Applying for jobs at SWA

Hey there! Friendly Neighborhood Southwest Recruiter here. Here's some advice:

Make sure he thoroughly reads the job description and tailors his resume accordingly. If we list AWS Cloud experience as requirement, we should see it pop off in his bullet points.

Don't worry about a cover letter unless it helps him highlight something significant that might not otherwise appear on his resume.

If he's a applying for a Senior Level role, I advise him to indicate what makes him a Senior in that role instead of just a mid-level. (Usually looking for the ability to influence/consult for his team, and mentor junior members.)

Don't use fillers. Everyone is a team player, and highly motivated, and skilled at being detailed oriented. If he's done his Clifton Strengths, is Six Sigma trained, etc... we love to see those tools indicated.

It's okay if the resume is more than one page, but once it starts going over two pages, there needs to be a reason. Try to avoid bloat.

DO indicate his tech stack. Frontend? Backend? Full stack? Java? AWS? PYTHON?
We need to see that stuff early on.

You mentioned that you have friends who are Pilots. I encourage you to ask at least one of them to refer him. Referred candidates are not given special treatment, but it helps in the course of interview.

Feel free to DM me for more questions. Best of luck to y'all!

Don’t be afraid to be a little cheesy in your cover letter to capture their attention. When I worked there, one of my coworkers stood out when she was interviewing because she said she would “luv” to work at Southwest. Showing that you know and appreciate the environment and culture will go a long way.

Run the resume through chatgpt. Ask it to modify to have the best chance to pass the ATS for the role (copy paste the job description).

What's scary is that everyone will have perfect resumes and cover letters thanks to ChatGPT. You can input the advice given here as part of the prompt for your favorite AI engine.