Career Development, Essay Example

Chosen Organization: Cathay Pacific Airways

Job Opening In The Company Chosen: Flight Attendant

Job Description For A Flight Attendant In Cathay Pacific

Duties And Tasks Of The Flight Attendant In Cathay Pacific:

-Implement and enforce inflight safety and security measures (“Flight Attendant” 1).

-Disseminate professional and excellent customer service to passengers on board (“Flight Attendant” 1).

-Be in assistance of passengers’ needs promptly, efficiently and professionally (“Flight Attendant” 1).

-Serve food and beverages on board efficiently, and in a friendly manner to passengers.

In order to become effective in carrying out the duties and tasks, newly hired flight attendants would need to undergo a six-week intensive training program (“Flight Attendant” 1). In this training program, new flight attendants would get to feel the aircraft in flight mock up situations. They would get to be exposed to the process of checking and assisting on the safety procedures concerning the passengers before takeoff and landing. These safety measures include checking to see if the seatbelts are properly fastened. Additionally, they may demonstrate their ability to assist passengers fasten their seat belts if needed, during this mock up demonstration.

Newly hired flight attendants may demonstrate their mock up service of friendliness to passengers when asking them to straighten up their seats before take off and landing. The flight attendants can show the human resource managers that they are capable of being friendly to the passengers even during stressful situations. Stressful situations are not excuses for flight attendants to be grouchy. They should act professional at all times regardless of the situation in order to live with the policy that customers always come first.

New flight attendants should also demonstrate during in flight mock ups, their ability to respond to urgent situations involving the passengers. For example, a passenger needing medical assistance should be attended to immediately. Food and beverages on board being handled with care and efficiency must be demonstrated by new flight attendants. In this regard, grace in the movement of the flight attendants is important.

The knowledge, skills and abilities required for the flight attendant position in Cathay Pacific are the following:

Knowledge:

-Knowledge of the basics of professional customer service.

-Knowledge of the basics of marketing in the airline industry.

-Knowledge of the tourism industry basics of Hong Kong, the city where Cathay Pacific is based.

Skills And Abilities:

-Having the skill to work in a fast paced environment in a professional and friendly manner.

-Having the skill to be able to deal with customers of various personalities and backgrounds.

-Are able to enforce rescue procedures during emergency landings.

-Are able to enforce medical procedures to passengers, on board, if needed.

-Have the ability to pay strong attention keenly on details.

Being knowledgeable of the basics of customer service enables the flight attendants to be able to be familiar with the things that irritate passengers when it comes to customer service. For example, flight attendants would be able to be familiar which actions are considered rude in customer service. Being familiar with the marketing basics in the airline industry enables the flight attendants to apply positive customer service skills not typically found in other airlines’ flights, thus, gaining competitive edge against other airlines. The flight attendants’ promotion of the tourism industry the home city hub of the airline enables the airline to gain more customers in the long run. More customers flying to Hong Kong means more profits for the airline since most of its flights originate to and from Hong Kong, given the fact that Hong Kong is the airline’s city hub.

Deficiencies In The Required KSAs:

I am deficient in providing the most excellent customer service to passengers on board. This is because I have not had experience providing extensive customer service. I may probably need to take up a course focusing on the polishing of customer service skills in order to be efficient in the mentioned task. I am not knowledgeable of the marketing basics of the airline industry. I was considering another type of career before; therefore, I have not given consideration to studying the marketing techniques employed in the airline industry.

Studying the marketing techiniques of the airline industry would likely require me to take up a degree in tourism in order to formally get familiarized with the basics.Enrolling in the tourism degree program would enable one to take a course in the familiarization of the tourism industry of different key cities around the world, such as Hong Kong.

I am deficient in being able to carry heavy objects, which may make me deficient in being able to perform rescue operations during emergency landings. I would need to exercise well and keep my body fit in order to be strongly fit to carry objects. I would need to carry rescued passengers during emergency landings.

Taking up a short program in performing medical assistances would help me in becoming efficient in enforcing assistance to passengers on board in cases of health emergencies on board. There is no medical staff on board during flights. It is usually up to the flight attendants to look after the overall welfare of the passengers on board, including health welfare.

It is important that I enhance my skills for the human resource manager to consider me for the position as a flight attendant in Cathay Pacific. The mock up demonstration during flights are one of the most crucial processes when hiring flight attendants. They are the parts of the application process which test out how potential flight attendants would fare in actual work situations.

The human resource manager would tremendously be impressed with the expert skills that I have acquired through taking up the tourism degree and other professional courses. I would certainly stand out from other candidates when I get extra free knowledge from my professor in my classes. This extra free knowledge may ultimately lead me into getting hired by the airline. Being friendly to the human resource manager helps in attracting the acquisition of the position as well. If I can be friendly to the human resource manager, I can ultimately be friendly to the passengers as well if hired.

Type Of Education Required For Flight Attendants

A high school diploma is the minimum educational requirement for flight attendants (McKay 1). However, several airline companies prefer to hire flight attendants who have earned a college degree (McKay 1). One of the leading undergraduate majors which are related to being a flight attendant is tourism and leisure. This degree program provides the basic knowledge to students on how to best provide the services sought for by international travelers.

