The interview process was very pleasant. I airlined into the headquarters at the RNO base. It was a beautiful flight. The chief pilot picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at the hotel that was on their account. It was a standard chain hotel, but I was clean and overall a nice stay. I was picked up by a Mx guy in the morning and they brought me to their office. I was greeted warmly by everybody. They took me into there conference room and right away started the Drug-testing paperwork. I also had to watch a drug video that the FAA makes them show us. The process took about 1.5 hours but they kept me hydrated with waters and plenty of coffee. After the video the CEO John Burrel came into chat with me. John is a super good guy. SO is the chief pilot Creighton Ring. These guys are here to get to know you, they are very welcoming. Anyways they listened to what I had to say and was overall concerned with my well being and the interview was very casual. It was really just two pilots talking rather than him asking me questions. However there was some standard HR interview questions in there. after about 40 minutes he got a page for a medflight and the response time is 30 min. Since he was covering the day shift that day he asked if I wanted to go on a short flight and be his co-pilot. I said sure. The airplane was ready to go as you preflight before so you are ready to hop in and start up. We checked the weather (it was beautiful out) and then met the medical team at the plane. They were very friendly and well organized. We started up and John was teaching my some start flow. The whole flight he was introducing me to the whole process. It was pretty fun actually and just what I expected as I worked in air ambulance services before. We arrived back to RNO and everything went very smoothly. He then was going over how they do their postflight. Everything is very straight forward and what you would expect. Those Cheyenne II's definitely get up and go with the two PT6-28's with 620-shp a side, it only weights max 9000 lbs! That's 1240 HP for 9000 lbs. I was used to the King Air 90 at 1100 HP for max weight of 11,800 lbs. Anyways the point is its a good plane for its intended mission. And they made it clear to me that they really want to support the people in small rural towns and get them to better hospitals. The families of the patients really appreciate it when you save their loved ones lives. AMF makes it affordable and fast.
Anyways I then had to go to the drug test. This was not very fun. But is it ever? I had to go to a local medical facility and wait almost 1.5 hours, it was busy because it was Monday. After that the chief pilot picked me up and we went back to the office after we had a nice lunch at a local food joint that they picked up. We sat and ate and discussed the job. Again very casual. We stopped at the crew quarters apartments and checked them out. They are completely adequate to live in. The facility has a pool and a fitness area. Once back at the office he asked me some more basic HR questions and discussed the job a little more in depth. The pay, the the schedule, the base, what they expect from you, and what you could expect from them. The start off pay is $60k, with chances for OT, and $5K retention bonus after a year. Its actually pretty competitive with the salaries fro similar aircraft out there. We then preflighted and discussed some instrument procedures we were going to do on our interview flight. We then went flying. We did a DP and a hold. We then went and intercepted an approach course and did the VOR-D into RNO. the chief pilot helped me with all the power settings and trims. They are just really looking for situational awareness. Anyways he even let me land with his help of course. Which ws not pretty because of a 20 knot X-wind. But he understood and was there to help teach me how to handle the plane. Overall a very fun and interesting flight. The sun was setting over the mountains and the mountains silhouetted against a vanilla sky. A great end to a great day. In the conference room he made me do a self critique and weighed in himself. He was not testing you, but really just seeing how you fly and know your instrument stuff. We wrapped it up and he drove me back to the hotel where I airlined out the next day. Again the weather was nice. All around a very relaxed interview and an enjoyable experience.
They offered me a job after the drug test came back negative. I have not responded yet as I am weighing my options although below it does say I accepted, but not yet actually.