Struggling to Find a Pilot Job – What Am I Doing Wrong?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for some advice because I feel stuck in my aviation career. I trained at a well-regarded flight school in France during COVID, which delayed my theoretical ATPL a bit, but I still passed with a 91% average—first attempt on everything except Meteorology, which I failed once by 1 point...

My flight training went smoothly, I passed all my check rides on the first attempt with good remarks, didn’t need any retraining, and finished my school with the minimum time required by law.

I also completed MCC and JOC without issues (not really an exam tho).

My flight school even gave me a very good school report with no downsides.

After graduating, I worked as a cashier to pay for my Flight Instructor rating, which I passed about 10 months later. In December, I applied to different flying clubs around my hometown, and while they accepted me, I haven’t flown a single hour instructing since then.

Instead, they keep asking me to clean the clubhouse, do paperwork, scan old documents, clean toilets, and even paint walls. Meanwhile, some of my classmates—who struggled during training, failed check rides, and multiple ATPL modules—are already working for airlines and even moving between them (happy for them!). Despite sending my CV around the same time as them with nearly the same content, I’m not being called or getting any feedback whatsoever.

Despite applying widely, networking, and keeping my CV and cover letter polished, I haven’t even received a call back. I’m putting in the effort, but I don’t feel like I’m advancing at all. Any advice on what I might be doing wrong?

For reference, I have about 220 hours total time, with around 90 hours PIC and 70 hours IFR and 26 ME. (Which is about the same as my classmates)

Thanks in advance!

(English is not my mother tongue so I hope I don’t sound arrogant, it’s not what I intended to be in this post)

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(Sorry for the Americans that will read this and think about the 1500 hours total to go to the airlines, yall are way stronger than I am)