I had a buddy who attended an Air Inc conference last summer and got a call to interview last November after talking with LP there. I have another friend who is convinced that the reason he was called was because he talked to the pilot recruiters at Air Inc, but that was a couple of years ago.
Of course all of this was back when there were other airlines hiring which meant that the folks who stood in line at the Alaska booth were genuinely interested in living and working in the Pac NW and interested in working for Alaska in lieu of the "big" 5. When I attended an Air Inc conference last fall, Alaska was the only major who attended who was actively interviewing and hiring pilots. Guess who's booth had the longest line? Seriously, over 400 guys/gals stood in line at the Alaska booth. How many of those got interview calls? My guess would be not many that didn't also have internal recs. Alaska has been very happy with the types of pilots it has hired over the past and it is my belief that they would very much like to continue to hire pilots who genuinely wanted to work at Alaska before they were "the only game in town."
All that being said, it certainly wouldn't hurt to get some face time with a pilot recruiter and you never know, maybe you'll get lucky like my two buddies above!