The FAA is soliciting applicationsfor new civilian air traffic controllers (Air Traffic Control Specialist Trainee—ATCS), but if you want to be considered, you’d better be fast. The application window opens today, July 7, and closes July 14. Short application windows are the norm for the FAA. When the FAA last hired for the ATCS position in 2016, the window was also only open for about one week.
Prior to 2014, new ATCS candidates (excluding retired military controllers) were drawn nearly exclusively from a group of colleges that have partnered with the FAA to provide an aviation science technical training curriculum—College Training Initiative (CTI) programs—in preparation for jobs as air traffic controllers. In 2014, the FAA introduced a controversial biographical assessment survey, which was intended to broaden the pool of ATCS candidates beyond CTI graduates, but resulted in shutting CTI graduates out of jobs in the field for which they had spent years training. The current ATCS requisition provides for two candidate pools—those with and without CTI (or military) training. It remains unclear how candidates from the two pools will be considered against each other or how the openings will be divided between the two pools. Those in the CTI graduate pool will not be required to take the behavior assessment test. All candidates must be under age 30, unless they were rejected in 2014 due to failure on the biographic assessment.
