Rumor has it that the FAA will have a hiring bid from July 30th - Aug 2nd forAir Traffic Controllers.. This is the first I've been aware of one like 2 years or so. Some basics/background info...

Must be 30 or youngerthe day you apply, have 3 years full time work experience OR a 4 year degree OR a combination of the 2

The entire purpose is to make sure planes don't hit eachother and everything lands safely. There are 2 different types of ATC when you first look to get hired, Tower and Enroute facilities:


Enroute



These are the guys in the darker room staring at a screen and making sure the dots (planes) on the screen dont get too close. You basically never see a single plane you talk to. You make the most $$ in these facilities cause they are all high level, however it takes awhile to actually be done with training (2-2.5 years) in these buildings because a lot of your job is to talk to planes that are higher in the air that cover vasts amounts of land. It's not uncommon to work in an area at these facilities and for you to have 30 airports that you can see on your scope.

When you are done with training, life is pretty easy.. you work 8 hours (paid lunch), and for some facilities you have 1 hour on shift and 1 hour break. Essentially only "working" half of your shift. Lots of extra incentive based pay in addition to your base bay (night shift, OT, CIC pay, OJTI pay, Sunday pay, etc..) which basically bumps up your salary an additional 15-20%.


Tower



These are the people staring out of windows actually looking at planes all day. Different people doing different things up there that most aren't aware of: Guy who talks to planes and gets them lined up from their gate to the runway, guy who actually works the runway, guy who talks to planes and gives the pilots actual clearances.

Most facilities are low to medium level, and you can still make a good living (90-100k) just working at a smaller airport. The positive about Tower is training is much faster, you can check out in 6 months sometimes and able to put in paperwork to transfer where you want to go eventually.



Process

USAJobs.gov is where the actual announcement is gonna be placed. Create your resume on that app, apply within that couple day timeframe. Month or so down the road you'll get an email asking you to schedule a test, it's a 3-4 hour long test that almost feels like a video game that tests your memorization, problem solving etc. If you score high enough you get selected and get to go through Medical/Security clearance which can take a few months. Eventually when you're done with that and you pass those you'll get an offer letter to go to Oklahoma City for the FAA Academy for 4 months (you're paid, and you can pocket a good amount of $$) then after passing that you pick your facility and start it up.




Pros:

-You make a lot of $$, people in my area after a few years as CPC routinely make 200k+ and the salary is only getting higher
-6 Figure pension when you are up for retirement. There is a mandatory retirement age of 56, but you can retire at 50 or 25 years of govt service.
-Tons of breaks


Cons:

-Training is hard. I'll be honest there is a 50% pass rate at the Academy
-Schedules can be wonky, shift work, the first 1/4 of your career you might not have a holiday off that doesn't fall on your RDO's
-It can take some time to actually get to your dream facility. So for some people it might take 2-5 years to go back home after they start this job




Here's an example of an enroute facility.. both with BASE pay when you're done with training (CPC), how long it takes, how many of those people are in the building, where each of these facilities are located, etc

https://123atc.com/facility/ZFW

I could not handle that, too much pressure.

This was voted the most stressful job. Must be hiring younger than thirty to drain the life outta the youngins.

First thing that people say.... but honestly, it isn't once you know what you're doing for the vast majority of days. The hardest part about the job is trying to learn how to do the job, but once you do it's not nearly as stressful as the public makes it out to be. And that's because there are systems in place that make it easier on controllers.

The hardest thing about the job, once you know the job, is management and having to deal with a wonky schedule and how to deal with that with your wife/gf/kids. But that is literally every office job.

Half the time in my area on a random weekday we are talking about the game last night, or what's going on in the news throughout the day in between telling pilots essentially "Hello....... goodbye"

and then you woke up

actually might consider (srs). ive only worked dead end jobs so what do i got to lose

Dont pilots make like 100k? How do these people make more than the guys flying the planes lol.

Starting first day of work at a new job is stressful. I can't imagine how stressful first day of work at this job would be, fuk that

Not bad bro thanks for sharing with your fellow *******s

Good alternative to the standard tradie/cubecel life

Not at all a glorious job, and you don't really control planes. All you do is allow them to do as they've asked per their flight clearance, and you aren't preventing them from crashing into eachother... TCAS and approach plates pretty much handle that. Good money, but I'd imagine very comms intensive. You have to listen to everyone, even the people you aren't controlling, and even randos on guard.
Would imagine its stressful af at first because you don't have the flow, but you pick up on it eventually and think its easy like OP says it is.

Airline pilots can make well over 100k. My dads best friend is one near retirement and he probably makes 250-300k a year.

