How to Apply to CAE | Resume Geni

Key Takeaways

CAE is the world's number-one provider of civil aviation training and a tier-one defense and healthcare simulation supplier, headquartered at 8585 Cote-de-Liesse in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, with approximately 13,000 employees in more than 35 countries.
All hiring runs through Workday at cae.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career; a single-column ATS-friendly resume and a complete Workday profile are the two highest-leverage formatting decisions you can make.
The company has three distinct hiring tracks: Civil Aviation Training (engineers and instructors at training centers globally), Defense and Security (cleared engineers, instructors, and program staff in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia), and Healthcare (simulation engineers and clinical educators).
Defense roles require active or eligible national security clearance; misstating clearance status will surface during background checks and end the process.
Interview cadence is three to four rounds across three to eight weeks, longer for cleared roles, with a Canadian-aerospace tone that rewards specific examples, intellectual honesty, and visible respect for the craft of training.
Recent strategic context matters: a 2024 executive reshuffle and Defense restructuring mean CAE is actively retooling, and candidates who can articulate how they would contribute to that transition stand out.
Quantify your aerospace experience in the units hiring managers actually use: flight hours by category for pilots, simulator fidelity levels and regulatory certifications for engineers, named programs and platforms wherever non-disclosure permits.

About CAE

CAE Inc. is the world's #1 provider of flight simulation and civil aviation training, a Canadian aerospace institution that has shaped how pilots, defense personnel, and healthcare professionals are trained for nearly eight decades. Founded in 1947 as Canadian Aviation Electronics in the post-war Montreal aerospace boom, CAE today operates from its global headquarters at 8585 Cote-de-Liesse in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, with approximately 13,000 employees spread across more than 35 countries. The company trades on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CAE, and its most recent fiscal year produced revenue of approximately CAD 4.6 billion. For the job seeker, the most important fact about CAE is that it is not a generic aerospace company; it is a training and simulation specialist whose product is competence. Almost every commercial airline pilot you have ever flown with has trained on CAE equipment, and a meaningful share of Western military aircrew have done the same. CAE's business is organized into three operating segments, each with its own hiring rhythm and culture. Civil Aviation Training, the largest segment by revenue, runs a global network of more than 70 training centers from Madrid to Singapore to Dallas, where airline pilots earn type ratings and recurrent qualifications on full-flight simulators. This segment also designs, manufactures, and sells those simulators to airlines and to the company's own training centers, and it has been the growth engine behind recent contract wins with airBaltic and ADAC HEMS Academy. Defense and Security is the company's most strategically sensitive segment, providing mission training systems, simulators, and live training services to ministries of defense in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and allied nations; it has also been the segment under the most pressure, with margin contraction triggering a public restructuring effort in 2024. Healthcare, the smallest but fastest-growing segment, builds patient simulators, surgical task trainers, and ultrasound education tools used by medical schools and hospitals worldwide. Leadership remained remarkably stable for most of the last fifteen years under Marc Parent, who was appointed President and CEO in 2009 and became one of the longest-tenured aerospace CEOs in North America. That stability shifted in 2024 when CAE conducted a significant executive reshuffle aimed at restoring profitability in Defense and accelerating execution in Civil. The practical implication for candidates is that CAE is a company in transition: still anchored by its half-century reputation for engineering excellence, but actively retooling its operating model, embracing AI-enabled flight training, and asking new hires to bring both deep specialization and tolerance for change. If you want to work at the intersection of aerospace engineering, software-driven simulation, and global training operations, with the ballast of a Canadian crown-jewel employer behind you, CAE deserves a serious look.

