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You need to use quality paper, letter size and white, and therefore inoffensive, but this requirement is really for scanning. Use one side of the paper only with the script centralised, with no underlining or strange typefaces. Leave at least a one-inch border at the top and bottom of the page with a good sized margin on either side. It will cost a minimal amount to get a two-page resume typed or wordprocessed properly and not much more to get a reasonable number photocopied, preferably on to the same paper. Use a spellchecker. Twice.
It should include your career history, commencing with your present position and working back about 5 years in detail, the remainder in brief. The name and town is enough to identify employers with a brief description of their activities, if needed. You may include reasons for leaving your current position. As said above, when people read a resume they almost always do it with a highlighter in one hand to mark relevant passages for later inquisition. It's a fair bet that this will be a prime target, so prepare it very carefully.
In Summary, the layout must be neat, as short as possible, well spaced and easy to read, with a positive attitude being conveyed throughout.
The Interview
Let us first of all establish what the interview is not. It has nothing to do with your competence, except for the simulator ride (if one is required). The mere fact that you've been put on any list at all, let alone shortlisted, indicates that your flying abilities are recognised.
On their side, the interview is really to see if your face will fit. They are about to let your personality loose on their customers and they want to see if you will help solve the problem or become part of it. In other words, you, as an employee, must create value beyond the cost of employing you. As far as you are concerned, it's a chance to see if you will like the Company, in which case you may find it useful to write down what you want from them.
Note: With reference to value, mentioned above, the cost of employing you is not just your wages
– you may have training or health insurance thrown in, plus other benefits, not to mention the staff employed to look after you, or any office you might have. In the first year, you may well cost much more than your salary.
Interviewing techniques can be very sophisticated these days. You may be lucky and get away with a quick half-hour with someone who is just as nervous as you are, but the full-blown two days with Personality and Psychometric testing is becoming increasingly common. Certainly, it is used by one Electricity Board in the UK, and almost every airline worldwide. The full nine yards might include written maths, intelligence and psychological tests (with over 600 questions), a simulator ride, an interview and a medical (nine yards, by the way, or 27 inches, was the length of an ammunition belt in a B-17, so I’m told).
Whatever it is, you must regard it as having started whenever you walk through the main door of the building or meet any Company person. You are definitely under observation at lunch (why do you think so many people join you?), and the receptionist has been on the team on more than one occasion.
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