I must say I enjoyed HoltCJ's contributions and those of some others. Certainly not those who resorted to the 'You're not one of us, get out of our club attitude'.
The 'pilots only' thing rears it's ugly head again. What next, only pilots with no less than a thousand hours? Proof if anything that an old boys network of sorts exists.
But back to the main point, I suspect there does exist an informal vetting procedure in the airline business. It exists in most other professions. So why not ours?
I know of one airline that resolutely refused to recruit pilots from a particular source no matter how well recommended or experienced they were. This same airline also displayed a peculiar geographical bias, to the extent that they would recruit foreigners before taking people from a specific area in their own country.
I for one am not surprised at the notion of a list of potential pilots being posted for others to see, nor am I surprised at the idea of people being 'unrecommended'. I suspect there are four categories here, don't know them, recommended, dammed by faint praise and thumbs dowm. In a curious way I support the idea although it is open to all sorts of abuse.
But it works, usually.
A few years ago, I worked in a ground job for an airline. Alongside me there were two other 'wannabe' pilots. You know the scenario. We all wanted that to fly for the airline. It helped that we were in constant daily contact with the CP and other senior Captains. One guy made a serious effort to impress and even admitted to me he felt confident that he soon would be offered an interview. Unfortunately he was the only one who believed that. Everyone else knew the truth. He simply irritated everyone. His boss was even looking for ways of offloading him. No one wanted to share a cockpit with him. He was doomed. On the other hand, the other pilot was affable, popular, good at his job and as I found out a superb pilot. No need to ask what happened next. As for me, well I left before I could find out whether I was in our out. But I am a good friend of one of those individuals. So if I applied for a job there, well..........
I personally believe, leaving aside all the qualifications and experience, that at least part of the interview involves the interviewer saying to themselves, 'Would I like to share a flight deck with this person?', or even 'Would I go out for a drink with this person?'. If the answer is yes, they're in. Personal recommendations also remove the uncertainty. Sometimes it all goes wrong and certain people get through who shouldn't, yet others are sidelined for no good reason.
We all know pilots, particularly in our training days who really shouldn't be flying. People you would never fly with. How often have I heard a comnent on the lines of 'I knew that would happen to him one day' after someone ended their life in a newsworthy way? I can think of three now. I know of two other who will go that way.
That I believe is the reason for much of this method of selection. It's not the only factor but it's important.
I don't think things will change soon because it generally works.