The recurring theme at the moment, whether it's on this Wannabe section, or on the top end of the forum is many people speaking at each other, but spending little time reading/hearing
Time after time the message to wannabes is "there are no jobs".
The wannabe response seems to be "yeah, but what can I do to get my first job then" (excluding the standard slag off WWW response). I've been reading PPRuNe for at least 5 years and I've learned to trust what he says. The people that have a go at him and then ask him silly questions like "what airline do you fly for then?" show just how much thought and research they've put in. It takes all of about 3 minutes to find out how he got his first airline job.
Anyway, it's really simple. If there are no jobs to be had, how can something increase your chances of getting a job? The square root of f'all springs to mind.
I got made redundant two years ago and I could have used the redundancy to finally start training. As a long time reader of these fora I knew that although it's what my heart has been set on since I was about 6, it would be a complete waste of time and money. I gave up on the idea (again).
I remember back in 2007/8, time after time a new face would show up and slag off WWW for telling wannabes not to jump into training. They'd accuse him of all sorts of things and eventually they'd disappear with a closing line of "well I'm going to do it anyway and I'll be back in a year to tell you that you were soooo wrong".
As for me, for now, I've decided to check out my local gliding club and learn to fly gliders. I didn't even know the club existed until two weeks ago. This looks like about the only kind of aviation that I can justify the cost of and looks like bleeding good fun too. I'd previously thought that I shouldn't start any flying training without a sensible (and affordable) plan/direction and I knew I wouldn't be able to afford to do much post PPL and it would probably lapse before I got the hours to start the CPL. My current plan now involves gliding (if I actually enjoy it, that is) to try and get a BGL in a couple of years. This allows one to get a NPPL with 10 hours dual instruction (though obviously longer will be necessary). From there I can use the PPL to have some fun. But, with an NPPL, one can get a JAR PPL with 20 hours [minimum] dual instuction. A very long winded route, just to get the JAR-PPL but hopefully a lot of interesting flying before then and no particular rush to get it all done. CPL etc. in, what, 10 years time? Should be just in time for the industry to recover lol.
Sorry, I seem to have rambled off topic a bit here
