AirAsia Cadet Pilot (Selection) - Stage 2 (Personality Test)

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Assalamualaikum and good day to my fellow readers. This post will cover the second stage of the AirAsia cadet pilot program. The assessment for this stage is personality test that would be conducted by using the Harrison Assessment  software. 

After a week after my first stage examination, I received this email:

I would say that this stage is both easy and hard at the same time. Easy because there's no right or wrong answer. Basically I did little to no preparation for this stage because the assessment is to test our personality. The only preparation I did was doing multiple personality test online and Googling personality and traits of a pilot. 

This brings us to why this assessment is also hard. It's because we don't know what does the company want in their pilots. Do not lie in the assessment. They will know. 

The room I was assessed in is on the first floor. Once you're in the computer room, pick a seat, listen to what the personel is briefing and key in the particulars when directed. 

As for the assessment itself, it has series of situation consisting of 8 statements. You have to arrange the statements according to what best describe you or how would you prefer to do in a situation etc in an orderly manner with the top being what you agree the most and the bottom is what you disagree the most. After a couple of series, the situation will be repeated but with the statements' order being randomised. 

Some of the statements includes "I prefer to work while standing","I like to be a leader", "I don't like to follow procedures" etc

The key is consistency. This is where they would know if you're lying or not. Before leaving the room, you have to check at the front desk whether your answers are consistent or not. If it's not consistent, you have to take the assessment again. 

And a tip for my Muslim future cadets, if your session for the assessment is at 1pm like me, and if your name hasn't been called yet,  do perform your solat first because the assessment can be quite long. I was called at 3.30pm and the assessment for me took nearly an hour to complete. The surau is on the right side on 1st floor near the toilet near the stairs if you take the stairs at the lobby. 

AirAsia Cadet Pilot (Selection) - Stage 1 (Exam)

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

Assalamualaikum, hello and welcome to the second post of this AirAsia Cadet Pilot (Selection) series. This entry will be the continuation to the previous post. If you guys haven't read the previous topic yet, I highly recommend that you do. Click here to go to previous post. The first stage for me is the most important stage as it's the first obstacle we must face in order to reach our dream. From now on until the last stage, there will only be nervous days waiting for the assessment date to come and restless days waiting for the result.

After two weeks of waiting, on the 25th of March, I got this email

I was quite shocked to receive the email this early. I was expecting them to invite people to the first stage examination after the application is closed and the examination would be held in June as was last year. Immediately after receiving the email, I open up my books. I was quite nervous because I have only around one month to study all the topics. (insert mission impossible theme song here)

I failed last year's first stage examination because of the lack of preparation and the lack of knowledge on how the questions would be as there is no  reference online. This is the main reason why I made this series. This year, I'm making sure that I'm well prepared. As it is a cadet pilot examination, one would guess that the questions would be based on knowledge on the aircraft or aviation and the likes. This was what I thought on my first time in 2016 and when I entered the examination hall and opened up the paper, boy I WAS WRONG. On the email last year, it didn't say how the examination questions would be based upon but it is clearly mentioned in this year's email that the questions would be SPM questions consisting of Physics, Math and English.

As for my preparation, I divided two weeks for studying ALL of Physics topics and two weeks for studying the objective questions topics of Maths. Studying and exercise is the way to do it. If you're well over 5 years after SPM like me, I would highly suggest that you do your preparation as soon as you know there will be an opening as although one month is enough to cover all the topics the pressure will take its toll on our body and mind. Everyday I wake up and after finishing my Subuh prayer, it's straight to the books and I caught a cold for two days after a fortnight doing this.

This is how the questions will be (all objective):

PHYSICS:

• will cover most of form 4 and form 5 chapters
• more questions on the form 5 topic compared to form 4's including Radioactivity and things aren't related to aviation that makes you say 'why are you asking this?'  つ´Д`)つ
• non-programmable calculator is allowed (fx-370MS, fx-570MS, fx-570ES, fx-570ES PLUS) - I personally use fx-570ES and fx-570ES PLUS because the display is easy and user-friendly
• there are 25 questions to be answered in about 45 minutes

MATHEMATICS:

• modern mathematics, not additional mathematics
• will also cover form 4 and form 5 chapters
• NO CALCULATOR IS ALLOWED (don't worry, the questions aren't that hard if you're well prepared)
• for the chapters, you only have to revise on the objective paper questions (no need to draw graph and stuff)
• set and Venn diagram is also present  
• there are also 25 questions with about 35 minutes of time given

ENGLISH:

• the same level as MUET (have long article and you have to answer questions based on the article, etc)
• read the articles thoroughly 
• I guess you have to study and read a lot?
• NO CALCULATOR IS ALLOWED (I don't know why you need a calculator in the first place ) (_　_|||)
• there are 25 questions with about 35 minutes of answering time 

As for the questions itself, it's not hard as some people might say. But I can say that the first stage's preparation was the toughest among the other stages' prep. As the Arabic saying goes, "man jadda wa jada" (who strives shall succeed), nothing can be accomplished if there's no hard work implemented into it. 

One final note, on the examination day, do ONLY as when they told you to. DON'T do anything according to your own accord. And, NEVER cheat. There's this one incident where a guy got caught cheating and he was forced to leave and the Captain got moody throughout the examination and it's a bad experience for everyone. Good luck!

