A lot of people have talked about the luck and timing part of getting hired, however there is also the "who you know part". When we were hiring at Delta I talked to the interviewers all the time. This is how it was explained to me: (imagine the interviewer using his hands to show stacks) Here is stack number 1, this is the stack that of all the candidates that meet our requirements here at Delta. Here is stack number 2 this is the stack of candidates from stack number 1 that have letters of rec from Delta pilots. (this stack was almost the same height as stack number 1) Now here is stack number 3. A stack that is much smaller than the other two stacks. This stack is full of pilots that have letters of rec and the person that recommended them called and followed up on the status. This means that the guy that wrote the letter truly wants this person here and is staking his/her reputation, and future recommendations, on it.

As a general rule, when a company starts hiring there are a lot of familiar names in the first classes. (family, friends and internal hires) During this hiring cycle we even hired one of our crew schedulers. It will be interesting to see how he likes it on this side of the phone.