Author provides insight into working as flight attendant

By Gary Gosselin

If you're craving a career as a flight attendant, you may want to pick up a copy of the "Flight Attendant Job Finder & Career Guide" (Tim Kirkwood, Planning/Communications; $16.95).

Or, you may just want to send resumes to the airlines of your choice and see what happens.

Yes, you probably can get a job without the book, but author and 24-year flight attendant Tim Kirkwood does give some insights into the selection, interview and hiring processes, and some helpful hints that seem like they could give an advantage.

Most of the book is one-page listings of the various airlines, both commercial/scheduled and charter. Each listing has a brief bio of the airline, and includes the hiring process and wages.

Kirkwood does include some important information, including a brief history of airline attendants, what to expect in the interview process, how to shine in an interview selection and training.

Flight Attendant is most fascinating for a non-attendant when Kirkwood takes the reader on a narrative through the steps of the interview then the first flight and what might be a three-day flight duty.

Kirkwood walks the reader through the process of a flight, plus discusses the pay, what's expected and some of the pitfalls once you are an employee of an airline.

He gives some common-sense advice in the first portion of the book, such as simply talking to flight attendants to get feedback about what it's like working in the field.

There's even a section about the group interview process where Kirkwood explains that your fellow job applicants may actually be "plants," or employees of the airline, there just to observe and report on applicants' attitudes and discussions.

That said, applicants should never badmouth their prospective employer or any other (that's a good rule for any situation).

Kirkwood's book, however, just doesn't have enough of his interesting stories and insider views to make the price palatable for the casual reader, although, again, there are at least a couple dozen pages that would be of interest to anyone.

Where his book does shine though, is for those contemplating a career (or just a job) as a flight attendant.

Kirkwood effectively takes enough mystery out of the process, and gives enough insight into the industry that someone considering this career would be sufficiently emboldened to "go for it," or, conversely, opt for an altogether different career path.

Buyers of the book can send for free updates and can visit www.jobfindersonline.com; or can write F/A Job Finder Updates P.O. Box 6455, Delray Beach, FL 33482-6455.

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