Somebody on this thread is bashing every one and is now looking ridiculous contradicting himself.
If the competitive minimums set by applicants goes up to 15,000 hours and ample wide body experience, whereas the published mins. Were 1500hrs. then the HR department of the said airline bases it's minimum cut off for their interviews based on the types of heavy machinery and experience whereby in this case is going to be quantified in hours of flight.
Remember the recruiters doing the shortlisting of the 'applying candidates' have neither met nor flown with these wannabes, so their shortlisting is largely based on 'ample experience' which in this case can only be established by looking at types and hours provided on candidates resume.
Somehow the mr. Know it all is still going to try and convince us hours count for jerk. Go on kidding yourself, the argument that hours count for nothing can be argued very broadly as has been said on this thread severally, it all depends how, where and doing what or in this case flying what but generally speaking a 5,000 hour rated co pilot isn't the same as a 250 hour straight from flying school F/O. Remember I said generally speaking.
Your rants are now welcome, go on!