I'm afraid tilli that it is you whom has seemingly missed the point..... because in the above scenario it was plainly left to the individual to make up his own mind about the applicant, e.g. 'So, it's your choice mate, but there's my two'penneth !' (sic) - i.e. you don’t have to take honest advice, freely given - and, quite evidently, you'd choose to ignore it.
Accordingly one would imagine that in such an event you'd continue to process the applicant, making full use of formalised methods of testing. However having been 'tipped the wink', in your capacity as Chief Pilot / Ops Dir, one would hope that you'd certainly then fully probe any areas of concern from your conversation (e.g. during the interview and / or simulator assessment), i.e. you'd make sure that candidates performance was beyond all reproach, prior to making an offer for employment, or not - and what's wrong with that ? The candidate will either pass or fail.
Nb. For what it's worth, I've been in involved with sim assessments and have personally witnessed licensed pilots fail abysmally (some crashed three times in succession ! ) off of a very simple V1-cut engine failure - which is all the more worrying when you consider that these folks are actually flying commercially right now…… and there's a dilemma, i.e. should I tell their employer and / or the CAA what I've witnessed, or should I keep schstum ? But what if they crashed next week, and I'd kept quite about their witnessed short comings, uhm ?! Would I then be 'telling tales' and / or indulging in 'gossip' ?
Perhaps a case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't ?!
Of course I'm sure that you'll retort that a 'proper' recruitment process should cover all the angles but in order to enlighten us with just how you'd go about doing the same job - this of course assumes that you actually work for an airline, as an airline pilot, and in that capacity that you have actually been involved with pilot recruitment / assessment, rather than speaking as a lay person - could I be so bold as ask you to describe what it is that you'd included in your pilot selection criteria - and just how far you would go (and how much money would you spend) in ascertaining that the right candidates are employed ?
So, over to you.....
Ps. Anybody know how many s's there are in sanctimonious ?