[anditto]

Boy does this hit close to home. I was almost exactly in the same place 2 years back. Dropped out of PhD, start looking around for a gig, then promptly rejected by almost every top IT/telco related Japanese companies. My solution was similar to @patio11's advice: a) iterate and refine your process, b) hack something on something, anything, on the side, and c) go to the events where networking actually takes place. All of these will give you both tangible and social proof to bring to table once you eventually get through to the interview round.