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How many of you were hired at a DIFFERENT school after getting your CFI


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Good question, I just asked the same question (more or less) in another thread and I'd love to know the answer. From what I've seen / heard etc. CFI opportunities are few and far between, even at schools where CFI's have completed their training, so that must mean that trying to land a CFI job elsewhere must be tough. Anyone managed to pull this off?

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After leaving a job at my school in Fresno CA with 300 hours, to move to New York, I got hired by 3 different schools. My girlfriend at the time had gotten her 1000 hours and wanted to move on, which is how we ended up on the other side of the country.

 

I got hired by a school in Islip on Long Island, and left less than a month later due to major concerns about their maintenance, or lack thereof! The manager of another school in Linden NJ hired me over the phone, and wanted me to fly with students before he gave me an interview flight. That set off alarm bells with me so I decided to let that one be. That manager is no longer at that school, for obvious reasons.

 

The last and final school I got hired at less than a week later was Nassau Helicopters in Princeton NJ. I was very happy there for the rest of my instructing career, and I felt very lucky to work for the owner, John.

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I was meticulous enough to be hired on at the original flight school which trained at....

 

Approximately a year later after leaving the first gig, and couple hun t-time, I was fortunate enough to be hired on again as a CFI....

 

A year after that, I was privileged enough to be hired on to manage a school...

 

The buzz words are, meticulous, fortunate and privileged……...

Edited by Spike
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The buss words are, meticulous, fortunate and privileged……...

 

I like it.

 

In addition to that, that's why I go out of my way to be professional, courteous, punctual and generally helpful where I can be, in addition to passing every test (theoretical and practical) from start to finish since they all reflect on my ability, dedication and just basic want-to-do attitude. As far as I'm concerned my interview started day one with that first lesson.

Extreme I know but hopefully one day it will all pay off ;)

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As a CFI, you don't need to be hired by another school. You can form your own, even with one student. By clever marketing you can build your clientele from there.

 

You still with your girlfriend ?

 

If you worked hard, you might be able to co opt the boy scout law.

 

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit so I'm not biting :P

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I had the unusual situation of seeing an ad (on VR), responding to it and getting hired with 300 hours. That was after doing a tour of all the flight schools in the region of the country where I trained and being told the same thing -- "We prefer to hire our own students" (I didn't get hired on at my school). There was an opening here because it was a relatively new school that had not begun producing CFIs yet, and now that we have a 'crop' of CFIs guess what -- we prefer to hire our own graduates.

 

But it happens, there are jobs out there and with some persistence and lots of personal contact it can be done.

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I had a similer situation. I e-mailed, then called every school in the country. I picked 2 states a day to research. Then drove to each school within a 12 hour drive. I had my resume posted on vr and got a random call from a school across the country. Had a phone interview on the spot and got hired. They were also new and hadn't produced any cfi's yet. They picked me because I trained at the same school a previous instructor trained at (I didn't know him). I had around 280 hrs. I flew a few intro flights the 1st day before I even flew with the chief pilot. Now they hire all from in house. It took a few months of trying before I got thier call. What's funny is both the cp and owner turned me down by email 2 months before they called me. They didn't know they had my reaume already when they did call.

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I didn't get hired at the school I trained at. I, like the others made a job out of looking for a job, and emailed resumes to every school I could find. After working as a struggling CFI for 2 1/2 years I got a call from a resume off VR (one of those holy grail CFI jobs with salary and insurance).

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Well its great to hear that it's possible! Good job to all of you who have succeeded. The most difficult thing from parting with $60k is the fact that I may be faced with trying to get a job while at a career brick wall at 200 hours. Positive thinking will be key.

It's going to take more than positive thinking. The harder you work, the luckier and more prepared you'll get. That will do wonders for your attitude.

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It's going to take more than positive thinking. The harder you work, the luckier and more prepared you'll get. That will do wonders for your attitude.

 

:rolleyes: The more I read that the less it makes sense to me as a whole.

 

More hard work = more prepared, erm yeah, makes sense.

More hard work = more luck, erm really? How? If I work my arse off how does that guarantee me more luck in any way?

More hard work = luckier and more prepared = does wonders for your attitude, erm what? Where is there a correlation between luck, preparation and attitude in that luck and preparation affects your attitude? Lucky makes you happier, is that what you mean?

 

How about just saying the obvious stuff in the simplest way? E.g. hard work will pay off. You'll need luck on your side. A great attitude gets you places.

 

Positive thinking will be key.

 

Absolutely!

Positive thinking is crucial, not only during training where you will be exposed to tons of things that will get you down, frustration but also burnt-out people, plain negativity and pointless sarcasm (which is rive in the industry as much as it is on forums like this) but just in general as well. You still have to get through training and especially in training positive thinking is one fundamental which you're going to benefit far more from, than luck. Luck is useful once you're done training, maybe, but it comes and goes, and it's not under your direct control, a positive attitude is under your control and can be a constant if you want it to be that way.

Positive attitude over most other things most of the time for me any day!

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I don't want to speak for him but sounds to me like he was saying make your own luck. Luck favors those who work for it. The more people you know the more "luck" you will have finding a job. The harder you work the more "luck" you will have getting hired at your school. Etc etc.

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