At least one airline I can think of just does it by random computer assignment.

That sounds awful.

Why? That sounds like the fairest possible way. Anything else is age discrimination.

It would be easy to manipulate, and no way to ensure that it is done fairly. Why not just play "guess what number I am thinking of"?

I disagree. As the poster above said it is the fairest way. Some could say age based is discrimination, social sec # is social security discrimination. Random assignment is as fair as it gets. It's a computer generated process at the airline I was speaking of. The way it works is the next-in-line employee numbers are lined up to equal the amount of pilots in a class. Then the computer randomly assigns a pilot name to an employee number. That's how it works. There's no manipulation involved.

Why would anyone that's "higher up" manipulate that process to give someone an edge of 1-10 numbers? That just asinine.

I'll also suggest that any former employee should automatically be given preference.

If you're younger than 40, it's perfectly legal to discriminate against you on the basis of age.

If it is consistant, and you know what it is before you go there, then it is fine. The "random" assignments could easily not be random. Being first or last in class could be a matter of 30-40 seniority spots. I just don't agree with something that can not be verified as random.

A HR person or recruiter could offer it to a candidate - we'll put you in the top 5 if you......... Oh, his dad is a Captain here, put him first (or last). She is the only female pilot, put her first. This guy is 60 years old, put him last. All of those things could easily happen when a nameless/faceless HR person or administrative assistant "randomly" picks the order on a computer.

Draw names out of a hat on the first day of class...at least that is more likely to be fair.

Just shuffle a deck of cards and have them each pick one on the 1st day of class.