Biographical Questionnaire - ATC Hiring video

If the process has been changed (twice I think) since this whole debacle, what are they trying to achieve here? CTI graduates get to skip the BQ now. Is this to try and get some kind of waiver for the small percentage of people who aged out after getting DQ'd back in 2014?
They all got a one time age waiver. There’s ppl in the academy now that are like 33 on the waiver.
 
FAA hiring procedures are ridiculous and waste millions of tax payers money. The bio-q is the most pathetic thing, doesn’t determine in any way if someone is cut out for the job or not!
 
The BIO-Q is nothing more than the FAA practicing discriminatory hiring to suit their agenda. Nobody can claim otherwise. It should not matter what sex or race you are.

Hiring order should be:

1. ATC in the military
2. ATC at contract tower (usually ex military)
3. CTI Degree
4. Bachelor degree in another area
5. Progressive work history yada yada

I might have missed some but this would be hiring based on experience, knowledge, etc. It is bullshit when a burger flipper(nothing against the job) is hired over prior military people with multiple CTOs. I don’t care how smart you are, or what kind of amazing controller you will be.

I’m OTS and it’s bullshit that I was hired over so many qualified applicants (no I won’t resign, nice try). But it is completely unjustifiable. I know they have been concerned about hitting staffing numbers and a wave or retirements coming up, but there were many more qualified applicants to consider. The FAA knew this when they put the BIO-Q as a prerequisite to being eligible to apply. That way the military preference, experience and knowledge go out the window.

How many jobs out there require 2-5 years of experience in multiple areas etc, but not one as important as air traffic?

Just my .02.
 
The BIO-Q is nothing more than the FAA practicing discriminatory hiring to suit their agenda. Nobody can claim otherwise. It should not matter what sex or race you are.

Hiring order should be:

1. ATC in the military
2. ATC at contract tower (usually ex military)
3. CTI Degree
4. Bachelor degree in another area
5. Progressive work history yada yada

I might have missed some but this would be hiring based on experience, knowledge, etc. It is bullshit when a burger flipper(nothing against the job) is hired over prior military people with multiple CTOs. I don’t care how smart you are, or what kind of amazing controller you will be.

I’m OTS and it’s bullshit that I was hired over so many qualified applicants (no I won’t resign, nice try). But it is completely unjustifiable. I know they have been concerned about hitting staffing numbers and a wave or retirements coming up, but there were many more qualified applicants to consider. The FAA knew this when they put the BIO-Q as a prerequisite to being eligible to apply. That way the military preference, experience and knowledge go out the window.

How many jobs out there require 2-5 years of experience in multiple areas etc, but not one as important as air traffic?

Just my .02.

You might have a point until you say "I don't care how smart you are, or what kind of amazing controller you would be." Ultimately, their ability and the end result is what is most important.

This is strictly anecdotal, but we wash out more prior military hires than any other source.

Just my .02
 
Alright, so I will ask again. What are they expecting to get out of this?


Without that portion of the lawsuit coming to light just yet, it could be numerous things. First and foremost, attempting to sue a government agency is very difficult and time consuming. Most cases will never go to trial and a settlement would more then likely be reached. I do not have any insider information as to their current thought process, but I can share some further background and where they could be trying to go with it.

1) Monetary - Anytime a class-action lawsuit comes about, money is undoubtedly at the forefront. You have a series of plaintiffs that...
A) Were never hired and officially aged out.
B) Were delayed years in hiring
C) Were never hired and are still trying to get hired.

For Group A above, it could have been a number of different factors, you could have people that graduated in 2010/2011, that didn't get hired before the two year hiring freeze of 2012-2013, then the BA of 2014/2015 who have since moved on with their life prior to HR 5292.
For Group B, you could have current employees who were delayed in the hiring process, costing them years of annual salary, TSP contributions, pension %, etc.
For Group C, I'll touch on that below, but the outlook is bleak moving forward.

To reiterate, the FAA did not change the hiring process. The FAA did not admit a mistake. CTI schools and NATCA got together, lobbied congress and changed the law. The FAA didn't benevolently say, we're going to waive the age restriction until December 31st, 2017 for those that aged out due to an unjust and invalidated new hiring process, Congress effectively told them, "You are not competent enough to create a hiring practice on your own, this is how you're going to hire and this is what you're going to do to attempt to make it right."

A Brief History on How the Hiring Change Came About
When lobbying Congress, you have to have a concrete message and talking points that will appeal to both democrats and republicans. Aviation as a whole is largely a bipartisan issue to begin with. NATCA, from the forefront, knew the only way to get a change in the hiring process was to prioritize the hiring of military personnel. Prior to HR 5292, you needed to have ATC experience in the military to be able to apply to the VRA bids, HR5292 opened up the gates for anyone with military experience to be able to apply. They were able to slide CTI students into the same pool, but the main focus was on the hiring of military personnel and the only reason it passed as lopsided as it did was because of that overall message.

What CTI Schools Wanted and Why They Continue To Fight
Three separate hiring pools. Pool 1 - Military, Pool 2 - CTI, Pool 3 - OTS. When you break it down the reasoning is simple. By law, veterans are entitled to preference over other candidates for the same opening when all qualifications are equal.

Ex. All military personnel that score between 80-100 (Band 1) shall be hired over any CTI graduate who scores between 80-100. Military personnel also get "double" preference if you will. The 5 and 10 point vet preference are added into their AT-SA score as well.

EX. 10 point Vet preference scores a 70 on the AT-SA. 70+10 = 80, they're now considered Band 1 and by law will be hired prior to any CTI candidate in the same pool.

Now lets look at the last two panels. 2016 had 514 Band 1 Vets. 2017 had 237 Band 1 Vets. This upcoming panel is only slotted to pick up ~800 people aka ~400 from Pool 1 and ~400 from Pool 2. Given the unknown of how many Band 1 Vets make it out of the AT-SA, if you're CTI you could be very well be staring at a 0% chance of selection. A CTI degree is on the cusp of becoming an anchor, not a benefit.

Given that the FAA cannot legally change the hiring process on their own. My guess is that their end goal is to create enough national attention to lobby congress to change to a three tiered system or back to the original two tiered system (CTI & Military).

What to Understand About the FAA
For those that are not in the agency, the FAA is not big on admitting fault...of any kind. In the case of the original BA, they dug themselves a hole and instead of correcting an issue, they continued digging in hopes of coming out the other side, which makes their current stance on data collection...peculiar at best. For instance, if the original BA had worked and if there was no discernible difference between the hiring pools, given all of the public backlash the FAA has faced, don't you think they would stand up tall and beat their chest with the numbers proving that they were correct? They clearly have the data. Even prior to the Pool system in 2016, each person submits a resume and you can easily verify military, cti, ots, etc. If the FAA's only response when questioned for specific data with regards to success of each hiring source is, "We no longer track that data". It doesn't take a genius to realize the data looks unfavorable for them.
 
What hiring freeze in 2012? I got hired in 2012 off the August bid. It was just one year in 2013 when sequestration took effect
For technical sake, given this was a CTI discussion, the history was as follows... CTI/VRA/CTO/RMC bids were every 6 months back then. As I'm sure you're aware, VRA/CTO/RMC also had separate bids they qualified for (The last one actually being January 2013). For CTI, the last true bid was February 2012. The August 2012 bid was the first time they used USAJOBS as they transitioned away from AVIATOR. They botched the CTI list for that bid. As a consolation, they used the same referral list with the same two state selections from the February 2012 bid and selected a small number of applicants that were not selected on the previous bid. (for those wondering, you used to apply and select two states that you would like to work in)

The 2014 BA bid occurred in February 2014.
 
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