Alaska Airlines Director interviews, decoded.

I applied online three months ago and then got a call. The first interview was a phone interview where we went through my resume with the recruiter. The next stage was an on-site interview, which was held a week after the phone interview. It's been weeks since the on-site and I still haven't heard back, even after sending a thank you email and inquiring. It's not a great practice for employers to be silent after an on-site interview these days. The people were nice during the interview, but afterwards, expect silence. It felt very old school.

The whole process from applying to the in-person interview took about 4 weeks. I had a phone call with a manager in HR, and then the in-person interview was with the HR rep and the Managing Director.

The 1:1 questioning was straightforward and targeted to the profession. First interview was by phone with an outside agency retained by Alaska. First question, "have you used tobacco products in last 6 months?" Strange first question that had me thinking in a different way about AA than I had walking into the interview. I get the focus on health, but "HI Mr. X, do you smoke" was a strange start. Nothing about the company, the process, how great it is to work here, the job etc...