I listen to discussions and conversations led by pilot interviewers. Because of Cage Consulting's positive reputation within the aviation community I have had many pilot interviewers share their opinions and insights with me. My consultants and I have spent hundreds of hours debriefing clients and discussing their problems, failures, and successes in order to improve our interview preparation knowledge and find better ways to teach presentation skills. While listening to these pilots discuss their mistakes, and the possible impact on their careers, I have learned many lessons about how to handle adversity, and how not to handle adversity. One of the nice and quite frankly, comfortable things I have learned is that no matter how different we are in personality there are many similarities among us.
Mistakes are common to the human condition.
Which brings me to an important reality of the pilot profession. Although every precaution is taken to ensure the accuracy of those records, you can't get away from the fact that every single agency, whether public or private, is run by humans. The next reality we need to face is that airlines do extensive investigations into the backgrounds of their pilot applicants. While the majority of airlines begin their investigation after an interview some now begin even before meeting an applicant. I had a client who did a complete background check prior to submitting in his applications.