Net­work­ing is a crit­i­cal part of any air­line pilots job search or when try­ing to move up the career lad­der to another air­line. It is good prac­tice to con­tin­u­ally be work­ing on your net­work when you have a pilot job and espe­cially when you don’t have a job.

Who Should be in Your Network

As a smart air­line pilot you should include in your pilot job search net­work any­one who can assist you to find a job or a bet­ter job. Your net­work may include pilot con­nec­tions you have made via online net­work­ing sites such as Linkedin, co-workers at your cur­rent pilot job or other jobs you have held. Don’t for­get about friends and friends of fam­ily mem­bers, peo­ple you knew in col­lege and friends you have met that have sim­i­lar interests.

Almost Every Pilot I Know Got Their Job by Networking

I have been in avi­a­tion for a very long time and almost every pilot I know got their job by net­work­ing and know some­one that could help them get the pilot job. Some stud­ies indi­cate that over 85% of peo­ple who attained a job got there because of net­work­ing. Most air­lines have thou­sands of pilot resumes to choose from and any method that can use to nar­row down their search is help­ful. If a cur­rent pilot who has a good rep­u­ta­tion with the com­pany is will­ing to stick their neck out for another pilot, the pilot recruiter views that resume differently.

Net­work­ing Doesn’t Just Have to be Lim­ited to Get­ting the Interview

Net­work­ing for pilots doesn’t just have to be lim­ited to some­one who can walk your resume in. It can be a pilot who can pro­vide very good advice, tips, etc. For exam­ple, if you are new to avi­a­tion and you want to pur­sue a pilot career, just hang­ing out at the local air­port may pro­vide some great advice. If you see a pro­fes­sional pilot, ask them what has helped them get to where they are in their pilot career and what tips could they offer to you.

Orga­nize Your Network

There are many dif­fer­ent ways to keep track of your pilot job net­work and can be just a note­book. I per­son­ally use Out­look to orga­nize my net­work because it allows me to keep all the infor­ma­tion I need to remain in con­tact, like email, phone, com­pany, etc. This way it is also in elec­tronic form and can be backed up.

Keep in Con­tact with Your Network

Email your net­work every now and then to remain in con­tact with pilots you know. Don’t wait until you no longer have a pilot job and are on fur­lough or laid off. If you cur­rently have a pilot job, but you want to leave, casu­ally make this known to your net­work. Ask them if they know of any pilot job open­ings. This can be done in a sim­ple email just to say “hi”. It is amaz­ing how this will keep you fresh in someone’s mind.

Don’t Just Take, Give Back

Dur­ing times that you are sat­is­fied in your pilot career employ­ment, give back to other pilots. Maybe there is a pilot that is part of your net­work that is in need of help. You could also help oth­ers via online by offer­ing advice, infor­ma­tion, etc. The other day, a pilot I know said that some­one helped him by walk­ing his resume into an airline’s pilot hir­ing depart­ment and on this next pilot hir­ing round he is going to help a cou­ple of pilots in his network.

New Pilot Train­ing Choices

Some of the deci­sions a new pilot will have to make is where to get their train­ing. There are pilots I still keep in touch with that I met dur­ing my ini­tial pilot train­ing. These pilots are spread through­out many dif­fer­ent pilot jobs such as major air­lines, national air­lines, cor­po­rate flight depart­ments, gov­ern­ment pilot jobs. When choos­ing your flight train­ing, take into account the pos­si­bil­i­ties of how much net­work­ing you will be able to do. I don’t rec­om­mend mak­ing net­work­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties #1 on the list for choos­ing a flight school, but it is some­thing to con­sider. The pilot train­ing at a large flight school will allow you to meet more pilot con­nec­tions than the pilot train­ing at the small flight school in the mid­dle of nowhere.

Events for Pilots to Network

There are many types of events that involve pilots and give the poten­tial to net­work with other pilots of many dif­fer­ent skill lev­els. Avi­a­tion muse­ums that restore, dis­play and fly vin­tage air­craft is a good place to net­work. You could par­tic­i­pate and vol­un­teer for an air show. Fly-ins are another method to meet pilots. The bot­tom line is there are many events and gath­er­ings to meet pilots, you just need to get out there. Events like this gave pilots a chance to really get to know you and that makes them much more moti­vated to rec­om­mend you for a pilot job.

Net­work­ing is Very Important!

The bot­tom line is most pilots get a pilot job because they knew some­one that could help them. As I sit here today, I can think of many pilots I know that got jobs because another pilot helped them out. I am hav­ing a hard time think­ing of some­one that got a pilot job with­out know­ing some­one. Get out there and net­work to find your next pilot job.