Hi Dougie
have you thought about getting an instructors rating with your money. That way you'd be able to build up quite a few hours as an instructor with the added advantage of being paid, though its not that much.
You could hold out in the hope of getting further interviews and should the need for a sim assesment arise you can hire a simulator before hand to practice.
From my experience twin time is an advantage to some extent as companies have started asking for around 50 hours or more of twin time.
As for hour building well it all helps.
I myself went the instructor route and had just 200 hours when i gained my commercial. In just over a year I have built up a further 700 hours through instructing so in my case it was well worth the investment
.
I recently attended a pilot recruitment day and met lots of guys there who had well over 1000 hours and a few of them had some turbine expereince as well. It seems that just sending out CV's will not get you very far and that the best way is to go along to your local airport, and personally hand over you CV. At least that way they get to meet you and you have more chance of giving a good impression
Good luck with the Job hunt, the markert certainly seems to be on the up at the moment.
