I did my rating on the A320 in August 2007, got a job after about 8 months. And have been flying since (now also in sweden).
When looking at the TP market, I would go for the ATR 42/72, there are a lot of orders and there are a lot of aircraft flying... There is a new company starting up operations in norway with ATR.
The bad thing is that such a rating is almost the same price as an A320 or 737...