Seanaldinho
Pattern Altitude
I recently attended a seminar on the ATC hiring this year and thought I would post a short summary for any who are interested. Now before I start, take it all with a grain of salt as it is second hand and from a biased source (a university telling its students how to get hired).
This year the hiring has been broken down into two "tracks" an experienced track, someone with 52 months of controller experience, and a general/education track, which requires 36 months of progressive work experience or 36 months of college (a 4 year degree based off a 9 month academic year). The experienced track opened in February and people who applied are already being notified if they have a Temporary Offer Letter (they will be hired if they pass medical, security, and psych). The general track is opening sometime in March, and could be open for 1 day or 30 days, depends on how quickly they get the numbers they want. Ive heard the FAA plans to hire between 2000 and 3000 (!!!) people this go around. Again second hand guesses so it may or may not be true. Also, anyone who aged out from hiring after last year is able to apply again this year.
The application will include a Biographical Assessment again, however some questions will be based on whether or not you attended a CTI school and are weighted to give favor to CTI students/graduates. This year you will be required to "sign" that you will not divulge what is on the Bio, so we will see how much comes out about it. If you pass the Bio, you will have the opportunity to take a new/modified AT-SAT. Essentially an aptitude test. Your score on the AT-SAT is irrelevant as long as you pass with 70% or greater and you may never know your exact score.
If you pass the AT-SAT, you will receive a Temporary Offer Letter (TOL) and be assigned an HR representative. Then working with them you will give them your availability and what not for starting at the academy, then work through your medical exam, security evaluation, and psych eval. Pass all of those and you will get a class date. The guess is that when you receive your TOL you will be assigned enroute or terminal. How that is determined is a mystery but ultimately it will come down to the FAA's needs. At the academy, if 20 people are in your class there will be 20 facilities to choose from at the end, if you graduate with only 15 left in your class only 15 facilities will be on the list. Class ranking will determine who chooses where they go.
So there it is in a nutshell. Hope it works out better this year than last year.
This year the hiring has been broken down into two "tracks" an experienced track, someone with 52 months of controller experience, and a general/education track, which requires 36 months of progressive work experience or 36 months of college (a 4 year degree based off a 9 month academic year). The experienced track opened in February and people who applied are already being notified if they have a Temporary Offer Letter (they will be hired if they pass medical, security, and psych). The general track is opening sometime in March, and could be open for 1 day or 30 days, depends on how quickly they get the numbers they want. Ive heard the FAA plans to hire between 2000 and 3000 (!!!) people this go around. Again second hand guesses so it may or may not be true. Also, anyone who aged out from hiring after last year is able to apply again this year.
The application will include a Biographical Assessment again, however some questions will be based on whether or not you attended a CTI school and are weighted to give favor to CTI students/graduates. This year you will be required to "sign" that you will not divulge what is on the Bio, so we will see how much comes out about it. If you pass the Bio, you will have the opportunity to take a new/modified AT-SAT. Essentially an aptitude test. Your score on the AT-SAT is irrelevant as long as you pass with 70% or greater and you may never know your exact score.
If you pass the AT-SAT, you will receive a Temporary Offer Letter (TOL) and be assigned an HR representative. Then working with them you will give them your availability and what not for starting at the academy, then work through your medical exam, security evaluation, and psych eval. Pass all of those and you will get a class date. The guess is that when you receive your TOL you will be assigned enroute or terminal. How that is determined is a mystery but ultimately it will come down to the FAA's needs. At the academy, if 20 people are in your class there will be 20 facilities to choose from at the end, if you graduate with only 15 left in your class only 15 facilities will be on the list. Class ranking will determine who chooses where they go.
So there it is in a nutshell. Hope it works out better this year than last year.
