ATC the journey

I thought I'd give you a quick run down on what's involved in getting an ATC job here in Australia.

Back in July, I put in my initial application via the Airservices Australia website. About three weeks after that, I got an email inviting me to do an online test. This was a bit like an IQ test, it involved recognising groups of numbers and letters, mental arithmetic against the clock, and some written comprehension stuff. I wasn't sure I'd done all that well with numbers and letters thing, but three weeks later I got another email congratulating me and inviting me to book a time for a phone interview.

Well, the day of the phone interview came around, it was booked for 3PM. 3PM came around and no call. 3.10PM came around and still no call. By about twenty past I was starting to get a little worried and was typing up an email to find out if anything was wrong. I'd already checked my resume to make sure they had the right number. Then the phone rang. It turned out the building in Canberra that the HR person who called me worked in had been evacuated. False alarm.

Again, I didn't think I'd done all that well. Some of my answers were a bit feeble. The next morning though I had another email, this one was inviting me to a day of interviews and assessments. A whole day.

If you get this far you're doing well. Someone on my assessment day said that they had around 1800 applicants originally. They only get 6 people in for each assessment and they had 3 days of assessment in Brisbane that week.

So, on the third week of September, I rocked up at Brisbane Centre, right next to the control tower at Brisbane Airport. I'd been there the week before and taken a wrong turn, ending up at the domestic terminal. I did it again this day as well, but still got there in time.

The six of us introduced ourselves and sat around chatting before the assessments started. It turned out I wasn't the only one that had taken a wrong turn on the way. The good thing about this kind of selection is that we weren't competing against each other. If we were all suitable for the position we'd all get in, so in a way, it would be in our interests to work together.

We were then introduced to the assessors, some were HR people and the others were experienced ATCs, then we were each given a timetable for the day.

My assessment started with a couple of computer based tests, including a rerun of the one I'd done at home, to make sure I could do it under different conditions and also to make sure I hadn't got someone else to do the test at home.

Then I had a bit of a break in the lunch room, after which I went upstairs and did the simulation exercise, with one assessor giving me instructions and scenarios that I had to deal with and the other taking notes. Then it was back to the lunch room.

Then came the group exercise, to see how we worked as a team. We must have worked pretty well together, since we apparently got a lot further through it than most groups.

Next was a one on one interview. This was a behavioural interview in the STAR format. Basically it's situation or task, action, result. I was asked about different situations, what actions I'd taken and the result of those actions. Stuff like, give me an example where you provided good customer service. Really easy to do when you work in a supermarket.

The last bit was a briefing exercise. Basically I was given some paperwork with information on it, given 20 minutes to prepare, then I had to do a 10 minute presentation.

If my descriptions are a bit vague, that's because we were asked at the beginning not to divulge too much of the assessment process, lest we give other applicants an unfair advantage. I know some applicants don't listen to that and tell others what goes on. I suspect it's more the unsuccessful applicants that do that though. Kind of a case of sour grapes.

Anyway, at the end of the day I was told I should hear something in about 4 weeks. Well 4 weeks came and went, I hadn't heard from my referees to say they'd been contacted, which would have been a sure sign I was a contender. Then on Wednesday my mobile rang while I was at work. When I got home I checked my messages and the missed call was from Airservices Australia. I rang back, but because of daylight savings down south, my call went unanswered.

I emailed my old boss the next morning to see if he'd been contacted. Before he got back to me, I got confirmation that I was in. Then my old boss replied saying, "I meant to let you know..." It turns out he'd been contacted by, not only Airservices, but also the Bureau of Meteorology. So it seems I might get an offer there as well.

So there you go. It took about 4 months from my initial application to getting an offer. I've heard of people having to wait 18 months, so I'm pretty lucky that they've streamlined the recruitment process.

All things going well, I should have an office with a view in around 18 months.