Hi William,
I think you've raised a fair question and enquiries like your's crop up from time to time on this forum.
Firstly good luck with your career aspirations; I've got an 18 year son myself and he wants to follow my footsteps into aviation, albeit I'm doing my level best to encourage him away from the idea!
In answer to your question; you may or may not be lucky enough to get a start job in the freight world but you need to get away from any preconceived ideas you might have about freighting being a launch pad to better things because it isn't.
Getting a professional pilots licence in the first place is the tricky bit and that means lots of hard graft. You can self finance the training, join the military or obtain sponsorship from a host airline or training organisation.
Your question seems to imply you are not interested in the military, so why not surf the web to see which airlines are offering sponsorship. You could help yourself by looking at the Guild of Air Pilots & Air Navigators website; also the RAeS; both organisations host sponsorship schemes.
Once again I wish you good luck with your quest - hope it all works out for you.