Hand flying an airliner should be easy for all pilots. If it isn't easy you shouldn't be in the pilots seat. My sim check for my airline job they put me in the left seat of an Electra and had me do a single engine ILS with three shut down in an aircraft I had never flown in my life. Now they see if you can push the right buttons, apparently.
I felt very lucky to get that job because there were so many equally qualified pilots with many thousands of hours, a lot in jets trying to get that job. I do not know if the Electra had an autopilot but am sure they would not have let me use it. They were looking for pilots, not computer managers.