While knocking on doors runs the risk of alienating those you wish to impress, sitting on your butt trawling the net and sending out letters/ email which get filed under bin before they are read is equally fruitless. I was very lucky in that I got a whisper of the possibility of a job, went to the airline, politely asked to speak to the Fleet Manager, got lucky he could see me and got a place on a Course the next month. You gotta be bold, but not too pushy.
I know that you are not trying to bring this fellow traveler down, but telling him that every aspect of his CV is useless isn't really helping him, neither is it entirely true.