Loads of airline hours don't necessarily mean much on bizjets. We recently had two FOs join about the same time - one had 4500 hours on regional airlines, the other had about 1000, mostly on MEPs single-pilot, and on gliders before that.
The ex-airline guy was hired because he had enough hours to satisfy the insurance requirements for captain, and was expected to make LHS in six months. However, it quickly became apparent that he had no operational savvy, having done all his hours P2 without taking any responsibility, and with an ops department doing all the backup, flying a few fixed routes. He was a flying robot, good at rigid adherence to checklists and SOPs, but unable to think on his feet when faced with the unexpected. In the end, the company didn't renew his contract.
On the other hand, the MEP guy was used to running ops himself, knew how to flight plan himself, how to deal with CFMU, how to save fuel, how to fly visual approaches, when to go VFR if necessary, wasn't the slightest fazed by going into an unfamiliar airport, and was happy to do the menial jobs like cleaning the aircraft and updating the jepps. He's ready to go LHS already, and just waiting for enough hours to satisfy the insurance. His fewer P1 hours on a MEP were far more valuable than loads of P2 on an airline.
Last edited by Trim Stab; 21st Nov 2011 at 10:35.