It's not at all. They literally don't let you talk to a single LIVE plane for a long time unless you have a cool area rep. I remember my first week going onto the floor after getting to my facility and I sat down with a controller who was about to retire and I told him about myself and we had something in common and he said "You know Brandon? No chit.... you wanna talk to a real plane? I'll key in if you fuk up"

Literally there is always someone who is right next to you in training that has a mic that can override ANYTHING that you say and help you fix something that you fukd up on throughout training. You are never alone by yourself in any instance while training. ever

This is true, but most people aren't very aware of TCAS and the multitude of backups that pilots and controllers have. Garbled frequencies is an issue but as with any job, after awhile you are literally only searching for a few words. Phraseology is such an important part of aviation and pilots/controllers are forced to say things a certain way for that very reason. It gets to the point that you hear a long transmission but you really are only listening back for the call sign and altitude or something, and you basically can predict exactly what the pilot is gonna say

is that what you do for a living?

I have a DUI on my record (only blew an 0.05%, my lawyer called it a vanilla DUI) will this hinder my chances?

I got convicted in 2020.

My lawyer said we can work to get it scrubbed from my record.

Any tips on this hindering my application ?

Its via USAJOBS, haven't used it in like 6 years, but they'll prob ask about it. Not sure how far they would investigate it considering you don't need a security clearance for ATC. I would advise you to talk to someone local at some sort of government job fair and ask them, OP may have the job, but he isn't the one sorting through the applications...

It is. I'm enroute, could never stare at planes through a window. No thank you, but some people canYou will 100000% go through Tier 2 medical, which can take some time. I know some people who stuck with it and were able to make it past the Security/Medical clearance with that on your resume. If you actually are knowledgeable about this process I'll say this..... if you make it to that stage you'll have to meet up with a legit psychologist and talk about chit (I didn't but I know a lot of people who did) and just paint yourself in the best light as possible.

You will 10000% have to meet up with someone because of it, but I won't say you're disqualified because I've known people who made it in with that on their record (although it might be hard and take some time)

Edit: You need a security clearance for Enroute FYI. I don't think you do for tower

you said that the only hire 30 and under but you're 32. this is actually a job i could do. i stare at screens all day anyway. do they have to take uppers before shifts?

[QUOTE=BeanGainClovis post_id=1642522703][youtube]VmW-ScmGRMA[/youtbe][/QUOTE]Funny story... I know an older retired controller who got hired right after Reagan fired everyone, there was a guy in the building who was an *******... no one liked him, he was terrible talking to pilots, always unprofessional.. but his mood would continuously change after his first or 2nd break. He would come back all talkative and happy and people started to catch on like "WTF is going on with Frank.."


Turned out he was having a few in his car after his first "shift" and would come back after a couple swigs of whiskey lol.. I wanna say they allowed him to keep doing his thing cause he was good at his job and no problems came up, but eventually they had to crack down on that and he was forced to retire. Those older controllers were legit cowboys from what I hear

I'd reckon the public needs to trust you, people's lives are in your hands.

You don't want to take risks and have planes just crashing left and right with people dying.

It seems like honest work that pays well. Would be a lot of stress every day so I can see how that kind of stuff used to go down.

That whole movie is pretty great though.

I literally have no idea. I didn't even think about it after that whole process ended. I'm sure there's gotta be a reason... maybe you deal with the President/Vice (Air Force One) and their family more? That'd be the only thing I could really think of top of my head.Maybe back in the day lol. Every older/retired controller talks about life back in the 80-90's like it was the wild west. Nowadays people don't give AF. I've been on the job for some years now at my facility but I came on a lil late. Wanna say I was 28-29 when I got hired

I’m not if I’d be a good fit , but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night

I'm guessing this is for Ameribrahs only? Cuckada sucks man...

repped for passing along the info

i remember there used to be some dude who was an air force atc or something and he would troll public lobbies in microsoft flight sim - pretty funny

edit - airforceproud95 lol



also vasaviation is a cool channel with interesting atc moments - like this suicidal mechanic who stole and crashed a plane

Yeah idk about you guys up north. Thought I read they had layed off some controllers up north actually at really low facilities. Think you guys are NAV CANADA, don't know too much about you, but I'd assume it's the same sort of process

What you gonna do when they automate you SRS, Have you gotten any closer to ACTUALLY doing this or are you still just talking about it SRS.

My friend I met at 18 being a server was a crab fisherman, got his finger chopped off from a line. Said he’s happy being broke with his life after getting out of that environment

Damn I remember a thread years ago mentioning this career. Would have been a perfect fit for me, totally forgot about it. Have they always had the age restriction? A few years too late for me...