Bias Bias everywhere
Cathay is a growing airline that has not left it's small airline ways behind. The check and training department still thinks that it is OK that everyone is self study. Nothing wrong with self study but there should be more information supplied by the training department. More thorough route breifings for FOs who are not going into certain airports but once a year on their line checks. More course info for JFOs on their upgrade. More instruction time in prep for upgrade interviews and courses, or at the very least an outline of what is to be studied and what is reasonable to be tested on. If they do not like you in your JFO or Command interview they will ask questions until they find a weakness. If you come as a DEFO you will be given a CBT course (no instructor present unless you go looking) and then straight into the sims. Average instruction there (as compared to previous lives and those of fellow aviators at other airlines) because the sim instructors do not fly the line and some teach and preach what may get you in trouble once you are on line. It does not help that CX talks very large about it's SOPS and how strict they are and yet there is very little written in the manuals as actual SOPS. So you must consult the underground training network of SOs and all your friends to find out what interpretation certain Captains prefer. Then, on line checks, even what is written exactly in the books can get you into trouble if the checker thinks otherwise. Just play the game !
You are expected to use exact verbage and exact words to handle many situations. Engine failures, push back, ATC transmissions. All very admirable but not written in any SOPs I have ever seen. They are in "best practices" and strewn throught the manuals if they exist at all. Ask a checker what to say if you have an engine failure with severe dammage and you will get five different answers. So you have to play the game and find out from as many people how your checker likes it. All of which would not be a problem as they are not critical to the safety of the flight and amount to trivia. Without any oversight in the training department however these little things can and are written up as grave errors and then the Star chamber interprets them as failure and you are off your command coourse JFO upgrade etc. Just play the game.
It is great to have high standards. If you want them then you must provide the info required to achieve them. Cathay must write these things down. If they are not written down and the candidate completes the task in question safely and proffesionally, but not using the exact verbage, order or techniques of the checker, they should not be marked down or worse failed. Just play the game.
It is really to bad that we have to "Play the game". I would rather "Work" in a proffesional enviroment that respects what skills and experience you bring to the table rather than belittle you and put you in your place. Instead you are treated like the bad teenage son.
Soap Box off.