Opinion: Are second-career job seekers overlooked?

Kirsty Ferguson examines what industry, and candidates, can do better to prepare themselves for an aviation career.

I wanted to speak to an aircraft engineer who started their career in a different industry, but I could not find one. Perhaps that says more than I could. After firing off a few emails, I did find two second-career pilot candidates who decided to pursue a flying career recently, after successful ‘other’ careers. One heading into a mainline airline pilot cadetship and the other into the ADF Pilots Course.

We are in the midst of our industry’s projected talent crisis. A recent Boeing analysis predicted that 2.4 million aviation professionals are needed, with 674,000 of those pilots. The solution to this shortage seems squarely focused on enticing entry-level first-career candidates straight out of high school. Which seems sensible. However, why focus on one talent stream when there are another couple of rather obvious demographics:

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