I know of a guy that had the bare minimum - completed his ME CIR with around 200 hours and then got a job flying a light twin (6 seater) casually (a couple a days a week) out of a Capital City. Went onto turbines as an FO at around the 800 hour mark and is now in the airlines as an FO flying jets and has about 6000 hours. Total time on singles is around 150 and all of his time after the 200 hour mark has been IFR.
Guess he was just lucky. He told me that an instructor rating never entered his mind.