Hello everyone

Thank you to everyone who commented on my previous post here. I am currently about 30% of the way through my instrument rating in a Skyhawk at Advantage Aviation. I have a couple more questions about the rest of my training pipeline and would welcome any advice you have.

Regarding when to do my multi-engine rating, one of the two instructors I have been working with recommends waiting until just before I hit the 1500-hour mark, since the airline interview questions are very heavily weighted toward multi-engine, and it would save me from having to re-study all the material. The other recommends doing it immediately after my single-engine commercial rating to open a wider range of employment opportunities beyond the CFI route. I am willing to go the CFI route, but am open to exploring other options.

My second question is whether to focus solely on the instrument rating and do the commercial rating afterward, or to do the instrument and commercial ratings concurrently. I fear trying to do the two concurrently, with back-to-back check rides, would be a case of information overload, especially given how long the Sheppard air IFR course has taken (I plan to take the written next week). However, my instructor raised the issue of my hand-flying skills potentially deteriorating with a lot of instrument-only flying, and stated that the DPE would be paying very close attention to that, as well as my performance on the instrument maneuvers. I would be more than happy to hear about any of your experiences.