For those that are low houred (i.e <400 hrs say) and went to a flying school that has links with possible commercial jobs (any type of job) then use them to help you get recommended. You've paid them enough money so use them.
If they can't help you or you went down the modular route and the usual application method isn't working then its because there are guys that are getting recommendations above you of have more flying experience than you.
Therefore you need to improve your cv by gaining more hours of flying experience.
Morally I don't agree with this but if I had the money I would pay for a type rating purley and simply because there are plenty of other pilots doing this getting one step ahead of you. If you can't afford to do a type rating having spent x thousands of pounds already then you really do need to increase your flying hours by one of many methods available to you in this country or indeed africa/europe.
Such as
Instructing (if you can afford the rating)
Aerial photography
Pilots assistant
Banner Towing
Pleasure Flights
Survey work.
etc etc.
You just have to look for these types of jobs to gain experiece and having done this type of job for a while you'll be surprised how quickly things will happen once you're in the industry. Before you know it you'll have the advantage over the low houred guys when it comes to applying for the bigger jobs such as TP operators or if you're lucky a big shiny jet!
You have to ask yourself the question:
Would I rather do any (I mean anything) flying job this year in 2008 as supposed to no/minimal flying while holding out for the national lottery win of a big shiny jet?
SO GO GET THAT SEP JOB NOW AND STOP WASTING TIME!
rgds
The Aviator1977