[irremediable]

Well first, have you actually applied to any of the places that asked for that experience? A lot of places will settle for far less than their advert asks. Second, have you emphasised your side-projects sufficiently? If you sell them properly, those count as professional experience.

[lostcolony]

I can echo this. Speaking as someone who has sat on the hiring side a fair bit, years of experience is almost always a guideline and/or set based on HR requirements if it's a large company ("Oh, you are looking to hire an X? That requires Y years of experience").

The job description is to fill a role. It's loosely what the hiring manager's understanding of what it will take to fill that role would require. A compelling case for why you have what it takes to fill the role, regardless of what the hiring manager thought it would take, will still be considered. A curious mind, someone self motivated and learning about technology on their own, and showing that they've done things with it, who establishes a good rapport when interviewing, is -more- desirable, to me at least, than someone who just checks off the qualifications, at least for entry level.

My team actually recently hired someone who doesn't have a CS degree, and who never did any development, but who had done solutions contracting, configuring and patching together off the shelf solutions to meet customer needs. That is, has a track record of figuring out and solving problems, with technology, with minimal code (scripts to tie things together, that sort of thing). It was just above entry level, and with the expectation that some training and mentoring would need to happen, but everyone on the team felt this person would be a positive