[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.

[ThoroughlyR]

I'm from Jacksonville, FL. Unfortunately, there isn't a huge software community here -- at least not that I can find.

[ryanmolden]

http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Miami-FL-startup-scene-like...

Now, obviously Miami is a long ways away, but at the very least looking into some of the links in the Quora response may lead to interesting things. Or

http://jacksonville.startupweekend.org/

Alternatively you could find an OSS project that fits in your wheelhouse and could be something you could get into. Most projects have lots of 'grunt' work that needs to be done, it isn't glamorous or really challenging, normally, but it can get you familiarity with the codebase (necessary for more interesting changes) and it can get you into 'the scene' so you can get to know other project members, get CR's from them (very helpful for learning, though can be scary for beginners...or even experts :)), pointers to jobs opportunities, etc..