+1 Jimmygill !
With due regards to their flying hours and credentials, what many foreigners and expats like flyprototype dont realise is that things in India work WAY DIFFERENT compared to the western nations, particularly USA.
I spoke to an examiner in Indian Airlines very recently, who is also a DGCA FOI.
He said that he along with hundreds of other rookie pilots joined the national carriers with just a CPL and NO MULTI ENGINE RATING and NO INSTRUMENT RATING ALSO.
However, "astonishingly", all those pilots (along with his colleagues) are close to retirement age with NO ACCIDENTS in their flying careers .. or as some expats love to say .. "SMOKING HOLES IN THE GROUND".
All of them are TRI/TRE qualified on the A320, B737, B777, B747-400 and A-310
In India, it doesnt matter even if there are 10,000 unemployed CPL holders.
Even RIGHT NOW, a wannabe can simply go enroll in a flying school and get a CPL in 8-10 months and get his Indian CPL by the year end, and he/she never knows .. they just might get recruited if any airline starts hiring freshers.
The same fresh CPL holder will be called for airline written test and interviews along with those 10000 odd unemployed CPL holders who have been waiting for years for a job.
Therefore, talent, hardwork, etc HAVE almost a NIL ROLE to play as far as getting a fresher's job is considered since LUCK and JUGAAD play FAR too big a role in this country in this field.