There seems to be plenty of areas that are below him...most notably the general attitude towards the company and it's people. Be careful taking such advice from an obviously jaded source.

I know of at least one pilot hired last year who didn't have any ties to current/past employees, did not attend any job fair or hiring event and wasn't anything more on paper than a white male with industry average numbers and presented a good attitude. I wouldn't say that this is the recipe for getting hired at Alaska (or any other carrier), I'd say the times are different than that portrayed by the bitter off-topic ramblings of an out-to-sea former (or maybe fired) employee who thinks nepotism is isolated to one carrier.

Anything that you can do to differentiate yourself in a stack of resumes will improve chances of being visible but there are no guarantees. Hopefully people in the last round of interviews will post results their experiences to give a current perspective.