Thank you, fellow professionals, for the well reasoned and thoughtful responses to my post. I started this thread with a genuine concern for the 99.9% of failed check candidates whose careers are completely salvageable with a properly taken approach. A failure is a shattering experience for any pilot, but, properly managed, such a shattering experience can be positively rebuilt into a sound reconstructive process if handled correctly. It saddens me when I recall several people who could have rebuilt their confidence and flying ability, but for a savage beating down given by some less than considerate check airmen, whose actions caused them to abandon their careers.
I'm not going soft, a fail is a fail, black is black, and white is white, there are no acceptable shades of grey in determining a check result. If 'fail' is imprinted on my mind on the walk from the aircraft or simulator back to the de-briefing room, then 'fail' it is.
In putting together my own approach, with those of the other respondants here, I am of the opinion that the best package might be -
(1) Ask the failed candidate for his/her own assessment. If they concur with your own judgement of a fail, then (as Blue Eagle indicates),
(2) Examine the check piece by piece, assess where and why the mistakes were made, and how they might be corrected,
(3) Having agreed on the best course of correction, pronounce that the check was indeed a fail, and how we might now proceed to correct the problems, typically additional or supplementary training.
If the candidate cannot by self-assessment, or agreement with the critique, accept that he/she has failed, then the fairly blunt approach is required, and the option of retraining, or alternative employment elsewhere given fairly firmly.
Sometimes, it's necessary to be cruel to be kind. The worst dis-service I've seen to one of our number was a First Officer who was obviously well below standard, but after numerous fails, retrains, and rechecks managed to hold onto his flying career until his command came up. After several failures, retraining excercises, and final failure, was 'out in the cold' in his forties with no other qualifications other than a less than acceptable flying standard. He now works as a shoe salesman. Nothing wrong with that, but, had he been terminated back in his twenties, he could have, at least, owned the show store.
Thanks for the replies,
Old Smokey