Application Process

1
Start at cae
Start at cae.com/careers, which routes all live requisitions to CAE's Workday-hosted careers portal at cae.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career. This is the single source of truth for open roles. Recruiter LinkedIn outreach and external job boards almost always link back to the same Workday postings, so applying once through Workday is sufficient.
2
Create a Workday candidate profile with your full legal name, contact details, a
Create a Workday candidate profile with your full legal name, contact details, and work-authorization status for the country listed on the requisition. CAE's roles are country-specific because of pilot regulatory bodies, defense clearance requirements, and Quebec language law for Montreal positions, so apply to the geography where you can legally work without sponsorship unless the posting explicitly invites visa candidates.
3
Upload a resume in PDF or Word format and let Workday parse it
Upload a resume in PDF or Word format and let Workday parse it. Review the parsed fields carefully because Workday's parser frequently mangles two-column layouts, custom typography, and tables, which are common defects in aerospace and aviation resumes designed for print. Correct the parsed work history, education, and skills sections before submitting.
4
Answer the requisition-specific screening questions honestly
Answer the requisition-specific screening questions honestly. For Defense and Security postings these include nationality, eligibility for Canadian Government of Canada Reliability or Secret clearance, US DoD Secret or Top Secret clearance, UK SC or DV clearance, or Australian NV1 clearance. For Civil Aviation pilot instructor roles these include current type ratings, total flight hours, recency, and ATPL or equivalent license status. Misrepresenting any of these answers will surface during background checks and disqualify you.
5
Submit, then expect an automated acknowledgement email from Workday within minut
Submit, then expect an automated acknowledgement email from Workday within minutes. Initial recruiter screening for active postings typically lands within one to three weeks for civil and corporate roles, while defense roles can take longer because of clearance pre-screening. If your background closely matches a hard-to-fill engineering or instructor requisition, expect contact within days.
6
If you are selected, the recruiter will schedule a 30-minute phone or Microsoft
If you are selected, the recruiter will schedule a 30-minute phone or Microsoft Teams conversation covering your motivation, salary expectations in local currency, location flexibility, and clearance status. Be ready to articulate why CAE specifically and not just any aerospace employer, because recruiters here are skilled at filtering candidates who are simply pattern-matching on aerospace logos.
7
Successful screens advance to a hiring-manager interview, then to a technical or
Successful screens advance to a hiring-manager interview, then to a technical or scenario-based panel, and for senior roles a final round with a director or vice president. Total elapsed time from application to offer typically runs four to eight weeks for civil and corporate positions and eight to sixteen weeks for cleared defense roles where the clearance reciprocity or upgrade process gates the start date.
8
Offers are extended verbally by the recruiter, followed by a written offer lette
Offers are extended verbally by the recruiter, followed by a written offer letter through Workday or DocuSign. Background verification, reference checks, and where required clearance initiation begin after offer acceptance. Onboarding is conducted at the hiring location, which for headquarters roles means Saint-Laurent, Quebec, and for training-center roles means the specific facility named on the requisition.

Resume Tips for CAE

recommended

Lead with the segment and discipline that match the requisition

Lead with the segment and discipline that match the requisition. CAE's Civil, Defense, and Healthcare segments each look for different signals, and a one-size-fits-all aerospace resume reads as unfocused. If you are applying to a simulator software role, your top section should make clear within five seconds that you build real-time simulation, modeling, or rendering systems; if you are applying to a pilot instructor role, your hours, type ratings, and licensing authority should be in the header.

recommended

Quantify aviation and defense experience with the units that hiring managers act

Quantify aviation and defense experience with the units that hiring managers actually use. Pilots should list total hours, pilot-in-command hours, hours by aircraft family, simulator hours, and instructor hours separately. Engineers should list simulation fidelity levels (FFS Level D, FTD Level 5, FNPT II), regulatory certifications they have supported (FAA Part 60, EASA CS-FSTD(A)), and named programs they contributed to. Generic phrases like 'worked on flight simulators' tell a CAE recruiter nothing.

recommended

Use plain ATS-friendly formatting because Workday parses your resume into struct

Use plain ATS-friendly formatting because Workday parses your resume into structured fields that the recruiter and hiring manager filter on. A single-column layout, standard section headers (Experience, Education, Skills, Certifications, Clearances, Licenses), Arial or Calibri at 10 to 11 point, no text in headers or footers, no tables for content, and no graphics or icons will preserve your data through Workday's parser.

