All companies are at least asking for 500-1000 hours with possibly a type rating.
Sorry to be harsh, but that is complete bollocks. 500-1000 hours (after training by a modular route) would give you a very good chance of a job at the moment, if you have any personality; a type rating can help, especially a turbo-prop. From my extensive friendships with army officers, I would expect that not to be a problem for our spear-chucking friend, especially using a name like that, typical army. There are also jobs around for low-hour pilots, especially if they are willing to take on a bond or equivalent for a type rating, or to work at some real flying (instructing, meat bombing, photographic etc) before some mythical idyll of the airlines. The people I know who are willing to really work at it all seem to be either flying professionally or getting good leads to flying jobs, and nearly there.
I would however suggest that anyone contemplating paying for their own training would do a search on the Professional Training forum to find out about integrated / modular, as I would argue strongly that integrated training is unsuitable for self-sponsored students.