My friend attended 1 week ago... No cognitive test ! Just ATPL questions, interview and next day sim on A320.
Unfortunately qatar has a very confused idea on pilot screening...
Since they are the last choice for pilots when choosing where to work comparing to EK (number 1) Ethiad (number 2) or even FZ they should be grateful with captains/pilot showing up for the screening, instead lately they failed some very good captains, some of them even rated on the 777 for no apparent reason since they performed very well in all phases including the sim.
The only ones that passed that day were those applying for the new jeddah company AlMaha (I think).
Profile at the sim is very easy, even if you are not type rated on Airbus, all they want to see is a professional standard, basic raw data flying and how you deal with an emergency (not rushing to land but using DODAR NITS and good CRM).
Unbelievable, qatar that is short of captains loosing the chance to finally hire some professional pilots... Also somebody was complaining about some retired captains running the sim with no precise knowledge about the A320 and not very cooperating...
Soon ethiad will probably be opening for DEC and nobody will consider qatar anymore and they will be even more short of pilots, only then they will finally realize that this is not the way to run a major airline including the pilot selections. No feedback, nothing
You must also consider that in the past, a huge number of pilots passed the screening selection very easily !! Most of them probably failed somewhere else in the gulf. It all depends on their needs in that precise moments.