TB I'll second your 'no sucking up' rule and add that to the 'don't pay for your own type rating' rule that I abide by.
I completed the ATPL g/s and modular flying in record time of 6mths excl the xmas break all in an effort to get to CTC before I was too old. Having achieved that target, they stopped recruiting! Fantastic!
To date I've sent out circa100 applications, played the game and got about 20% reply rate; all No thanks/ not recruiting/ not enough experience, blah blah..
In the course of all of this no-one has been more aware that making contacts can be helpful or even vital but i will and do stop short of shining the shoes of CFI's and line pilots who are friend of friends!
So Airline pilot or Instructor? Without a well paid job in hand with which to create oodles of disposible wedge and fly up and down the continent for the sake of it, I'm off to do an F.I. rating and try to assist those with the big ambition or spare time to learn to fly tin cans around southern Britain. In that way I can stay aloft without paying for it and build experience. Lets face it, aviation is there to be enjoyed and we all get more real flying in 1 ton machines whether you sit in the reight or the left seat.