Please be aware that what i am about to tell you is my opinion only, even though to some of you it might sound negative, so do not come and argue!
The time of the initial email and the interview invite was about two months....got there with a smooth flight,good hotel good transport and very nice people and they make you feel comfortable and welcome.
Started day 1 with the Compass,interview,blood/lie detector.
Started Day 2 with the psych test and later on the sim
I studied way to much for the whole process which is good....the only thing i think you should study or at least i would say is latestpilotjobs package....its really good and well worth the money. During my test i realized what i practiced on latestpilotjobs was even harder!
Compass was really do-able, all of us had the feeling they did really well.
Interview: The 3 person board made me feel really comfortable,no stress no tricks. Though they did ask some strange questions like; how old are you? While they were all looking at my cv....
Blood and lie were easy though the wait for us at least was very long.
Day 2. In the morning we did the psych test which is just a 200 question multiple choice questionnaire.
Then we arrived at the simulator building, i soon realized it was the typical 'south American aviation' atmosphere which i am used to....meaning all the CA crew almost bowing for pilots and FO's for Captains....i been flying in this region for a while now so i know. Only the Captains had to the ''advanced Compass test'' for example and an English test.
In our group was one very experienced (rated) NG Captain with over 17000hrs Jet(!!) and 7000hrs 737...he was taken to the EMB 190 sim....i was actually looking forward to the sim until after hours of waiting they put me in the seat of a Frasca sim.....unbelievable...though not a big problem we all did not get why we had to do flight school stuff again....all Single Pilot stuff like Holdings,DME ARC's etc etc. Almost all of us had not done such an operation for a long time. Many of us including myself are flying Jets or big Turbo props and are used to a MCC/CRM culture.
Though the sim was really difficult i had a good feeling some of the others did to and some of them did not.
We then all went home and were told that within two weeks we would get the result.After two weeks there was nothing, then after 3 weeks myself and one other guy got the negative email. No explanation just that i did not fit the position. Up to this day not one of us 7 guys made it, all of us with good experience. I have no idea what COPA is looking for or what they did not like about ALL of us. Somebody here said a few posts above that they need people with ratings first, that is none sense, EVERYBODY has to the WHOLE Groundschool/TR over!!! Another reason why i think many experienced rated FO's and CPT's say no to the 8-9 month ground school process,bear in mind they actually told us that we were not supposed to go home in that period even if we had sufficient time off, even though we all lived close to panama with Copa serving daily none stop flights.
For all you guys that are going, please do not worry about the Compass, the latestpilotjob is enough. ACE,FAA ATP etc etc etc did not help a tiny bit. The written portion in the compass test was btw only jet stuff...like what is bleed air used for? Maybe for that portion ACE will do you good. Differential thrust/thrust reversers etc etc.If you can try to get some time in a Frasca sim....and fly like an IR check ride a few times!
If you have any more questions or anything please message me.
Good luck.