Wiggy's observations really hit the nail on the head. Such comments have been posted quite frequently - if a prospective candidate takes the trouble to read this thread from the very beginning. I, Wiggy and several others have often tried over the last few years to guide candidates using our own knowledge and experience. Some have heeded our advice, others have clearly chosen not to do so.
Whilst I do not have selection experience (other than my own), I have helped to train previously successful cadets. The selection procedure is designed to find the very best candidates from those applying by utilising a number of criteria.
The clearly defined, minimum academic qualifications required are the first filter. These academic achievements determine whether a candidate has the ability to successfully complete the licence theory and any future type rating exams. They do not need to be set as high as might be required, for example, for a medical degree, merely to ensure that the course material can be absorbed, understood and applied.
The psychometric tests serve to ensure that the candidate can demonstrate, for example, hand /eye co-ordination and spacial awareness, and that these will then allow steady progress during the flight phases of training, both initial and advanced. Given enough time almost anyone, given a degree of application, can learn to fly an aircraft. Time, however, is money and trainees who find it difficult to acquire the necessary skills in the time frame available become a liability to the school and the future airline.
The interviews, essays and group exercises can help to determine motivation, application, personality and team working skills. As has been said before, BA is not recruiting pilots per se, but future airline captains, who will require commercial awareness and man management skills of a high order. Some recent posts have clearly demonstrated in the writer significant shortfalls in areas such as individual initiative, resourcefulness and, sadly, a distinct lack of appreciation as to the potential effects of posting on a forum such as this.
In my personal experience there have always been those who, although successful in making commercial aviation their career, have sadly managed to slip through the selection procedure. The days of the autocratic captain, for example, have hopefully almost disappeared but, on double crewed long sector flights, one often had the opportunity, as one of the captains, to observe the sad lack of man management skills shown by an immediate contemporary - often a good friend. A brilliant pilot does not always indicate an effective man manager. All airlines will do their utmost to ensure that your face, as the applicant, fits with their company; and that will almost certainly be a reflection of your personality. A pilot interviewer will not take long to discover whether or not he or she would want to spend twelve hours with you on a flight deck, or spend time in your company, down route and off duty.
Assuming that you possess all of the above skills plus determination, motivation and an amiable personality, what else can you offer which will make you stand out from the other candidates in such a competitive arena? I will let you judge the qualities which you think may ensure your success.
Encouragement and assistance have always been my motives for contributing to the debate. Sadly, I would also have to add that I would advise the disaffected, the arrogant and those perhaps mature in years, but immature in outlook, to seek employment elsewhere. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the successful FPP candidates from previous years - those who contributed to this thread always had sensible, considered and helpful information to impart. Some current posters would do well to re-read their own contributions - the eventual unsuccessful applicants are really not too difficult to identify.
Good luck.