check with that. Is that your audience. You're not applying to a position that's not aviation likely right. You got to know your audience around. If I’m an ask for a flight instructor job with you you're going to understand if I use some acronyms on my document. Now if I’m going to go apply for a job as an engineer somewhere in a different field then I’m probably going to tailor my document in the different ways a lot of sense so I guess the last question that I have and I’m so glad I think we're all glad that we're making this turn from being a little scared. What COVID is going to do the aviation industry where we're at today. And I think rewind eighteen months ago everyone was hiring. Feels like we're almost back there already. You sound busier than you've ever been before with both your aviation your airline job and your aviation business checked and set what should people that are right at that. Fifteen-hundred-dollar mark be doing today should they. Should they be waiting to pick the right airlines. I hear I hear people that are saying. I can't wait maybe they're going to be signing bonus assume is seniority. The key thing what would be your guidance to my flight star who as fourteen hundred and ninety-nine hours and they want to go to work as an airline pilot. They want to be the major one day is take the first job I can get is it. How do you think of that. I guess is my closing question for each early. If you wait until you're sure the opportunity is going to be gone. So I’m not saying. Take the first thing that comes on your road. I but to try and out game what you think might happen. I mean heck just look at the period of time that we've been doing with covid right. Who could have predicted with any degree of certainty. What was going to happen over. The course of the last eighteen months to nobody. Nobody so who with any degree of certainty can forecast the next eighteen months. And say it's going to happen you. Can't you know there's so many different things and then you know Wally with us have all been around in this crazy business for as long as we have seen every evolution of good in in in different in what I always tell people is you got to make the right decision for you right so and if that means that you have to have the signing bonus will then you can wait if that means that you want to go on and start building your flight time because you realize that seniority makes a difference and then absolutely does then. That's the right thing but the other part of this too and my world is you take it's about the right job and just let me kind of give you an example I. I've worked with clients that have taken the wrong job. And I don't mean that it was. It was a good job right. Paid while fluish nice shiny jet but they were absolutely miserable doing that job and when you are miserable and you are browbeaten and when you don't like what you're doing even though you love flying airplanes while you lose that miserableness and when you get to an interview you run the potential oozing. How miserable you are in. your job. doesn't sell well so but if you're happy where you're flying and maybe you're not making as much money and maybe the airplane is in his shiny as fast isn't as cool. But you genuinely love what you do. That transmits the does. Wally closed with you with a comment. We actually had yesterday in a side conversation. What's the best airline to work for. The best airline workforce one that hires you and that's something that I think probably pilots of your era of would believe because it was much more difficult back in those days we just went through a flip flop of get the fifteen hundred. I'm going to get a job too. I might need to get four thousand before. I get a job too. We're back to this. Number looks closer to fifteen hundred. But I do think there is this value to being professional pilot at a regional airline. That's going to pay dividends to everyone that asks that question and they should take the one. That's probably there sooner than later unless it includes misery for sure but with that Charlie. We really can't thank you enough for joining the show again. His company is checkedandset.net. And we hope you all become professional politics. That's the goal. You're seeking for fly safe and stay behind the prop.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Show creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This show is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!