It's random. Very, very random. Luck is involved. There are guys with fewer quals than me, who did less networking, who were hired first. There are guys with more quals than me, who do more networking, who are still waiting for an interview. The only things people getting hired have in common seems to be that they did at least some networking (via WAI, OBAP etc) and have put substantial effort into perfecting their airlineapps.com. Quals, volunteerism, GPA, and degrees only matter if you represent them in airlineapps, and airlineapps only matters if someone looks at it. So prioritize in this order 1) WAI/OBAP/NGPA conferences 2) airlineapps.com 3) actual quals such as LCA. It sucks. I had to take many hot showers during the process, but here I am. To think I owe 80% of it to luck still makes me ill. It's a fair process, like rolling a dice is fair. Good luck.