For decades the answer to "what do I need to get hired?" was a number: hours. You piled up experience until you crossed the threshold the company published, and the rest was luck and timing.
The threshold still exists. What changed is what happens after it is crossed — and that is where most candidates are rejected. Not for being unable to fly: for failing to demonstrate the competencies the process looks for.
The change of axis, in one sentence
International regulation has shifted the unit of measurement in training: from task completed to competency demonstrated.
This is in ICAO Doc 9868 (PANS-TRG), which lays out the procedures for developing and implementing competency-based programs in support of Annex 1 (Personnel Licensing), and it was expanded by Doc 9995, the Evidence-Based Training manual. IATA, in a 2024 white paper on the expansion of CBTA, sums up the next move: the model is ceasing to be exclusive to the flight deck and reaching the other functions of the aviation system.
Translated into what matters to the candidate: the company doesn't only want to know whether you performed the maneuver. It wants to know how you thought, communicated and decided while performing it — because that is what it can observe, train and predict.
Seven of the nine competencies are not flying
The ICAO framework works with nine competencies. If you sort them by nature, the result is uncomfortable for anyone who prepared only by flying:
The full list, with the description of each, is in the article where we break the model down: CBTA and EBT inside out. The point here is a different one — what this proportion means for anyone preparing.
"Soft skill" is a poor name for what these competencies are. They are neither soft nor accessory: they are described by observable behaviors, assessed on a scale and recorded as evidence. Communication, in the framework, is not friendliness — it is the right information reaching the right person in time to be used. Leadership is not hierarchy — it is taking over coordination when the scenario calls for it, including in single-pilot operations, where the team includes the mechanic, the dispatcher and air traffic control.
What this changes in the selection room
Three practical consequences, which explain rejections that seem inexplicable:
The question is no longer about what happened. It is now about the reasoning: why you decided that way, what alternatives you considered, what would have changed your decision. Whoever answers only with the outcome answers half.
An honestly told error is worth more than a perfect flight. The model was born from analysis of safety data — the culture that sustains it treats error as information. A candidate who never made a mistake in any story sounds like a candidate who doesn't notice.
Consistency weighs more than peak. Competency is a pattern over time, not best performance. That is why a progress record matters: it shows evolution, and evolution is the best predictor available.
What the school can do — and most don't
If the assessment at the other end is by competency, it makes little sense to train by counting only maneuvers.
- Assess behavior together with the maneuver. The mission is already assessed; including the behavioral dimension on the same form costs no additional flight hour — it costs criteria.
- Give the student a vocabulary. The pilot who can name what they did — "I prioritized, delegated, reassessed" — communicates better in the selection process than one who only narrates the sequence of actions.
- Record progress, not just passing. A folder with "passed" on every mission proves completion. A trail with performance by competency proves development — and that is what the airline wants to predict.
- Treat the debrief as part of the curriculum. The debrief is where the competency is observed and named. A rushed debrief is lost content.
None of this requires an advanced-level simulator or a new fleet. It requires the assessment form to ask the right questions — and someone to read the history afterward.
How Alis supports this
The CIAC module was designed for this reality: the digital FIP records maneuvers and competency assessment on the same mission, with instructor and student signatures; the performance history is searchable by student across the course, rather than scattered across loose forms; and the evidence that the quality assurance system requires comes out of the day-to-day of instruction itself.
It is not about generating more paper. It is about the student leaving with the same thing the airline will look for: a trail of demonstrated competencies.
This article is informational. The competency framework cited appears in ICAO Doc 9868 (PANS-TRG) and Doc 9995, complementary to Annex 1; the expansion of CBTA is discussed in an IATA white paper (2024). Training, licensing and selection requirements vary by operator and by current regulation — confirm in the official publications.