Look. Let's not get our nickers in a twist here. Good and bad pilots in every airline. On my assessment day there were definitely some very bright and modest chaps who deserved the opportunity and got the job and they are the vast (75%+) majority. Do consider that when a right plonker no longer serenades us with his presence within the work environment, it gets noticed. As BA is within the top third of employers (in number terms) that's where we'll naturally see a lot of plonkers go.
This is pure fact and not anecdotal, I do know at least one pilot in the hold pool who claimed he flew 700 hours in 2015 on a part time contract whilst he's colleagues on a full time contract managed only 550. Now, if the BA interview went something like this... "I see you flew 700 hours in the year 2015, flying only 8 months of the year, tell me how you coped with being so tired?" ....The little weed would've been discovered! But instead BA have focused on his academic strengths and ability to talk about himself in one postive light after another and came to be impressed by him.
The beef some of us here have is that BA seems not interested in hiring pilots who can prove they know the job. What has worked for us and served us well for getting other jobs doesnt work at BA. BA are fixated on a set of personality and profile traits they believe they can siphon out using a recruitment process that makes some exceptionally talented people seem like they're worthless.
The 'It's their train-set' argument can stand til the end of time but that doesn't change the fact that the candidate experience for pilots (CX within the recruitment industry) is poor and many hundreds of candidates who have seen it since 2014 will be completely put off from applying again. Is that what BA wants? BA will not struggle to find candidates for the next recruitment campaign as they can rely on the Flight Schools that are EZY and RYR (and therefore employ more former CTC and Oxford cadets). However, it will always remain an elitest employer in my eyes because of a selection process that requires me to pretend to be 21 yo again with cute answers that took me 3 months to memorise. Anyway that's how I and a lot of us, rightly or wrongly, feel.