recursion

Inluminent has some good advice on looking for a job. On Looking for a Job talks about get an interview and how to give a good one. John also recommends a book Knock 'Em Dead for advice. He follows up with tips on how to get your resume read, which advocates the hard sell with lots of personal contact and follow ups.

I guess when you get right down to it, there's nothing really new here. But as someone who's had a hard time finding a job in the past, I now realize how important this type of thing is. I must've sent out hundreds of copies of my resume when I was looking for a job (and I even wrote in legible English.) But what I lacked was that personal touch (I eventually got hired due to personal contacts inside a company). I've seen how swamped the job market is, so I won't make that mistake again. Anything that can put me above the competition is fair game.

Interestingly, since I've started my job, I pay more attention to those "requres 3 years of experience with XYZ" qualifications in job descriptions. Conventional wisdom among programmers is that this doesn't really matter, and you can pick up what you need to know in a few weeks or months. I'm not so sure about that anymore.