Comment by ryanmolden

Where do you live? One often overlooked avenue is to get contacts in the local tech community via meetups/OSS. Having an existing employee vouch for you is a big leg-up, but of course that person is putting their reputation on the line, so they have to really know your talent / passion / dedication first. Probably not what you want to hear as it doesn't help find a job today, but having people that can vouch for your skills, long term, is invaluable and takes time to build up, so starting ASAP is a good idea. One of the open secrets in the tech world is that most job qualifications are a bit overboard and can be waived entirely for a good candidate. Just realize not ticking any of the skill boxes AND not having an inside recommendation is a hard thing to overcome, so you need to attack one angle or the other.