G'day Mike,
Mr. Bell gives some good advice there. Professionals have a really good
PR thing going regarding their job prospects after training. The question to ask is "how many pilots did you train last year?" The answer will be significantly more than 5, I would imagine!
There are quite a few schools around with very good reputations for the standard of their training. I'm not excluding PHS here, but my plan would be to visit / contact as many of these "quality" schools as possible before forking out my 40 grand. The cost of a couple of TIF's would be a good investment IMHO. Feel free to email me if you want any contacts / phone numbers, etc.
Good luck mate,
MPT