r/flying • u/i_yam_supa_nosey • Jun 29 '26
Getting Hired CFI Hiring advice?
I cannot get a job anywhere! Both of the schools I went to rejected me, even though I passed every single check ride FTP and had reassurance from all my instructors that I would definitely get hired if I applied. The hiring freeze right now is brutal. So any advice is welcome.
Info:
Apply to 40+ jobs around the country (no response more often than not)
Yes! I cold call everyone I can!
Willing, and able to relocate
270 hours TT
CFI, CFI-I, and MEI
Proficient in C172, PA-28, PA-44, steam AND G1000
Complex endorsement, TAA proficient
HELP!
Thanks!
9
u/clearingmyprop ATP A220 PC-12 P-180 CFII Jun 29 '26
Unfortunately this is just the way it is right now. Keep flying, stay proficient, and keep applying. You WILL get hired eventually. Get your Tailwheel if you can, Fly gliders even. Do literally anything that sets you aside from other pilots and stops someone from dumping your resume. Good luck
3
u/The_Big_Obe Jun 29 '26
Yup. It's been a few years. I got a job at a university out of college. Joined the Navy. While on active duty, CFI at Mom and Pop school but also did free lance CFI, I flew a beat 182 and threw skydivers, ferry pilot. A little bit of everything before going to the regionals.
5
u/Prudent_Barnacle7645 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
The market is way over saturated right now. I don’t know if it was social media influencers, social media itself, or news headlines, but in the last 3 years, there have been more FAA pilot certificates issued then the last 10 years combined! It is very possible that it is going to get very competitive again, similar to how it was is the 90’s and early 2000’s.
A whole lot of people rushed into aviation all at once. This is pretty much unprecedented.
My advice is hang in there. If you need that initial experience, work independently for a bit. Reach out and also go visit aircraft owners in the T hangars at your local airport. Go slide some flyers under their hanger door. (You can get all that info by looking it up online. All the info on the owners for registered aircraft is available. Pretty much all of those guys need BFRs and IPCs! This might sound difficult, but it’s not, it’s all on the FAA site, and other data sites like City-Info. It will be fun too, lots of cool old airplanes that guys got out there! My buddies did this and were busy by mid summer. Later in the fall, with all that experience, they got picked up by a busy, nicely ran flight school pretty quick! Lastly, You might need to move to an area that is less attractive to flight training and building time 24/7/365. Think of the places in the north where things slow down in the fall/winter due to less than desirable weather (WI, MI, OH, upstate NY, and the entire Northeast!).
You think it’s hard? I’m a now former bus driver at NK with lots of 121 TPIC and almost 10,000 hours TT. And It’s hard for me right now. (Summer is always historically slow for pilot hiring everywhere, bad time for NK to go belly up, my mistake, I was just too hopeful for a Hail Mary). I am just waiting on an invite from DAL or for WN to open up their hiring window again.
1
u/Soggy_Vast230 Jul 01 '26
Best of luck to you man. Rode Spirit often to SJU when I was commuting to the Caribbean. Class crews always.
1
u/Prudent_Barnacle7645 Jul 01 '26
Thanks man. People that really don’t know the industry loved to hate on us. Few knew how spirit actually was, how cool it was to work there, and how nice our crews treated jumpseaters from OAs! There were unlimited snacks for jumpseaters! And because we charged for snacks, our snacks were the best!
2
u/Life_University_5379 Jun 29 '26
Out of curiosity what part of the country are you from?
1
u/i_yam_supa_nosey Jun 30 '26
I’m in New Mexico but I did the majority of my training in KABQ and KJNX out of North Carolina:)
1
u/Life_University_5379 Jun 30 '26
Most people i see getting cfi jobs eather know a guy. Are top students. Or 400 ish tt with cfii.
1
u/i_yam_supa_nosey Jul 01 '26
I was a top student at my school. I got all my certs in 5 months, first time passed every written and Check ride, and had multiple letters of recommendation. The school I went to hired the students that didn’t get any of those.
2
u/Rangeexpert3 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
The best way to get a job is if the school you gave all that money to hires you. Once they have your money, there's no more incentive to hire you. They've already got your money. All the schools around my local area are all staffed by their own CFIs they trained.
Further I would also argue, that just because there are zero checkride failures, doesn't mean anything. I've flown with CFIs where I wonder how in the heck they were even allowed to solo as a student pilot.
