Think for just a minute....
How many hiring systems/iterations have you seen since you were hired here? 747 Sims in LAX, DC-10/A300 sim evals in MEM, SBI added, SBI disappears for a while..then comes back... Bring your guy in for a meet and greet...okay..wait...don't do that anymore. Take a screening test. Oops..the screening test wasn't set up right...please come back (5 months later) and try again. Recommendations are critical. We longer look at recommendations--the computer score is what gets you to the PASS board. We don't hire furloughees. Okay--we will hire furloughees from US Air. Okay--we'll hire furloughees from any other company but they have to resign from their previous employer. We don't do sims now. We have a third party system that makes sure that the process is fair. We want more input from our pilots and need to emphasize their input more.
Blah blah blah.....
There has always been a few common threads to hiring here, but variables change every 18 months. If you don't like the current system--just wait. It will change again.
My advice is if you have a candidate go ahead and fire off your silver bullet. Three years from now the system will be different again. Holding your silver bullet in your pocket just means you it will be wasted when the next hiring plan takes shape and the 1 in 10 year plan is dead. Odds are in five years we'll have a new VP of flight ops, a new CP, a new set of fleet captains, and probably some new faces in legal and HR as well. The only constant around here is change... You can probably bet as leaders move in and out they will each want to put their own stamp on hiring process.