Well Trent, those things you've stated were pretty obvious stuff to know before hand, if you didn't know most of those you shouldn't be going to begin with.
And sgsslok, what currency are you using for '$30,000'. That would mean that your friend flew back and forth like 20 times.
Even if they flew there for initial, flew back for one day and then came back for first interview, then flew home, then flew back to pick up the JKI book, then flew home, and then flew back for the 2nd job interview, that doesn't cost $30,000 let alone $10,000 since you're cutting back on the hotel costs.
And most people do have previous experience, lots of it just isn't told to Cx. A lot of people go up enough times to grab their solo first and then when they get to flight grading, they suck real hard at the start and improve really fast. It shows Cx that they learn really fast. As I co-own a flight school, I have seen 3 of 7 students who have applied for Cx get in, 1 of which said he had 3 hours when he actually had 20, the other 2 had extra bonuses...
Anyways, regarding those little questions posted, I think I recall something about the 777. I was naming an aircraft and I think it was supposed to be a 777, but because it was a cheap one, it had huge disproportionate wheels and it only had 4 on each little stub so I got that question wrong. =.=
About destinations, just know the # of destinations, they don't fly to South America, and where abouts they fly in Africa.