From the perspective of a new hire this has not been my experience so far. I happen to have been exposed to United's new hire process (short of going through it myself) and found them to be very similar. One thing that stood out to me about indoc with Delta is how appreciative they were that we decided to choose them. This was not the language I was expecting from management, given Delta's reputation for wanting to "be the best." Some of the leadership even went as far to acknowledge that they know some of us may even leave to other carriers due to geographic (base) reasons but they also hope we decide to stay for the rest of our careers. Actually what is funny is that the one presenter that kept repeating that Delta is the best (perhaps besides the B-day ladies) and the gold standard and all that was the guy supposedly representing the FAA!

I also appreciated that current pilots stepped up and volunteered their wings to new hires given the supply chain issues with brass right now. I was very grateful to have had a wing ceremony and they kept mentioning they are planning something special for the new hires that weren't able to get one due to world events.

As a side note--UAL's 8 ball ceremony is a union event and not without it's controversies in the past. That's all I'll say about that.