I’m gonna be a little cranky against the primary premise of the question, which I take as “yeah, anybody can get hired today but what about the day when they only take the really good people “

Airline hiring environments tend to be great or awful with little in between. Airlines have furloughed 20% of their workforce and not hired a single new pilot for years. Airlines fold and dump 1000 experienced pilots on the market. The rare civilian pilots who succeed in a really bad market do it mostly by being the one guy with connections and experience.

So I applaud your go-get-em-ness ... but don’t think you can bootstrap your way to success through any hiring environment. Doesn’t work that way.