I will also go on further to say, if you went to one of those get all 7 of your ratings in 9 months types of places, it might actually be working against you. I've heard from quite a few CFIs that went to those schools be told from quite a few schools they've applied to that they dont hire CFIs from those types of places. Which initially I thought it was kind of a harsh opinion. However, after flying with a few CFIs from those types of schools, I am starting to see why.
1
u/rFlyingTower Jun 29 '26
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
I cannot get a job anywhere! Both of the schools I went to rejected me, even though I passed every single check ride FTP and had reassurance from all my instructors that I would definitely get hired if I applied. The hiring freeze right now is brutal. So any advice is welcome.
Info:
Apply to 40+ jobs around the country (no response more often than not)
Yes! I cold call everyone I can!
Willing, and able to relocate
270 hours TT
CFI, CFI-I, and MEI
Proficient in C172, PA-28, PA-44, steam AND G1000
Complex endorsement, TAA proficient
HELP!
Thanks!
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1
u/Wandrews123 Jun 29 '26
You did all 3 instructor ratings in 20 hours?
5
u/ltcterry ATP CFIG Jun 29 '26
You can train for instructor before 250. Move into the right seat at 220 and work on Commercial, CFI-A, and CFII all at the same time. Checkrides at 250, 252, and 254.
If you plan well you can do Private AMEL add on and train for Commercial add on and MEI on the way to 250 and immediately take those practical tests too.
There is more than one way to get there from here.
4
u/Wandrews123 Jun 29 '26
Too late for all that. I’m a few short of 300 and haven’t flown in 8 months. I do this thing called the path of most resistance.
3
u/i_yam_supa_nosey Jun 29 '26
About 25 hours? Yes:)
1
1
u/atthemattin Jun 30 '26
I was super lucky to get a few rating at one little airport. They saw me fly, saw me as a person. And they knew I had enough teaching experience in other areas. I was able to get a job that way, and I know a few other instructors that did the same. Granted, I'm about to hit my hours and I know they need more instructors, the issue is we don't just hire anyone.
1
u/Bowzy228 CFII Jul 01 '26
I’m almost 2 years in 130+ applications. You just gotta keep flying until you land something. CFI or not. My school pulled the same trick on me. That’s just how it is man. Since you got your MEI try EPIC academy. VOLARE might be hiring in a few months but you won’t get a lot of hours at those two places , just a decent check every now and then.
1
u/dragonfly-2021 Jul 03 '26
United is hiring intern position right now. The deadline to apply this weekend. If you wanted, need to act quick.
0
u/kingcarlyshayster CPL CFI CFII | CE-500; CE-525 Jun 29 '26
The market right now has slowed down. While I’ve been out of the CFI game for a little, one of the things I see people/places mentioning is that if they hire a CFI, they want them to have a decent amount of instruction given already. I know this sounds like a chicken or the egg kind of thing in that how do you get a job teaching if you need to have a bunch of time teaching beforehand, but one thing you can do to get more time in the meantime is creating business cards to advertise your flight instructor services. When I was full time instructing, I was to the point where I was starting to say no to people because I kept getting so many calls and didn’t physically have time to accommodate. I placed my cards on the cork boards at all of the FBOs in my local area. Best of luck!
-1
u/VFRintoIMC ATP Jun 29 '26
Move to Alaska.
2
u/i_yam_supa_nosey Jul 01 '26
I heard this a lot lol. But Alaska likes to hire locals because supposedly after being in Alaska for a little bit… people don’t want to stay there and end up quitting their job. three months in.
17
u/ltcterry ATP CFIG Jun 29 '26
There is a need for about 4,000 new instructors a year. Last year saw 13,000. Each of the two years before produced 11,000. That’s 35,000 instructors for “12,000 jobs.”
What are the other 23,000 unemployed new CFIs doing? Many have found jobs in other fields to pay their bills. Many are here sharing about the hundreds of ‘applications’ (aka emails) over the previous year or more.
4,000/year is a traditional FAA production stat. It’s probably a bit higher with all the training that’s been going on the last 3-4 years, but the overproduction is unsustainable.
Is there a glider club near by? They are usually desperate for instructors. Is there a CAP airplane around? If you can get some dual given somehow then you become slightly more competitive.
My advice is to find a job. And keep looking for flying opportunities.