We can argue back and forth on this all day to no end. Fact. A major airline that hires a RJ FO with 0 TPIC did not hire the most qualified applicant. I don't see how building a house for habitat for humanity makes one more qualified than a guy sitting left seat of a jet, signing the release, and responsible PIC for the flight. Airlines are hiring future Captains, not future volunteers. And if you decide to volunteer on your own time, good for you and more power to ya. It's all a game. The hardest part is getting the interview (at any major). Once you are there everyone is treated as equals. So you just have to play the game and roll with it.
In my interview group and in my class, I was the only one with 0 TPIC and the only in the 20s. I was the exception, not the norm. In my case it was sheer luck and excellent timing. And for 3 years I made the same mistake as trip7, being judgmental on regional pilots, telling them what they should or shouldn't do, instead of just being humble about the opportunity landed and count our blessings.
Well, it depends on what you want to hire.
And at some airlines the most important part of the process is probably personality profile. The worst kept secret is that the most important part of the process once you get through the doors of the HR office are the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphase Personality Inventory) and the personnel interview.
I had an issue with a first officer I refer to as "FO Happy". Fairly disgruntled, happy about nothing, glass jaw under pressure, never took an opportunity to diffuse and move forward, was just a pain in the ass to fly with. I made a decision to delay an approach because of convective weather on our approach path, additionally the FOM guidance pretty much forbade us from making the approach until the cell moved off the approach path.
Plenty of fuel, we weren't the only ones delaying our approach and since it was the last leg and he had a soccer game to get to, he didn't hesitate to express his displeasure with me delaying the approach, even after we discussed it, talked about the weather trend and how the best course of action would be to delay for a few minutes.
"When I was captain at XYZ I would have done that approach, what's the big deal, you blah blah blah"
He knew I was brand new in my seat and wanted to assert, to me, that he had been captain for years on end at his last airline which I largely ignored because it wasn't the time or the place for that level of discussion, and at the end of the day, we discussed it, I took his input, gave my input, ran it through the "good captain, bad captain" flowchart and made a decision.
At the gate, he told me how he had years of experience flying as captain and it was a risk he would have taken, especially since I (me) knew that he had to be on the road to his kid's soccer game, et cetera.
I asked him "How much of that captain experience was as a SouthernJets A320 captain?"
"None"
"Exactly. It's been a great trip, enjoy the soccer game".
The "highly experienced" captain thing can be absolutely awesome in
most circumstances, but can be a flipping pain in the ass in the wrong personality types and I think they're trying to screen for that.
