Seeing as I'd typed this out for the other thread, I thought it would be useful to post here as well ...
... in Australian Army Aviation we are promoted from Officer Cadet to 2nd Lt on getting our Wings.
... [snip] ...
Perhaps it would help to describe the process we go through over here ...
1. Job Options and Evaluation Session (JOES) Day - basic psychometric testing, basic medical, watch a video, bring all your paperwork along and have an interview with a recruiter to talk about your preferred job.
2. Spec Testing (aptitude testing) - all the flight crew related aptitude tests. Find out at the end of the day what jobs you qualify for (pilot, loadie, ATC, Defence Controller, etc), and wait for a date for Assessment Day.
3. Assessment Day - full flight medical, in depth psych interview, in depth Defence interview. This is where it starts to get really interesting, because the responses you give at this stage all go towards a score that determines whether or not you proceed. You have to know everything about the job, the Corps you're going into, promotion structure, equipment to be used, expectations of the military, all sorts of stuff that is relevant to a potential new career. This is all in the letter you get.
At this stage your dossier is sent to the The Australian Defence Force Pilot Selection Agency (ADF PSA), which processes pilot applications for all services, where it is reviewed by the Officer Selection Board and given a score. That score puts you in the queue to be invited to Flight Screening. Every two weeks the top 7 are invited from that list, so you can see that if you're not in the top 7 in week one, you could float up and down in that queue as more applicants enter the process. Some people wait months, some never get invited.
4. The Flight Screening Program is an intensive two weeks of testing to see if you've got what it takes to learn new material quickly and be an officer. There are group activities, individual activities, ground school classes and simulator sessions. An applicant could be scrubbed at any point in that two weeks.
The Officer Selection Board is at the end of the two weeks, and each applicant is given a score from that. Each applicant nominates their preferred Service, and their name then goes into a queue for that Service, again in rank order. When the Service needs pilots, they contact the PSA and say "we need 'n' pilots to start next month". So the top 'n' pilots on that Service's list get called and offered the job.
You have the option of turning down that offer. For instance if your first preference is RAAF but you also said you'd consider Navy, you might be high enough to be offered the Navy job but just below the standard of other RAAF applicants. If you turn down the Navy job, hanging out for the RAAF job, you might never get a job at all.
Anyway, that's just a bit of a brain dump of the process I'm in the middle of. Anyone directly involved in the process should feel welcome to set me straight with any details I'm wrong on.