I was a hybrid pilot with both military and civilian training. The big difference for me was civilian training was a lot of theory but practical training was mostly center of the envelope flying. It also was low stress as you could train as long as your money held out. Military training was far more stringent academic work and theory followed up by actually doing those things in a aircraft. With 100 hours total time I was doing spins and every kind of departure from stable flight including 3 axis coupled departures in a twin engine jet as a example.
The military fighter guys might be short on flight time but almost all of it is hands on stick time with far more approaches and landings per flight hour. 80% of civilian flying is at cruise on autopilot. You also only get half the landings.
I had a friend who did the hiring interviews for Delta at a time when they hired 95% military. He was a Civilian pilot. I asked why he was not hiring more civilian pilots. He said that he really tries but the military guys were so much more polished in the interview process and their non flying backgrounds generally much stronger including academics. The polish part probably came from giving hundreds of flight briefs and presentations not to mention murder boards. He did state that civilian pilots who had non flying backgrounds that matched the military guys and showed up looking like they wanted the job and could present themselves well were always snapped up.

 

I was not trying to turn this into a Civ-mil discussion as much as I was trying to point out this issue of being overlooked because you are high time mainly applies to older RJ guys, not necessarily older mil guys.

 

I think someone way back in the thread said it best:

An airline interview especially these days appears to be an HR interview. If you fit within the HR envelope, THEN it seems the old pilots in the interview room get to choose who they want to sit next to for 4-6 hour flights.

I had a buddy who did not believe that passing the HR part was the most important part of an interview, and would not spend the $$ on the prep. He relied on his stellar mil background, masters degree and numerous recommendations. He got bounced and was super ****ed. Years later he finally admitted he was a young and stubborn dude who deserved to be bounced…ended up with a good gig flying Part 91 tho!

 

^^^^^^This also applies to professional application review before submission. I see five or six mil background applications for every civilian background application. I think the military pilots see it as a new world and they’re willing to use every tool to their advantage to navigate it. There are a host of RJ drivers I’ve reviewed already submitted applications, finding all kinds of errors that no one but the HR pros care about. It’s both comical and painful how many have gotten the interview invite shortly after the anniversary of when they originally submitted their applications, but now actually have them HR ready.