recommended

Surface clearances and nationality eligibility prominently for any Defense and S

Surface clearances and nationality eligibility prominently for any Defense and Security application. List active clearances with the issuing authority and current status, and list eligible-for clearances separately. Examples: 'Active Government of Canada Secret (Level II), granted 2022, current,' 'Eligible for US DoD Secret as US citizen,' 'Active UK DV (Developed Vetting), MOD-sponsored.' Do not list clearance details for postings that do not require them.

recommended

For Quebec-based corporate and engineering roles, address French language capabi

For Quebec-based corporate and engineering roles, address French language capability honestly. Quebec's Charter of the French Language and CAE's bilingual workplace mean that French proficiency is genuinely valued at headquarters, but overstating fluency will be exposed in a five-minute conversation. Use the Common European Framework levels (A2, B1, B2, C1) or 'professional working proficiency,' 'limited working proficiency,' and 'native or bilingual.'

recommended

Tailor the skills section to the specific simulator stack named or implied by th

Tailor the skills section to the specific simulator stack named or implied by the posting. CAE engineering teams work with C++, C#, Python, real-time operating systems, OpenGL and Vulkan rendering pipelines, networked distributed simulation (DIS, HLA), motion control systems, visual database tools (Presagis, VBS), and avionics integration. List only what you have actually used in production, and be ready to discuss it in depth.

recommended

Reference named programs and aircraft platforms when you can do so without viola

Reference named programs and aircraft platforms when you can do so without violating non-disclosure or classification rules. 'Contributed to the C-130J full-mission simulator update for the Royal Canadian Air Force' is a stronger claim than 'worked on military simulator programs.' For classified work, use the unclassified program name or describe your role at the classification level publicly disclosed by the customer.

ATS System: Workday

CAE uses Workday as its applicant tracking and human capital management system, hosted at cae.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com. All career-page links from cae.com route candidates into the same Workday tenant. Workday is one of the most widely deployed enterprise ATS platforms in aerospace and defense, and it parses uploaded resumes into structured candidate profile fields that recruiters filter against requisition criteria. The system supports country-specific application flows, which CAE uses heavily because of differing regulatory and clearance requirements across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and continental Europe.

Submit a clean single-column PDF or Word resume so that Workday's parser correctly extracts your work history, education, and skills into the structured profile. Two-column layouts, embedded tables, text in headers and footers, and image-based text are the most common causes of mis-parsed CAE applications.
After upload, manually review and correct every parsed field. Workday will show you the structured version of your resume before final submission. Fix mangled job titles, missing dates, and skills that did not transfer. The parsed version is what the recruiter and hiring manager actually see in the candidate review screen, not the original PDF.
Complete the optional skills, certifications, and languages sections in the candidate profile. CAE recruiters and hiring managers run keyword searches across these structured fields when sourcing for new requisitions, and a complete profile makes you discoverable for roles you did not apply to directly.
Set up job alerts inside the Workday portal for the segments and locations you care about. CAE posts a steady cadence of new requisitions across Civil, Defense, and Healthcare, and Workday will email you when a matching role opens, which is faster than checking the careers page manually.
Apply only to roles where you genuinely meet the must-have requirements. Workday's reporting allows recruiters to see candidates who have applied to many disparate requisitions, and a scattergun pattern across unrelated postings undermines your credibility for any single role.

Interview Culture

CAE's interview process is recognizably Canadian in its cadence and tone: structured, respectful, thorough, and slower than the equivalent process at a Silicon Valley software company.

