Am I yet another one to hit a nerve with you clanger32? No need for the cousin thing, you are not suggesting that my parents may have been cousins eh?
I will try and offer a bit of constructive advice on this occasion. Try flying a bit. I remember back in my PPL days flying virtually every weekend, I could not get enough, I was hooked. Therefore I have no sympathy with you clanger32 for being out of practice. One might question why you bothered to invest so much in an APP course if you were not able to keep current afterwards? Surely you must have had an opportunity to fly in the past three months? Do you actually like flying, or is it only jets that will do? I suspect that you thought that you would just walk straight in to a job after training.
As for being called for interview with only 5 days notice, well lucky you! I would suggest being ready for such an eventuality, it does happen. Maybe you thought that you might get a few months notice for you to prepare. Or was it to much self confidence that let you down? Full time job or not, no excuses. Sim refresher training? Excuses, excuses.... There are many of us out there who held down full time jobs married with kids whilst looking for airline work. Dont let it get in the way.
I do understand how nerve racking it can get during an interview and sim ride. You must be mentally prepared for this. Try getting your other half to interrogate you with a pre prepared interview style question and answer sheet. This will help you practice composing yourself when presented with tricky interview questions. For the sim, well it sounds as though you are well paid enough to afford regular sim practice sessions. I suggest simply using MSFS to practice holding, NPAs and raw data ILS's. It will save you a lot of money! You could do 1 hour a night maybe?
As for me trying to pin it on your training route, well not really. You have been unlucky though. Maybe if you had started a year before things may have been different. I have to say though that you do have a lot of opinions on the subject of where and how to train. At least you got the interview as you say, I doubt however it was down to where you trained for your CPL as you suggested.
Getting a job today will take a lot more than "luck pie". For the minute amount of positions available here in the UK, it takes experience and being better than the rest amongst many other factors.