[jrockway]

Learn on your own and hang out in the social circles of other programmers.

Help answer people's questions on SO or irc. Learn the other JVM langauges. Learn about tools that J2EE people like, such as Maven and Hudson. Learn algorithms. Present at conferences.

Do this, and people will find you. Last time we needed to hire someone, I visited my favorite IRC channel, said "anyone want a job?", got a privmsg, and had the person interviewed in person and given an offer in just a few days. (A few because the weekend was in the middle.)

What you want is a friend who will talk you up to the people making the hiring decisions. What you don't want is to be another boring resume in a 50-resume-deep stack.