What's it like when the airline industry is booming?
'Booming' is a relative term. I don't think finding a first job is ever easy - depending on the state of the job market at the time, it varies from tricky to nigh-on impossible. I got lucky - qualified via the modular route around a year ago, sent out maybe ten CVs and had two interviews within a couple of months (thanks to recommendations from the school). Straight into an airline job with 200 odd hours, aged 36 and without paying for a type rating. It don't get much better than that, but even so I worked bloody hard to (a) get a recommendation, and (b) get through the interview and sim ride. Most of the people I trained with are now flying commercially, although some ended up paying for type ratings in the process. Wind the clock forward a year, and most of the opportunities that we took simply aren't there any more.
The key word is 'opportunities'. Airlines won't be fighting over you during boom times, but they will be steadily recruiting. Some people will join with wet-ink CPLs, others will move on from instructing and the G.A. world, leaving vacancies to fill - the result is that given enough persistence, it is usually possible to find some sort of job somewhere - that all important first rung of the ladder.
When times are bad, airlines don't recruit in anything like the same numbers - they may have recruitment freezes or even lay people off. Some will go bust, dumping scores (possibly hundreds) of experienced jet and TP drivers onto the job market. Unfortunately that is happening right now, and I fear it is a process that is only just beginning. One doesn't need a degree in economics to work out the effect on low-hours pilots.