Excellent post StopStart. I served my 'apprenticeship' in a UK charter airline in the mid/late nineties & flew with some brilliant ex-Cold War warriors who were a pure delight to share a flight deck with. I learnt something every time I flew with them but the one thing they all encouraged to a man, was the importance of manual flying skills, sometimes from top of drop to touchdown, something that today's button pushers & bean counters balk at.
On balance, the recently de-mobbed that I have encountered are very capable & eager to learn a new craft, I think that they get a bit of bad press due the 'Divine Right' few that think they are God's Gift to aviation, their new employer & fist thumping on desks demanding to leapfrog seniority lists in order to get to 'their' rightful place before their Sim sessions are finished. Fortunately, these people are usually 'enlightened' during Line Training or by a few Seasoned Sweats.
I was in the Officer's Mess at a Front Line RAF Station, after operating in on an MoD charter when a 'Romper Suit' attired Wing Commander introduced himself with, "Hi! I'm leaving the Service in a few months, how do I get a job as a Captain with your firm?"
I replied with the usual type rating, thousands of hours & a considerable amount of time on type. His response was "But I'm ex-RAF Fast Jet with 16 years service & 3000 hours flying experience!" Right on cue, we were joined by our First Officer who, due to my questioning, gave a breakdown of his experience. I could see the Wing Co's eyes glazing over as the FO reeled off his 5000+ hours on type, 8,000+ hours total experience with hundreds of Non-Precision Approaches, some to minima on Islands in the Med', Carribean, Indian Ocean, both Atlantics & Pacifics, hundreds more approaches into the likes of LAX, LHR, JFK, CDG & many more international gateways....
I brought an end to the torture by then asking the FO to explain what you have to do to get on the Command Shortlist, what you have to do to maintain your position & I asked the FO how long he'd been in the Command Pool, he replied 3 years & how long before he could expect one. He shrugged & said about another 3-5.
The Wing Co' came back with "Well in that case I'll go 'Corporate' I'll get a Direct Entry Command at NetJets. At this point the Relief FO (we were Heavy Crew) chipped in, "Really? When I joined NetJets I had to do 2 years carrying the passengers bags before I got my Command! Sounds like they've changed their policy.", knowing full well that NetJets had laid quite a few guys off in the recent weeks.
The Wing Co', shoulders hunched, bid us a safe journey & left us.
The one piece of advice I'll give any ex-RAF pilots leaving the service & joining a UK airline is when you join, & for the first 6-12 months in your new employer is 'Switch to receive instead of transmit'.
Dozens of trainers with tens of thousands of hours stick time & box time have 're-trained' hundreds of sky gods like you in the decades they've been in the Industry. They've heard lots of suggested 'improvements', countless 'You should do it this way...', and more 'Well on XYZ Squadron we did it like this...' than they care to remember because THEY were possibly the instructors that instructed the instructors that instructed the instructors that instructed YOU! So Switch to receive', make the most of the, on the whole, excellent training that the UK airline system has to offer & spend your first few seasons or years learning a new, still fairly lucrative, still relatively enjoyable trade with new people, operating a 'new' type to various destinations & if you keep your head down, within a few years you'll be deciding on whether to stay for a Command or stay as an FO for a little while longer & join the Big Boys. It's your call.
But never, ever, EVER forget that you are blessed to have a career that is out of reach to most who yearn for but can only dream about it. And it's cost you nothing financially, unlike some of your colleagues who have probably mortgaged, re-mortgaged, held down 3 or 4 jobs, suffered financial difficulty or jeopardy to get to 'THAT' seat.
If you think you can handle all that, then 'WELCOME' & I hope you enjoy your 'Civilianisation'.