Try not to think of it as 4 whole, complete, mentally draining days of assessment after assessment, if they were interviewing only 1 person it could all be done in a day.
The group session (when I did it), was something like 5-6 hours including a company provided sit down lunch for an hour (cumulative 1 day), the sim ride (again when I did it) was less than hour, maybe 40mins in & out, after greetings, pleasantries, tell us about your background briefly etc so maybe they allow 1 hr per person. But when you are interviewing 10 people that can take all day and some, it's a similar time frame with the panel interview so in my case they sim checked 5 and interviewed the other 5 and then did the other exercise the next day, adding in lunch and coffee breaks that can easily be considered a 2 full days for the interview panel(cumulative time 3 days).
When you've finished your particular exercise for the day, then that's it ... go home or back to where you are accomodated and prepare for the next phase, you are not under the microscope all day for 4 days, just the time it takes to complete each phase.
From my understanding the changes are including apptitude testing which can essentially replace the sim ride from above, and then those that are considered worth a closer look are invited to pole the Beech for how ever long?
I'm not sure how Cathay does their interview but I'm assuming they have different people responsible for different phases of the interview, and so candidates go from room to room (or building to building as it may be) and see each individual, do thier thing and move on to the next, but at Eagle, the management team quite often are involved in multiple phases of the interview so they get a more complete look at the candidate, and maybe thats why it's spread out, because the management team can't be in 2 or 3 places at once.
As I've said before, if you know what is involved to join a particular company but you dont like it then look at another company to pursue. Again if you know that a company requires a 2, 3 or 4 day interview process, then allow for it when you are getting close to the ball park for an interview.... accumulate annual leave, save your 6% loading for holiday pay from your contract pay or daily rate etc so when the time comes, it's easier to arrange time off with your employer or you're not so financially disadvantaged if you don't work for 4 days or a week.
If they want it, they will come
S2K
PS Hey Luke - hows the scottish castle???