On New Year’s Eve, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that that it will be opening up the opportunity to become an air traffic controller to any U.S. citizen under 31 years old.
Before this change, job candidates needed to have military experience or attend an FAA-approved education program on this line of work, according to the Baltimore Sun. The FAA’s decision to go with this approach is to sustain the workforce as 10,000 employees will be retiring in the next decade, but students who attend air traffic controller school are disappointed.
“It’s not the right way to be training air traffic controllers,” Doug Williams, director of the aviation program at CCBC Catonsville, told the Sun. “It’s going to be very expensive to train them off the street.”
It has been two months since the FAA made their announcement, but now the wheels are turning. Between February 10 and 24, job seekers who have three years of work experience, a Bachelor’s degree or a combination three years worth of of education and work experiences could apply to become an air traffic controller, Forbes Magazine reported. The FAA hopes that opening up this opportunity will fill at least 10,000 positions.
During this time, the FAA puts themselves in the position to have a large applicant pool, but how can hiring managers identify is worth interviewing and training? One of the first steps should be double-checking applications to make sure they meet the minimum requirements—that can be achieved with HR software solutions. This program can help identify if an applicant has a Bachelor’s degree as well as pull out those who did attend an FAA-approved school.
This may not put them at as much of an advantage as it did in the past, but this expertise is still valuable. Instead of enrolling trainees into the FAA Academy, some of these graduates would be eligible to begin work at one of the 315 air traffic control facilities around the United States.
It may be a busy time for the FAA, but they can alleviate some of the demands through the use of HR software solutions. Labor hours can be saved pre-screening many of these applications, as well as inputting new hire information into the FAA system in the near future.