Johnwells,
Your 150 hour CPL, Did that include a night rating? Or a Aerobatic rating? Tailwheel? When I started my CPL I asked if I could get a job with 150 hours because most of the ads I had seen for entry level jobs (mustering and the like) required 200 to 250 hours. The staff let me know that even though I could get a CPL with 150 hours it would be hard to crack a job with such little total time. About halfway to getting my CPL the more senior instructors suggested doing some more training to get me closer to the 200 instead of just boring holes in the sky. I was doing the night rating anyway but doing the other 2 got me to 175 hours. finished with IFR and then boom! 200 hours. I'm pretty sure the tailwheel was instrumental in one of my job offers a few years ago.
As a side note I did check the whole 200 hour thing with some charter operators. They all agreed that no way could they hire someone with less than 200 hours. The insurance just wouldn't accept it.
John, sounds like you didn't research or the school didn't inform you of the difficulty of getting a job with such low time. Did you think when you graduated you would get something with 150 hours?