Well, sometimes you get lucky in Asia. I know a few Australians who were recruited for a major domestic airline in Asia (and they were not P2F either). One guy was fresh from a flight school in Sydney with 220 hours TT.
Did they have foreign passports or access to one? I too know of people who have walked out of flight school in Australia into a major Asian airline but their parents were originally from that country so the airline considered them a local as they qualified for a passport.