Is your work experience relevant enough for a Cabin Crew job?

We don’t all start our careers with a Cabin Crew job in mind, so what happens if the experience you have so far doesn’t seem particularly relevant? Do you have any chance of having your application accepted?

Make your experience fit

You might be pleased to know that the answer is in your hands; it doesn’t matter what your experience is so much as how you present it.
The trick is to keep what the airlines are looking for in mind, and make sure that your experience matches that. So what are airlines looking for? It does vary between the brands, but generally you can assume that excellent customer service is high on the list, professionalism, a calm and friendly approach, ability to follow procedures, a good awareness of security and risk…The list goes on; give it some thought so you can begin to recognise what recruiters might be looking for.

Look at your work history with fresh eyes

If you are concerned that your job history isn’t relevant enough for cabin crew, take another look. A job doesn’t have to have ‘Customer Service’ in the title to involve this important skill- anyone who ever deals with other people is dealing with customers, even if they are internal to your organisation. It is the same story for other key skills.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:
Job: Babysitter/ Nanny
On face value this job may not seem especially relevant for a Cabin Crew job, but look again. Being a babysitter can involve a lot of responsibility. Depending on your role you may need to be conscientious about time-keeping, show safe food preparation skills, anticipate the needs of the children to ensure their wellbeing, resolve conflict if there is more than one, ensure their health and safety at all times…etc. You just need to explain exactly how you do these things to make the parallels clear.

Job: Administrator in an Office
You may not deal with external customers or feel like this job is that relevant. But skills you use in most jobs can be transferred to make you better cabin crew. In an office you would need to be professional and conscientious, meeting targets and dealing with routine tasks often without supervision. You may need to follow set procedures with good accuracy and attention to detail. You may need to liaise with colleagues to make sure deadlines are met. Any of that sound familiar?!

When you are applying to an airline you need to think about how you can make it as easy as possible for the recruiters to pick you.

So this means spelling out how relevant your experience is; don’t leave it for them to guess, you need to make it obvious how your current skills DO match exactly what they are looking for.