Prior to schooling and earning my A&P, I have several years experience in a mechanical background working as an ASE certified automotive tech. I also attended the local career fair that my school hosts, and met with a lot of employers/recruiters and kept their contact information.

I finished AMT school in May. A couple weeks after I finished school, I tested for my A&P. As soon as I passed, I have been applying for every pretty much every AMT job listing in Tucson and Phoenix that I did or did not qualify for. I spent many hours on Google, Indeed, and JSFirm every day. I also followed up with the recruiters from the careers fair.

In a span of 5 weeks and 30+ applications, I got only 4 interviews, and 4 job offers. Only 2 of those job offers were competitive/attractive in terms of work and pay. I had to make a hard decision between two different MRO's. 

One MRO offered me an A&P position working on widebodies and the other MRO offered an Avionics position working on regionals. I chose the A&P work on widebodies because I really want to gain relevant experience that will allow me to move up to majors in the future. The two MRO's that considered me took my prior technical background into account and told me during the interview that it made me a stronger candidate than other new, fresh A&P's out of school. 

A background check and drug screening are all that's left in my way. I'm now estimated to start my first job working on planes at the end of the month. 

Job Hunting in Arizona in 2026: How it's going 5 weeks after earning my A&P