It used to be you had to have the type to even interview. Several 142 schools made their living cranking out 737 types for SW wannabes. Then, I don't know, 6-8 years ago (time flys when you get old), they dropped the requirement for the interview but if you got the job offer you had 6 months to get the type before you showed up for class. Then a couple years back they totally dropped the requirement and started issuing the type in house. Lots of speculation if holding the type already puts you ahead in the interview process but I haven't seen hard numbers of what percentage of recent SW new hires already have the type.