Whether an aspiring pilot is an ab-initio trainee, or a qualified pilot looking for a job, visibility in the recruitment marketplace is better than knocking on doors. But how do you make yourself visible?

The Airline Pilot Club (APC) has now developed a software tool that makes all its candidates for pilot employment or training courses visible to airlines and approved training organisations (ATO).

Airlines’ traditional ways of finding pilots are direct advertising and working with agencies. Advertising is a shot in the dark, but can be effective because those who apply have made a specific choice to do so. The only trouble is the applicants are self-selected and unfiltered. Agencies, meanwhile, can supply lots of names, but the qualifications and experience are self-declared and need checking.

Licensed pilots may reply to advertising, but in the end that’s a passive approach – a waiting game. Meanwhile ab-initio students/wannabes have traditionally had to trawl the flying schools and their promises, and hope.

Imagine joining a forum that brings the three industry components together – pilots, flying schools and airlines. There they meet, in a joint marketplace, where they can all see each other and where all the participants’ claims have been checked for accuracy.

That’s what APC members can do. Having proven themselves worthy of APC membership via indicative assessment, and having trod the pathway to pilot competence, their completed APC profile becomes their shop window to the ATOs and airlines, who can then contact them – direct – with individual proposals.

This smart new APC service takes the leg-work out of finding a training pathway, and makes it easier for airlines to fill crew vacancies.