Luke,
I understand your feelings completely, we all love to fly most times, but you have entered one of the most unfair and insecure industries on the planet. The majority of pilots I know have been unemployed at least once during their career, often for long periods. Several have lost their lives during the course of their work, still we do the job, or seek to. The knowledge of these facts does not dampen our spirits because the feelings that we get from flying aircraft are the same now as they were during our first lessons.
What hurts most is the realization that comes to us all late in our training, or while searching for a job, that there are many more "injust examples in this industry than we thought.
The reality is that to enter this industry by the
quickest route, the most effective qualification is, and has been always, by the knowledge of somone within. Without this edge it takes longer because airlines change their employment criteria like their socks, targeting different groups on the basis of gender, hours, agegroup,country of origin and type of training/establishment.
The frustration comes that despite being a competent pilot, well aware of your own skills, you are being overlooked because you don`t fall into the category that is popular at the time.
I feel that I may be rambling a bit so in closing DO NOT give up, ignore the fortunes of others, they are not relavent to you ,keep plugging away and at some stage, normally when you least expect it, you`ll get a start.
Chin Up, RG.