Writing an Aviation Industry CV

Your CV is the first impression that recruiters know about you. However, it might well be the last and only one too, in case you fail to write a proper CV that we expect from you. The truth is, the better your CV, the higher chance you will get your application successfully.

As long-standing Aviation Recruiting Experts in the industry, we go through hundreds of CVs per day. They come from all sorts of aviation stakeholders, from pilots, engineers, cabin crew, to management personnel. For each position, the related information or figures that we are after in a CV, are very different.

Most of the time, we make the decision whether to hold your CV within the first 10 seconds of reading. Believe it or not, we do not often read every single word in a CV! But instead of going through word by word, we generally skim. In other words, we focus on searching keywords that are relevant to what the role requires and skip the irrelevant parts. Hence, do not put too much time and effort into producing a long CV, that might well be irrelevant to the role that you apply for. After we screen your CV, it will be forwarded over to our clients. And we only forward those who are relevant to what our clients need. In case you are shortlisted for an interview, you will have the opportunity to express further, in more detail of what is resumed in your CV. Hence, your CV should only contain sufficient information, but it must be relevant!

Of course, there must be basic information in a CV.

• Full name

• Home address

• Professional email address(es)

• Phone number

• LinkedIn profile

Then, recruiters will be looking at the following:

• Professional experience

• Skill set

• Education

• Certificates/qualifications/training

A photograph is not always mandatory in a CV, but please make sure it is a professional look-like photograph. Do not put a selfie or a photo that does not look professionally serious.

Now, what do we expect to see in a CV for each of the different aviation personnel?

Pilot

• Pilot rank: TRE/TRI, Captain, First Officer, Cadet

• Aircraft Type-rating(s)

• Licences: Issuing authorities, expiry dates

• Flight experience

  • Total Flying Hours

  • Total Pilot-In-Command (PIC) Hours and/or Second-In-Command (SIC)

These have to be detailed in all aircraft types you have ever flown in your career.

For this part, a table is highly suggested as the below example:

This following information SHOULD also be in your CV, without opening other supporting documents (Licence, Sim report, logbook etc.)

• The type-rating (of the aircraft type we recruit) + expiry dates

• Medical class 1 expiry date

• ICAO English Proficiency Level

• Date of last duty flight (on the aircraft type we recruit)

• Last Sim report, LPC/OPC

• Previous employments – positions held.

• Availability

You can also include the following supporting details at the end of your CV:

• Education

• Qualifications/Certificates/Trainings

• References

Cabin Crew

• Cabin crew rank: Instructor, Manager, Senior, Junior

• Cabin crew Licences/Qualifications/Certificates: Issuing authorities, expiry dates

• Aircraft type(s) experiences

• Medical certificates

• English certificates

• Training

• Previous employments – positions held

• Availability

You can also include the following supporting details at the end of your CV:

• Education

• References

Most of the time, a full-length photograph is highly appreciated in a cabin crew’s CV.

Engineers

• Categories: A, B1, B2, C Engineers

• Licences: Part(s), Issuing authorities, expiry dates

• Aircraft ratings

• Qualifications/Certificates

• Education and Trainings

• Skills

• Previous employments – positions held

Management Personnel

• Executive summary:

In management positions, we generally expect you to present a short summary of your career, pointing out your experience and background within 3-4 sentences.

• Skill sets:

You can list all of your skills you have obtained throughout your career, but they should be bullet points and relevant to the role applied.

• Qualifications/Certificates/Trainings

• Previous employments – Positions held:

You can bullet point your main duties and responsibilities, tools/software utilised, competencies, achievements etc.

You can also include the following supporting details at the end of your CV:

• Education

• References

In any CV, it is highly suggested that you highlight what is important! This can be done by making those keywords in bold or underlined, to get attention from the recruiters.

In summary, we would love to help you to be successful, but you first need to help us by providing a proper CV that we expect. Writing a CV is not difficult, but writing a standout CV is not easy!