P/S: the toilet is at the back of the hall 

AirAsia Cadet Pilot (Selection) - Application

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

   Asslamualaikum, greetings. This entry will be covering how did I came across the announcement and how did I apply for the AirAsia Cadet Pilot Program. Let me be honest with you guys. This is my second attempt for the position after I failed the first stage of the selection process in 2016.

IMPORTANT NOTE: AIRASIA DOES NOT PROVIDE SPONSORSHIP FOR ITS CADETS. THE FEES FOR BOTH FLYING SCHOOL AND PARTIAL TYPERATING SHALL BE BORE BY THE CADETS BY EITHER SELF SPONSOR OR TAKING A MAYBANK STUDY LOAN. THE TOTAL AMOUNT IN 2017 IS RM400k  A DEPOSIT OF RM42.5k SHALL BE PAID IF ONE IS TAKING A LOAN WITH MAYBANK. BOND WITH AIRASIA IS 10 YEARS

Some of you might think, why bother getting into the cadets then if the airline doesn't provide sponsorship? Even after you took the pilot license privately, that doesn't guarantee you a job as a pilot with an airline. AirAsia for example, take more than 70% of their pilots from AirAsia cadet pilot program and only less than 30% from fresh cadets. After finishing the CPL/IR with frozen ATPL course, AirAsia will send its cadet direct to typerating and thus becoming a junior first officer. This is subject to the cadets passing the courses and the availability in the airline. AirAsia has bought around 575 new Airbus A320 NEO family, so the problem with availability for the position is thin and it's up to the cadets to pass their flying school and typerating to secure the position. 

   In the end of December 2016, one of my friend (Rajo I think) shared with me a screenshot of AirAsia's tweet that says there will be an opening of the Cadet Pilot program in March 2017. And also in January my good friend Tan from MAB also shared with me the screenshot. Here's the screenshot: 

When March finally came, I keep my eye out for the opening. At night after finishing my Uber for the day, I would look up the AirAsia page and FlyGosh. And one fateful night (10/03), after checking the AirAsia website which says there's no opening yet, I opened Ask Captain Lim and to my surprise, it says AirAsia has already opened the application on that day. I opened the link provided and to my delight, it shows this:

So these are the requirements :

• Must be a Malaysian citizen / Permanent resident
• Aged 18-28 (32 if AirAsia staff)
• Min height of 163cm / 5 ft 4 in 
• Must be psychologically and physically fit 
• There's no need for you to obtain class 1 aviation medical cert yet as it's only needed in stage 5. And it's expensive too. Will cover it in stage 5 later
• From what I know, the limit for myopia is 500 each and can be corrected to 6/9 visual acuity by using corrective lenses. Binocular vision visual acuity shall be 6/6 or better, refractive error must not be more than 5 diopter. Astigmatism is no more than 125. Must not be color blind. And one thing they didn't mention here. You must not suffer from diplopia. One good friend of mine failed the medical examination because of this.
• For academic qualification, you must have a SPM or equivalent and your result must have at least any "A" in English, Mathematics and if applicable, General Science and any "B" in Physics and any two subjects and you must take at least 5 subjects including the aforementioned subjects and Bahasa Malaysia. A pass in Bahasa Malaysia is a MUST
• For those who wanted to apply using your Diploma/ Degree, you must have one of Engineering/ Science course with CGPA 3.0 or above and at least "C" on the subjects mentioned above.
• Bahasa Malaysia is COMPULSORY. There's this incident where they asked those who don't have Bahasa Malaysia in their certs to leave the examination hall.

    

I immediately fill out the form and submit it 13 hours after the opening. The key here is to always be persistent. What's the importance of getting invited for the first couple of batches? The position is very limited and to make it clearer, after a lot of batches sitting for stage 1, I know from my friends that during the first stage examination, the Captain said the chance of them getting through to stage 2 is very slim cause they're already nearing their quota for stage 2. Oh and yeah, the quota for the online application is around 7600. 

After submitting the application, I got this automated reply from AirAsia:

And here's the advertisement posted by AirAsia on their Facebook page

For those interested, keep your heads up for advertisements by AirAsia.

To be continued on the AirAsia Cadet Pilot (Selection) - Stage 1 entry

Prologue

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim

   Assalamualaikum, hello and welcome to the first entry of Callsign Quebec. (Kanpai!) ヽ(＾Д＾)ﾉ

The main goal of this blog is to help future AirAsia cadets on how the selection process is conducted as during my time, there is a lack of information online on how the stages would be and I thought it would be a good idea for me to share my experience so that future cadets would be concentrating on the preparation instead of wondering what and how the stages are carried out.

   I guess I better start with introducing myself. My name is Qiu (hence Quebec). I was born and raised in Penang, went to SK Seri Penanti, SK Guar Perahu, SMKA Al-Irshad and graduated from UniKL Malaysian Institute of Aviation Technology (MIAT) with a Diploma of Engineering Technology in Aviation Electronics (Avionics) Maintenance. During my industrial training semester, I had the privilege to work with Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB) for 4 months on their Boeing 777-200ER and Airbus 330-323 which was a hell of a lot fun. 

   This blog will be solely dedicated for my love for aviation, aircraft, the likes and my journey to achieve my dream. Oh, and to help future cadet pilots in achieving their dreams too! （＾ｖ＾）

The next few entries will be my journey through the AirAsia Cadet Pilot selection program. Stay tuned!

    Getting the feels on the Airbus 330-323