Originally Posted by scrapdog

Wow, you're way off line. Not only does CAL do this, but so does DAL, UAL, FDX, UPS, SWA, and even JBL to a certain extent. Essentially every major airline that has a fight in today's market does some kind of "vouching" for. There's obviously a reason for that.

Let's take it a step further. In the "real" world of large corporations, big law firms, and physicians - the same damn thing happens every day. To get your foot in the door on most high level professional jobs, you need to know someone. You've got person A and person B with pretty much equal creditentials. Person A is completely off the street...person B knows multiple folks in management and has a very good repretoire with them. They say person B has a good attitude and is a hard worker. Maybe person A is as well, but no one has a clue where he/she came from. Who are they going to hire? Person B 99.9999 % of the time. That's a fact, Jack. No offense, but that's how life works.

So, are these HR folks lazy? Of course not. Networking is also a sign of initiative. The fact that people are sponsored by other folks means those candidates have gone out of their way to get to know fellow flyers at these majors and have asked for help. Maybe you're the one that's lazy. Let's call a spade a spade. If you want to get on at any major in today's world, you're going to have to know people. And I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.