Speaking from a painful position of experience - other operators (well mine at least) show no interest in upgrading experienced FOs and appear to have no forward plan.
So when a captain job comes up, their lengthy upgrade process effectively means the existing FOs (the 3 FOs on our gig have 11-13 years experience of bizjet) don’t get a look in and an external (sometimes non-rated) captain gets helicoptered in.
So while it it may take time at NJE, at least everyone gets a fair crack at upgrade and no special handshakes required.