A very good point Red Wings. I know several pilots who have made similar moves to you and found their way into a flying position through another non-flying job with an airline.
And skyman68, equally I know many, many pilots like you who just keep sending out the CVs, which is just not enough. It's too easy to say 'no' or even ignore your CV. What have you done to enhance it over the period you sent '1000' odd CVs out? This must be at least a couple of years? Have you built any more hours and networked any contacts? Have you tried to get a job with an airline in a non-flying role? If you still have the same CV two years after qualifying and it didn't work for you then I fail to see how, short of being 'lucky', it is going to work for you now. You must do whatever to enhance it. You say
Most companies want first officers with 1000-1500 hours on jet and must be current
which may well be their Christmas Wish list, but reality is somewhat different. There are a large number of airlines here in the UK that have (and are) employing pilots with significantly less than that and believe it or not, some don't even charge for the type rating.
I feel for anyone who has a licence and can't get a job, but to be honest skyman68 all we ever see of you on these forums is negative comment about how 'unfair it is', how you 'won't do x,y,z' etc etc. Your attitude will be reflected in your applications, so I would strongly advise you to get over how 'unfair' the industry is and start being more pro-active about securing yourself a position. You seem to have decided that you won't(can't?) spend any more money on something like an FI rating and that's that. Well, as I said in the last post; someone else WILL be going the extra mile and funding their FI rating, building hours and getting themselves into a position where they do start to get some response from their applications. If you can't fund an FI rating then I question your judgement about coming as far as you have in this industry only to let it all fall by the wayside. I was in a similar position several years back and looked at my options; 250hrs, frozen ATPL/IR and no-one interested in employing me. I quickly realised that my ONLY option was to keep enhancing my total time by way of instructing, so I fished out my credit cards and scraped together the sum required to get the rating, and yes, it was on my credit card statements for some time to come, but what was the point in spending the £50k if I was just going to sit back and let it all slip away for the sake of another £4k?
It sounds to me like you have all but given up on securing a paid flying position. If you don't shake yourself out of the negative mood that you display constantly on here, you will not get a break and will have wasted all that self-investment. Rest assured there are plenty more positive guys out there doing their utmost and finding those jobs that you desire.
I wish you well.
PP