Expect three to four rounds spread across three to eight weeks for most positions, longer for Defense roles that gate on clearance pre-screening or for senior leadership where calendar coordination across global time zones adds friction. The first round is almost always a 30-minute recruiter screen conducted by phone or Microsoft Teams, focused on motivation, location and segment fit, salary expectations in local currency, and any deal-breakers like clearance ineligibility or visa requirements. Recruiters here are aerospace-literate and have heard every flavor of generic 'I love planes' answer, so prepare a specific reason you want CAE rather than Bombardier, Pratt and Whitney Canada, Lockheed Martin, or L3Harris. The second round is a hiring-manager conversation, typically 45 to 60 minutes, that probes the substance of your past work. Engineers should expect to walk through specific projects in technical depth and to be asked about trade-offs, failure modes, and what you would do differently. Pilot instructors should expect scenario-based questions framed around training delivery, learner failure recovery, regulatory compliance, and how you handle a pilot client who pushes back on a critique. Corporate-function candidates can expect competency-based questions structured around CAE's behavioral framework, with explicit follow-ups asking for specific examples rather than hypotheticals. The third round is usually a panel or sequence of one-on-ones with peers and adjacent stakeholders. For engineering roles this often includes a technical exercise: a whiteboard or shared-document design problem, a code walkthrough of something you have written, or a simulation modeling question relevant to the team's domain. The exercise is not meant to be a leetcode trap; CAE engineering culture values pragmatic problem solvers who explain their reasoning clearly over candidates who optimize for the cleverest answer. For instructor and operations roles the third round may include a teach-back, where you deliver a short briefing on a topic of your choice as if to a class of pilots or technicians, and the panel evaluates your clarity, presence, and ability to handle interruption. A fourth round, when present, is typically with a director or vice president, often spanning multiple time zones via Teams. This conversation is less about technical evaluation and more about cultural and strategic fit: how you think about the segment's direction, how you handle ambiguity, how you would integrate into a global team. For Defense roles, the cleared portion of the process begins in parallel and includes a separate security interview and forms package with the relevant national security agency. Throughout the process, the cultural signal CAE rewards is what Quebec aerospace veterans sometimes call serieux: serious-mindedness, preparation, humility about what you do not know, and genuine commitment to the craft of training. Bravado and big-personality salesmanship play poorly. Concrete examples, calm specificity, and visible respect for the subject matter play well.

What CAE Looks For

Domain-specific depth in either aerospace engineering, aviation operations, defense systems, or healthcare simulation. CAE hires generalists for very few roles; most requisitions ask for a candidate who has already accumulated meaningful experience in the discipline named on the posting and can contribute on day one.
Regulatory literacy, whether that is FAA, Transport Canada, EASA, or DGCA for civil aviation; Government of Canada, US DoD, UK MOD, or Australian Department of Defence for cleared work; or FDA and CE marking for healthcare devices. CAE's products live inside regulated environments, and candidates who already speak the regulator's language need less ramp time.
Intellectual honesty about uncertainty. Simulation engineering and pilot training both punish overconfidence severely, and CAE's culture rewards candidates who can clearly describe what they do not know, what they need to verify, and how they would test their assumptions before committing.
Bilingual capability for headquarters roles. French and English bilingualism is genuinely useful in Saint-Laurent and signals respect for the Quebec workplace, although unilingual English is acceptable for many engineering roles where the working language is English by default.
Tolerance for global, sometimes inconvenient collaboration. CAE's customers and training centers span every populated continent, and meaningful work often requires early-morning calls with European or Asian counterparts, occasional travel to training centers, and patience with multi-time-zone program execution.
Eligibility and willingness to obtain or maintain a national security clearance for Defense roles. CAE cannot consider candidates for cleared positions without the relevant nationality, residency history, and willingness to undergo polygraph or vetting interviews where applicable. This is non-negotiable and screened early.
Long-game commitment. CAE's average employee tenure is well above the aerospace industry mean, and the company tends to invest heavily in people who plan to stay. Candidates who present a coherent multi-year arc that includes CAE tend to outperform those who frame the role as a stepping stone.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does CAE use to manage applications?

