I agree that you should not pay for a rating.
Put that money towards paying for your instructors rating. An employer will see hours as a greater asset than a rating with no hours.
Working off a bond is a better way, that way you get both.
Having a couple of hundred hours is always going to be hard, but there are jobs because there is movement, start at the bottom.
A 300 hr pilot with an A320 rating is worth nothing, a 1000 pilot without a rating is worth more because he knows more.