Taking up a short study program of human resource management concerning the recruitment of airline staff may provide benefits to the potential flight attendants as well. Enrolling in this short program of study would enable potential flight attendants to study the bases of the hiring decision making patterns of the human resource managers in the airline industry. Likewise, through taking this program of study, they would be able to find which airlines typically have stricter guidelines in hiring staff as compared to their airline counterparts.

Enrolling in a basic customer service enhancement study program may likely help in polishing service skills in the airline industry as a potential flight attendant. This program of study allows students to learn how to interact with customers in a mock up setting.There may be a mock up work setting included in this course of study due to the fact that it is a basic course. Teaching the fundamentals of skills require actual real life demonstrations in order to gauge the abilities acquired by the students from participating in such basic study program. The trends of successful customer service patterns may likely be revealed as students take classes for this program of study.

Taking up classes in the food and beverage program of study would help in enabling the potential flight attendants to better serve inflight meals and beverages to passengers. Potential flight attendants who have not had any experiences in the food and beverage careers may find it difficult to serve meals and beverages to passengers on board. These flight attendants may have difficulty in carrying food trays if they are not used to serving meals on a daily basis. If this difficulty does indeed arises, it would be more urgently necessary to take up a short study program in food and beverage.

Previous Work Experiences Required For Flight Attendants

Airlines around the world prioritize hiring flight attendants who have experiences working with the public (Mc Kay 2). Some of the occupations which include extensive public or customer service contact include: receptionists of all sorts, waiters and waitresses in restaurants, call center or reservation agents, public relations representatives, among others. Receptionists in hotels and other establishments extensively deal with customers of various backgrounds who walk into their offices. They deal with different temperaments exhibited by each customer they encounter. They learn to be patient in dealing with rude customers even when they are in a bad mood.With these experiences, their customer service skills are better enhanced.

Waiters and waitresses are familiar with the preferred types of services of customers when dining in. Aside from friendliness, customers definitely would like servers who take caution in serving them their food and beverages. Customers naturally do not want servers who constantly ‘accidentally’ spill food and drinks on them due to carelessness. In order to avoid such carelessness, waiters, waitresses and potential flight attendants alike need to enhance their motor gross skills. Practicing friendliness in a previous job waiting tables also helps potential flight attendants to be naturally friendly to passengers when serving them food and beverages even during situations that passengers ask a lot of requests from flight attendants.

Call center or reservation agents work in speed. Furthermore, they become familiar with the most common complaints of customers with regards to services provided. A prior call center agent job helps enhance a potential flight attendant’s working speed in a fast paced environment. Being a previous reservation agent enables potential flight attendant to avoid repeating the same mistakes when it comes to implementing customer services to clients. Lessons may be learned from various interactions with clients in a call center environment.

Public relations representatives serve as ambassadors in promoting and marketing the products and services in the organizations where they work. They deal with several public contacts not only with customers, but also with various sectors of the industry where their organizations maintain business relations with. Potential flight attendants who have had the experiences working in this type of position would learn how a large part of an organization operates. If hired as flight attendants, they would be an extra asset to the airline. They would contribute in imparting their extra ideas on the other operation sectors of the organizations. The flight attendants’ ability to do this would be something that their employer would treasure.

Personal Development Requirements For Flight Attendants

Because of their constant interaction with the public, flight attendants are required by the management to maintain a neat and presentable physical appearance (Barnhouse 1). Flight attendants interact with passengers coming from different parts of the world, who have their own vision of what constitute as plesant looking in their eyes. Flight attendants must be able to present their general best physical appearance. During the mock up in flight demonstration in the application process, flight attendants must demonstrate to human resource managers that they are capable of presenting themselves in a neat and presentable manner. Doing so may be one of the plus points in having the human resource managers make a decision on hiring the flight attendant applicant.

Having a negative eyesight vision is not acceptable for a flight attendant (Barnhouse 1). If a person seriously would like to pursue a career as a flight attendant, he/she is recommended to undergo a laser surgery of the eyes in order to have a perfect vision. Undergoing a laser surgery is a serious commitiment one has to think over first. One has to think if he/she is actually willing to spend the money and the effort to undergo such procedure for the sake of pursuing a flight attendant career.

Having an outgoing personality helps in enabling potential flight attendants to deal with customers in a positive manner. Outgoing potential flight attendants are usually the ones who can attract customers of the airline to come back to the same airline for future flights. This is because lively conversations attract the customers to the staff of the airline. They find lively flight attendants to be giving them entertaining moments during flights so as to cut down their boring moments on air.

Personally enhancing one’s fluency on a second most universal language would likewise help in preparing to become a flight attendant. International airlines are usually the airline companies which pay good in the industry. They are also the airline companies which usually require potential flight attendants to be fluent in another internationally known language. It would be of help if potential flight attendants enroll in a Spanish or Mandarin language class, before applying as a flight attendant. Spanish and Mandarin are the most commonly spoken languages in the world, after English.

Works Cited:

“Flight Attendant.” Cathay pacific. One World, n.d. Web. 23 April 2013.

“Flight Attendant.” Cathay pacific. One World, n.d. Web. 23 April 2013.

“Flight Attendant: Career Information.” About. About Career Planning, n.d. Web. 23 April 2013.

“What Are The Skills Needed To Become A Flight Attendant?” ehow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 24 April 2013.