Career Services

The team’s primary task is to ensure that OAA students are properly prepared for airline employment and to assist them as much as possible in gaining such employment.  This unique team commitment reflects OAA’s view that our role is much more than simply providing the training.

OAA’s aim is to ensure that we take into training only students with the core qualities needed to succeed in the airline industry, to support them throughout training, and to work with them both before and after graduation to help them gain employment with an airline.  These are all tasks undertaken by the Team, whose range of activities include:

• Identification and facilitation of airline employment opportunity for our APP First Officer Graduates.
• Operation of the OAA Skills Assessment Centre.
• Co-ordination of all Airline Sponsorship Selection activities at OAA.
• Management and delivery of OAA’s career and personal skills development activities.
• Development of training modules to enhance OAA students understanding of the airline industry.
• Close liaison with airlines to create dedicated training schemes and to identify potential candidates for employment.
• Provision of post-graduation advice and support to all ex-OAA students – including our Alumni.

For our students, our overall aim is to ensure that we provide the best possible support and assistance from the moment they first consider an airline career to the time they achieve it.  For the airlines, this team’s activities are focused on ensuring that they can be confident they will be recruiting a well-trained and properly prepared First Officer for type rating training.  The steadily increasing range of airlines with which they work is adequate testimony to the success of the Team's efforts.

Airline Selection Preparation

Whilst achieving high standards on a quality training course is a highly important factor in obtaining airline employment for a newly qualified pilot graduating from an FTO, gaining a first job is by no means automatic, even for the high grade individual.  Airlines are necessarily highly selective, and competition for places remains strong.

Performance at interview is therefore of almost equal importance to a good training record.  The latter will certainly get you the interview, but it won’t necessarily get you the job unless you perform well during the interview itself.

Recognizing the importance of ensuring interview candidates are properly prepared, at least once a month our Careers and Employment Services team run Airline Selection Preparation Days. These are an integral part of the course for students undertaking our APPFO training, but they may also be attended by Oxford’s own students completing modular training, by students from other schools and by qualified pilots seeking a change of employment.  Whilst primarily focussed on pilots, the course content is also well suited to others, for example cabin crew, seeking employment in the aviation sector.

Designed as a one day course to limit the time external customers need to spend away from their normal workplace, the course is intensive, but firmly focused on the task of improving your employment prospects.  Delivered by our own staff and reflecting our considerable experience of working closely with a steadily increasing range of airlines, the Airline Interview Preparation course will certainly help you gain the confidence you need to fare well at interview.  It mixes theoretical with practical skills, is fully participative, and you can be confident that any particular individual concerns you wish to address can be dealt with by our instructional team.

Course Content includes the following:

• CV Preparation
• Application Forms
• Psychometric and Personality Tests
• Basic Interview Techniques
• Practice Interviews
• Personal Debrief
• Team Exercises
• Discussion Period
• Employment Update

The 2008 price for non-APPFO customers wishing to attend the Airline Interview Preparation course is £125, although BALPA members are offered a discounted rate of £95 per person.

• Tuesday 12th February 2008 - CLOSED
• Tuesday 11th March 2008 - OPEN
• Monday 14th April 2008 - OPEN
• Monday 12th May 2008 - OPEN