Pilot jobs after getting your license?

Question

How do you get your hours up after getting your license besides becoming a flight instructor right after school? I've briefly looked online and it seems like the minimum hours they require is at least 500, but usually well over 1000? Do people that want to be pilots just have to fly around in a plane on their own dollar to get their hours up or are there jobs that hire pilots right out of school?

Answer 1

One guy mentioned crop dusting, but I recommend against that if your goal is to build hours by getting hired quickly.  People that go into that line of work do it with the intention of a career, and getting hired in that profession is very difficult because of the nature of the work and the associated insurance costs.  And even once you are hired, you will spend several years flying very little, if at all, while you work your way into a full time seat.

Answer 2

Flight instuructor, banner tower, crop dusting, anything that you can get hired easlily without many/or no hours.

Answer 3

Becoming a flight instructor has been one of the standards.  I instructing for 900 hours before getting a job flying freight.  It's a learning experience and a pretty darn good resume builder.  

Other options for a low time pilot include but are not limited to the following:  Traffic watch (it seems like a lot of these companies do require 500tt though-- but not all), pipeline patrol, flying skydivers, and aerial photography.  You can start flying 135 freight at 500 hours provided the company will put you on their cert. vfr only (the majority of these places are in arizona and other southern states where vfr is the norm).  

I would not recommend buying a lot of flight time.  It's way too expensive to be economical for most people and it's not as good of a resume builder as having an actual flying job.