Jones14 is correct in his post.

Think of the Guard and Reserves like a business when applying. You need to send in resume's, go in for interviews, show your face a bit so they can get to know you and all. The Guard and Reserve units are pretty tight, and they want people who are genuinely interested in being there. If there's a stack of 20 folks and only one slot, the guy whose been making an effort to "get to know" the squadron will win out over hours and such most of the time. Once you get hired into a unit, your future is all planned out for you. All you have to do is pass, get through the training, and get back to the squadron.

I'll tell you this from recent hires for our squadron; they are getting REALLY choosy lately. Being sponsored/hired by a squadron used to be all you needed and HQ approval was just a rubber stamp. Lately at the HQ level they are rejecting folks (after squadron approval) because there are a lot of really qualified people. I mean folks who scored well on the tests and everything have been turned down. There are only so many slots an so much money.

I'm saying this to recommend you do the best you can on everything leading up to you getting your appointment. Everything counts now a days and it's all weighed very carefully.

The nice part is you can apply to the unit that has the plane you want to fly. So do some research into what plane you might want to be a part of. Then apply to those units. If you can't get into one you want, make a secondary list of sorts. The trick is to get into the Guard/Reserves and get your wings. Then, after a while, you'll have some options to move around maybe. But get your foot in the door first.