The United pilot walks into the cp office or emails him and asks to set up a meet and greet for someone. Usually attaches a resume do the cp to look at and decide if it's worth his time. They are much harder to come by these days. And if you get the CP rec, its pretty safe to assume you'll have an interview within 2 months. I've heard any chief pilot is only allowed to submit 24 recs in a year. So that's less than 250 cp recs handed out per year, company wide.