CAE uses Workday, hosted at cae.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career. All requisitions linked from cae.com/careers, LinkedIn, Indeed, and recruiter outreach route into the same Workday tenant, so a single application through Workday is sufficient. Workday parses your uploaded resume into structured candidate-profile fields that recruiters filter on, which is why a clean single-column layout with standard section headers materially improves your visibility.

Does CAE require a security clearance for Defense and Security roles?

Yes. Most Defense and Security roles require an active or eligible national security clearance issued by the country in which the role is based. Examples include Government of Canada Reliability or Secret, US Department of Defense Secret or Top Secret with possible SCI, UK Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV), and Australian Negative Vetting Level 1 or 2. CAE will pre-screen clearance status during the recruiter call and cannot move forward with candidates who are ineligible for the relevant clearance based on nationality or residency history.

Is French required to work at CAE's Montreal headquarters?

French is not strictly required for many engineering and technical roles where the working language is English, but bilingual French and English capability is genuinely valued at headquarters and is sometimes a posted requirement for client-facing, leadership, or corporate-function roles. Quebec's language regulations and CAE's bilingual workplace culture mean that overstating French proficiency will be exposed quickly. Be honest using Common European Framework levels (A2, B1, B2, C1) or professional working proficiency descriptors.

How long does the CAE interview process take from application to offer?

Civil Aviation Training and corporate roles typically run four to eight weeks from application to offer, with three to four interview rounds. Defense and Security roles run eight to sixteen weeks because clearance pre-screening, reciprocity, or new-clearance initiation gate the timeline. Senior leadership roles can take longer because of cross-time-zone calendar coordination. Workday will send automated status updates at major milestones, but candidates should expect long quiet stretches that are normal rather than a rejection signal.

What pilot qualifications does CAE look for in instructor roles?

CAE pilot instructor roles vary by training center and aircraft type, but the recurring requirements are an Airline Transport Pilot License or equivalent issued by the relevant authority, a current type rating on the aircraft you would instruct, several thousand total flight hours with a meaningful share as pilot-in-command and on type, and prior simulator instructor or check airman experience for senior positions. Postings will state the exact hour minimums and type-rating requirements; do not apply if you do not meet the published minimums because Workday filters on these fields directly.

Does CAE sponsor work visas for international candidates?

CAE sponsors work authorization on a role-by-role and country-by-country basis, generally for hard-to-fill specialized roles where the local talent pool is genuinely insufficient. Sponsorship is more common for senior engineering, simulator-specific, and instructor roles than for entry-level or generalist positions. Each posting will indicate whether sponsorship is available; if it does not, assume that local work authorization without sponsorship is required. For Defense and Security roles, citizenship of the relevant country is typically a hard requirement that no visa can satisfy.

What are CAE's three main business segments and how do they hire differently?

Civil Aviation Training is the largest segment and hires the broadest mix of pilot instructors, simulator engineers, training center operations staff, and account managers across more than 70 global training centers. Defense and Security hires cleared engineers, mission training specialists, instructors, and program managers concentrated in Canada, the US, the UK, and Australia, with clearance as a gating requirement. Healthcare is the smallest segment and hires simulation engineers, clinical educators, product managers, and field application specialists oriented toward medical schools, hospitals, and military medical units. Each segment runs its own hiring managers and uses its own competency frameworks even though they share the Workday platform.

What is the dress code and work model at CAE?

CAE follows a hybrid work model for most corporate, engineering, and program roles at headquarters and major sites, typically with two to three days per week onsite depending on team and segment. Training-center roles, simulator-floor positions, and instructor jobs are onsite by nature. Dress code is business casual for corporate and engineering settings, more formal for client-facing and pilot instructor roles where uniforms or sport coats are common, and segment-specific PPE for manufacturing and integration floors.

Open Positions

CAE currently has 226 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 226 open positions at CAE

Related Resources

Career Guides for CAE Roles

Sources

CAE Inc. Careers —
CAE Workday Careers Portal —
CAE Inc. Corporate Site —
CAE Inc. Investor Relations —
CAE Inc. on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX:CAE) —
CAE Inc. on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:CAE) —