Private Jet Broker Hiring: What to Look For

I remember my early days. Part of the lure of wanting to be a private aviation broker is the product itself. It's exclusive and exciting, and it allows you to meet with individuals that you wouldn't otherwise. While some of this is true, the reality of the day-to-day operation is starkly different for those who have been in the industry long enough. A lot of new brokers, or brokers that have very small books, struggle to deal with this reality in my experience, and it distracts their focus from what really makes a successful broker.

The job can be a grind. The job can mean extremely long hours. The job can ruin a Saturday night depending on what is going on. Everyone sees and hears the stories of the successful deals, and the trips that are worked on and who they are for. But they never hear about the scenarios where things go wrong, and what you went through to fix them. Many brokers don't want to deal with the consequences of working with machines like planes that can be susceptible to weather and maintenance issues.

A key part of success in a broker relationship is how proactively you can think about every single outcome so that it can be avoided. This comes with experience, but it also comes with a personality that is continuously looking to learn and take feedback. Assuming you know everything because you have one or two loyal clients is naive in my opinion, and it can affect the success of your future growth within the industry.

As noted previously, a lot of this world can be dealing with real-world consequences that pop up: weather, maintenance, ATC holds, or overlooked operator scheduling decisions. The brokers who succeed are not the ones who are purely extroverted and charismatic. They are the ones that are willing to be in the weeds when something goes wrong. The scenarios can sometimes be unavoidable, but how you deal with them matters in the long run, as it is part of being a broker, or an operator for that matter.

Communication is also key, and a major factor that brokers run into is the waiting game to see if a plane will be fixed. If the client is caught up in the waiting game, their stress levels will increase dramatically while they wait for updates. In these scenarios a broker's communication is key, and a simple update of "we still don't have one" is more important than none at all. People don't like being left in the dark, so over-communication in a crisis is key.

I look for a proactive problem solver, someone who is calm under pressure, someone who does not cut corners when things go wrong, and someone who genuinely understands the bigger picture of what we are trying to achieve with our clients.

The product is exciting, but that isn't what makes someone good at this job. What matters is what they do when a plane is stuck on the ground and the client is waiting for an answer. Hire the person who stays calm and keeps the client updated, even when the update is that there's no update yet.