The Entire Internet Applied for This Job

Still no word from the company I'm contracted to about work this year. I apply for another one that looks promising.

The job ad asks me to e-mail a resume and cover letter, but does not provide an e-mail. Neither does the company website, and it doesn't show anyone's e-mail, just a contact form, so I can't guess based on the corporate format. Clearly they only want resourceful pilots. No problem. I'm resourceful. The Chief Pilot has an distinctive name. Maybe he'll participate in some online forum somewhere. I paste his name into the Google search box and before I do anything else Google autocomplete offers the word email to round out the search term. It looks like there are a lot of resourceful pilots out there. Wow. How many people have to search for something before Google offers it up as the first choice?

The likeliest google result leads me to the same job posting on another site. The instructions there are slightly different. I want to follow directions. I like following directions. But the contact person isn't the same in this ad as the other. This one has the e-mail though, so I'll use that. I readdress the cover letter so it matches the e-mail. Why not just chuck them a resumé and be done with it? You can bet there are companies that will throw your resume away if they asked for e-mail and you sent them a fax.

And I must have got the e-mail correct, because within a couple of hours he e-mailed me back to say that my resume was in his "A" pile. That is unusual courtesy in this industry and bodes well.

I laughed hard at one company I didn't apply to, whose glossy website touts "VIP Charters" with stock photos of shiny jets, while their hastily assembled job ad asks for part time captains with 1000 hours total time, 500 hours multi and 100 hours on type, bring your own PPC or don't bother applying. The type, by the way is an unpressurized piston twin, nothing like the ones in the photo.