You might be qualified for the job, but do people actually like hanging out with you?
That’s a question United Airlines is interested in when assessing new hires — and uses a unique tactic in order to answer it.
Scott Kirby, United Airlines CEO, told McKinsey chief Bob Sternfels in an interview published in early April that he started a new process at the company aimed at evaluating if a candidate is a good cultural fit.
Kirby said he asked the head of flight operations to identify a dozen pilots who are “well-liked by everyone.” When candidates come in for interviews, those popular pilots will hang out with them — walk them around the building, have lunch with them, and escort them to interviews.
“I told this group of pilots, ‘Your job is just to assess: Is this interviewee someone I would like to take a four-day trip with? And if you say no, then they’re out. You get a veto vote,'” Kirby said. “The idea is to pick people who care about others, who you want to hang out with, who you want to be with.”
A spokesperson for United told Business Insider that practice is one part of a larger process for hiring pilots that includes “the rigorous standards set by United and the FAA.”
Assessing for culture fit is common in hiring, but the stakes could be especially high when it comes to flight crews who can spend days at a time working together on consecutive flights.
Jobs at United Airlines can also be competitive. Kirby said in the interview with McKinsey that when United lists openings for 2,000 to 3,000 flight attendant roles, the company can receive 75,000 applications in a couple of hours.
“So for us, the question is: How do you find people who have the right mentality and customer service attitude?” he said. “We can train them to do the jobs, but how do you build a process to pick the right people and keep them excited?”
As of December 2025, United Airlines had around 113,200 employees, according to company financials, after several years of head count growth.
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