Shortage of rated low time pilots! ...... Don't think so!!!
Interest in people with experience on type; certainly yes.
Lets face it. It costs them nothing, to say that there is a shortage
of people with the appropriate rating.
You'll go out and do the rating and when you'll came back with the rating,
only then, they will remember that you need to have experience on type.
You quite rightly say, that you have lots of friends on Turbo-Prop jobs.
Thats probably the best option to get a job, as everyone tends to go
"jet" because, at the end of the day, the price almost the same.
Just my two cents,
Zero