Don't knock yourself for thinking these things. The really dumb ones (like me
) only give this kind of thing due consideration when they stumble out of their flying school, clutching a licence with its ink still wet, wondering why the airlines aren't queued up outside waving their chequebooks.
Any aviation experience you can get in addition to your flying is a bonus - the more involved with actual a/c ops the better. It will give you the opportunity to learn about the way the industry works beyond the invaluable skills of making cows get bigger or smaller, and you will get to meet many people whom you will most probably want to contact upon completion of your training and will inevitably meet again at some point in the future. Contacts in the industry can certainly be a good source of information and advice, and even those who are in no position to influence the recruitment decision are worth having as allies - the industry is so surprisingly small that they may know somebody who can.