Right. That was much more common then than it is now. I still don't think it matters a whole lot, but since the large majority of civilian pilots hired now and especially in the future will come from bigger 141 type flight schools, it can appear that part 61 training makes a future applicant not competitive, which just isn't true IMO.

There may be some small amount of preference given to certain big box flight schools especially those associated with unis etc. Even if that is the case, it would become just another tiny points added to the score kind of thing. My point was that an otherwise competitive application in total will still have a great chance regardless of initial training background because in all cases (until and unless we go the MPL/ab-initio route) any applicant will have way more time and experience than that.