I don't know anyone in the hiring process so I'm really not up to speed at all but I do try to follow along, just as background on my knowledge basis. I was in the jumpseat area with one of the guys from the hiring office and he was trying to explain how they are hiring to a couple line pilots. I may have misunderstood, but he said they had over 2000 personal recommendations (that includes ANY manager, pilot, etc not just limited to flight ops or even express). He said that they take 50% from the recommendation pile and 50% with no recommendation to enter the interview funnel. I think he said we had hired 700 from the recommendation pile in the last year. So if there are 2100, then it could be three years if we keep hiring at this pace. Oh, he also said they are in order of submittal date. I don't know enough to make give a smart thought on this, but I found it interesting that if you get a new pilot personal rec, it could be years until you are called. Sounded like they were conducting "pre-interview" assessments at the conferences for those without recs.

Not sure this is at all what Pat had in mind when he pushed for the revamp of hiring so the pilot recs carried more weight. If any manager in the company can write a rec and it carries the same weight I'm not sure what good our recs are. I liked the old, old system where you had to have flown with someone to sponsor. You could write recs for anyone, but a sponsor got you to the front of the line. Interview priority: legacy, Capt sponsor, F/O sponsor, anyone with recs, anyone. X number of years between sponsored applicants. Seems pretty simple and straight forward.