I know it may come across this way to some, but I think that there are very few military pilots who think that the airline industry owes them a high paying job or are entitled to jump into the middle of what is an almost entirely seniority based system. But I think most of us are entitled to feel that we can be a valuable asset to an employer. We have skills and experience that is relavent in the commercial world and those of us who make the concious decision to go to an airline want to learn how to operate in the new environment and be good at it.
The frustration for most of us seems to be that relevant experience does not always seem to be recognised, particularly at the early stage of the recruiting process. It is a sad fact that anything that is easy to measure and seems to be relevant will be measured. Thus total time and time on type (be it jet, or specific aircraft such as A320 or B737) seems to get a very high priority from HR departments instead of reading between the lines a bit. I know that quantity has a quality all of its own but I will venture and any one of the hours I have hand flying a helicopter at 200' in the dark over the sea on instruments is worth more than any of the hours that I now have on autopilot at flight levels in an airliner, by several orders of magnitude. But how do can I convey that on paper when trying to get the first airline interview? If you get to an interview you can argue your case but you have to get the interview first.
The hours issue gets worse the older you are because the military simply does not fly as much as airline operations and thus the hours for age disparity gets worse the longer you leave the transition.
I had applications in for a long time, with lots of companies, before I was offered an interview. In the end I was extremely lucky and ended up with a DEC which was a complete surprise but rapid expansion and being in the right place at the right time worked in my favour. Within a month of being offered my current job I received a reply from a similar operator with whom I had an application in with for over a year. 'After careful consideration' they were not even going to offer me the first stage of the recruiting process, let alone an interview. How can two ostensibly similar companies come up with diametrically opposed responses to the same CV? Stuffed if I can work it out.
I'm glad I stuck it out and got into airline flying. It may not be what it was 20 years ago but I am really enjoying it plan on sticking with it for a long time to come. I don't miss the uncertainty in the cross over period though.