Believe it or not I have real empathy ( and sympathy ) with the position that many find themselves in, i.e. the goal posts moved during my own training.
E.g. one used to be able to get a job just(?) by having a CPL. So that's what I did ( not having the money for an approved course of study which would have given me a fATPL straight off ).
But then the CAA changed the rules ( before I'd got a job ) such that you then had to have at least a (f)ATPL, and without which there was no point in applying to the airlines.
So, having not long previously completed the CPL exams, I had to do all the ATPL exams ( no wonder I was always skint ! ).
Then, resplendent with my shiny new fATPL, I find myself in the middle of a recession, with airlines going bust all around me – their pilots being scattered to all four corners of the globe ( only to return when the going got better some years later )
And so the years go by and things gradually improve, like a booming economy and the introduction of ‘low-cost’ airlines.
Ah, but there's now a new hurdle in the way, care of MCC - anybody else do the OATS B737 generic LOFT course ? Which turned out not to qualify you as having done MCC, i.e. a complete waste of money ! - which, as correctly stated above, many airlines now ‘require’ you have before they'll even take a look at you ( e.g. I did mine in order to get an interview with CityFlyer, as was ).
And of course old father time continues to twist his cruel knife and you then find that you're too old and that airline's seemingly don't want you when you're body clock's in or beyond the 30's
Yep, one can indeed despair of the whole way that it's going ( i.e. some have described it as headed the way of the shipping industry ), but has it really ever been different ? - it's a very cyclic business.
Usually by the time that you cotton-on to the true state of affairs ( i.e. just how difficult it can be to get an airline job), you've now invested too much time and money to quit, and so you keep hanging on and dispair can start to set in.
At that point, and if you can find the funds, you might well indeed be tempted to do a self-funded type-rating, as a veritable last ditch attempt to get a toe on the aviation ladder - and I know people for whom this was the precise circumstance, albeit that they're now sitting at the front of B737's and A320's, which is something that, for them, would never have happened if they did not take the course of action which they did.
If the truth be told, if I'd had the money, I too would have done a self-funded type rating – as it would have probably got me in the airline door four or five years earlier than actually happened - but I didn't have the funds, and so I had to trust to luck ( and my dashing good looks
) and accordingly I ended up waiting a very long time from the point when I'd obtained my license until the point when I got my first flying job, i.e. it was something like eight years, with various opportunities along the way making it feel like an horrific emotional roller coaster ( to say nothing of the time & money spent in the interim period keeping some semblance currency ).
So, been there, done that - and no, it's not nice, but that's just how it is. Maybe ( hopefully ) it’ll change for the better someday, who knows ? But playing a waiting game is not without its own risks !
That said ( hence the edit ) Andy is right - don't quit, all the market projections are for a boom in air travel ( subject to no more 911's and / or oil supply or economic problems ) and airlines will need pilots - and then you might find yourself doing a jet type rating at a TRTO ( maybe even at Bond ? ) but with an airline paying for it !