For fear of rejection of this forum, I'm going to respectfully disagree. I think your message has a lot of merit...to people that sit on the couch and complain about their life not working out when they have not done their due process of finding their job. I have checked all the boxes. I have a wife and kids at home. They don't really like it that I spend what little time I have talking with pilots about their issues and doing my work for the union. I certainly am not doing it for my health. They don't particularly like the other time I spend doing other volunteer work. They don't particularly like that I am still commuting to a regional after 8 yrs. Certainly not my choice. And now they really don't like it when I say that I have to go spend thousands of dollars obtaining a masters degree so that I might be just a smidge more competitive than the next guy. And while I'm on that subject, it would be one thing if there was a clear objective to getting an interview. If it said "you need at least 8000hrs, 3 charities you volunteer for, union work, LCA, and 8 letters of rec to even be considered" then I can work with that. I can't work with "all of the above is what gets you looked at but we are going to be calling joe nobody that not only doesn't have all of those, but actually has none of those". At that point it is nothing but random chance and I don't think you can "make your own success" on a random scale. You certainly can better your chances, which considering I have gotten my name to the man himself I think I have done a lot of legwork, but if the people getting called are random at best then what else is there to do. Ohh, and I was told I was currently "not among the most competitive at the moment". Glad the FO with zero connections and zero app is more competitive. It is not a perfect system and people need to acknowledge that and stop acting like all of us are just sitting here with no life, job, and education complaining that we can't work for DL...or any other carrier.
That's cool. But you're going to find a class of 130 people with 130 vastly different stories of why they are there that day.
That's what I found.
Remember, if you want to move from "A" to "B", it doesn't matter how you feel, just that you've made yourself as "shiny" as possible and perhaps you'll get the rose.
One of the worst things you can do is trying to compare yourself with another candidate because you don't know nor does the pilot lounge rumor mill.
When I got hired at Skyway, most people in my class were part of some sort of Wisconsin mafia. Former Basler pilots, Starcheck, CFI's from every podunk airport within a 200 mile radius of MKE…
And me, some CFI from California.
Skyway didn't hire a lot of 'outsiders' at the time. And every other person knew someone at their flight school that didn't get the nod and here's this guy from the west coast. How did THAT guy get here, who did HE know. Meanwhile my mentor was good friends with the CEO of Skyway but that wasn't anyone's business.
If you're genuinely upset about a guy the "conventional wisdom of the pilot lounge" thinks should be there, it's probably not a good fit for you because ground school at a major is largely everyone from SouthernJets ground school instructors that were regional pilots building flight time that were given opportunity to Blue Angels that still reek of JP4 from their last demonstration flight.
But when the first day of indoc hits, none of that matters. There's 1 through 130 and you're all new hires.
My best advice? Forget you ever heard the story that you're upset about.
It doesn't matter. You, or I, honestly don't know. If it matters to you
that much, it might not be a good fit.
Hell, just as an addition, I've been at SouthernJets, flown the 727, 737-200, MD-88, MD-90, B-767, B-757, A-330 and upgraded to A-320 captain over the span of seventeen years and there are still a couple asses that I've had to shrug-off that don't think I belong to be where I am today. How they feel ain't my problem.
Worrying about where someone else is, or bemoaning how they got there is absolutely wasted time you'll never get back when you can be sharpening up your resume, making more networking contacts and busting rocks. We've got two sharp guys get hired in the last couple months right here on the forum and if you haven't tried to pick their brains about their 'tips for success',
you're not serious about applying.