Hiring Bid Air Traffic Control Specialist - Trainee: FAA-ATO-18-ALLSRCE-57792

what would you say the reason is about 50% fail enroute then?
I can't speak on the academy level, but at the facility level people either have an attitude once you're at the facility, not wanting to be there, not grasping a concept(s)/not seeing box 1 items, not working well with your trainer, getting fucked by either not seeing enough traffic or seeing overwhelmingly too much traffic in a session, and last but not least, not studying enough.
 
what would you say the reason is about 50% fail enroute then?

First, the job isn’t for everyone. You don’t really know how you’ll react when everything is on the line. Some people freeze, freak out, or simply can’t do it.

Besides that, it’s not grabbing every point you can on the assignments/tests before evals. People who don’t take it seriously at the beginning lose out on easy point grabs and make life much harder and stressful for themselves when evals come around.
 
I know HR isn’t available because of the government shut down but I still went ahead and called and left a voice mail. Being that today was my 5th calendar day of sending my acceptance docs. Rather be safe then sorry.
 
^

If you want to make sure you've covered your ass, send in a follow-up e-mail to your POC, or leave them a message just acknowledging that you are aware of the hold up on things, but wanted to make sure you did as instructed and will await further response. That is what I plan to do tomorrow since I sent my initial response out on the 22nd. As others have said; HR is furloughed, but as long as we are not being irritably aggressive I don't think leaving a 5 day follow-up response will hurt.
 
At the bottom of your TOL there is a POC listed, probably the same person for everyone I’m guessing, I called her number and voicemails says out of the office due to lapse in funding, obviously, but I also sent her an email stating that I was just following instructions from the TOL email and checking in to be safe, understanding that the shutdown may delay the typical timeline. No harm no foul following instructions right?

Edit: I got an automated response from the email saying out of the office too.
 
Any certified controllers at a center want to have a one on one convo about general work questions and pros and cons? I am still debating if I want to leave my job for this bid and not sure of somethings. I ask for a center cause im probably not taking terminal offer if given one. If you do I can PM you or send you my number and we can talk.
 
Any certified controllers at a center want to have a one on one convo about general work questions and pros and cons? I am still debating if I want to leave my job for this bid and not sure of somethings. I ask for a center cause im probably not taking terminal offer if given one. If you do I can PM you or send you my number and we can talk.

Out of curiosity, why wouldn't you take a terminal job?
 
one Not risking taking a pay cut and moving to some rando location, i've been military for 9 years and moved enough as it is and dont want to move much more. Also centers are near enough to big cities and that'll do for me. Lastly if I take this job my wife is going to have to leave her job as well it's and not worth making 70-80k a year alone when we make 130k a year now and are both military paying little to nothing in taxes.
 
one Not risking taking a pay cut and moving to some rando location, i've been military for 9 years and moved enough as it is and dont want to move much more. Also centers are near enough to big cities and that'll do for me. Lastly if I take this job my wife is going to have to leave her job as well it's and not worth making 70-80k a year alone when we make 130k a year now and are both military paying little to nothing in taxes.
Also consider that if you did take a terminal TOL and picked the right facility (a tower only with good staffing) you could ERR to a center within a year or so of getting to your first facility. Or if money is your motivation you could ERR to a bunch of tracons and towers as well. Also there are a good amount of towers and up downs that are just as close to the big cities as the centers are.
 
what would you say the reason is about 50% fail enroute then?
From my personal experience (I used to RPO at the academy), book work/worded tests are a very minor portion of grading there. The bulk of the grading is on practical application....Sitting down at the sim and running efficiently. I've known people who are damn sharp, but stumbled on nonradar and radar scenario evals.
Also, when everyone starts the practice scenarios (there's about 40), most people are very lost. About 1-2 weeks into it, and it starts to click in (some) people's minds how everything works. Some people everything "clicks" the day before their eval, and sometimes they pass. Some people, it never fully clicks. Some people, it clicks but they're nerves get to them.
The name "academy" is a little misleading. Not only is it's function to teach, but it's also a weeding out tool. Those trainees need to have the right stuff to go on to a center and train AGAIN, on not only 1 sector, but ~6... For at least the next 2 years.
Facilities don't want to waste time training someone who can't make it, and the more people that facilities wash out, it makes the facilities look at the academy and say, "what are you guys doing? You're sending us shit." So that's why the academy cuts the fat, so ruthlessly.
 
To those of you that are either waiting to hear back from HR for confirmation or for a TOL, don't expect to hear anything back until January 7th at the earliest. In regards to the government shut down, there are no votes scheduled for tomorrow and they do not work December 29-January 2nd. The first time they return to work is on January 3rd, where they're sworn in for a new congress and the earliest that they will be able to cast their votes and try to overcome this impasse, will be January 4th, which is a Friday. Assuming they make a deal or get enough republicans to vote with democrats
in order to overrule Trump, on their first day back, then HR will reopen that following Monday, January 7th. That's the best case scenario, my point is, don't expect to hear anything back before the second week of January. Of course that is assuming that they reach a deal their first day back.
 
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