One thing that might help is to ask those HR managers why they did not
select you. You may sometimes get a non-answer, but hopefully some of
them would be candid with you.
Another one is to ask a few friends to read your resume and give
feedback.

As a hiring manager myself I rate certifications over a college
degree, but not by much.

-Tom.

When I see that someone is certified I wonder if the cost of obtaining
all that general knowledge was at the expense of specific knowledge
obtained by solving actual problems.  Also, unless a company is
obligated by law to require resumes I don't ever submit one.  The
reasoning is that a resume is a screener.  I supply as much information
as necessary beyond what the referral source gave them, but if you want
me to fill out a resume you're telling me that you really haven't
decided to hire me.  Education is great and the formalism of accredited
cources is useful but most college courses really exist to provide an
introduction.  Some research and teaching assistants get close to
current knowledge if they're careful about choosing their topics and
how they go about their learning.

That said, the way things happened with me approaches bathos.  Upon
obtaining a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering with straight A's
I graduated in the midst of a decent recession.  At that time companies
hiring engineers were demanding more experience than I had.  I also
wanted to work on an automotive patent with a business parter and
didn't want to get into any legal entanglements.  Besides all that I
had the impression that engineering jobs were being dumbed down.  I
built and repaired computers on the side, did a little programming,
taught a few courses, passed out resistors, and most importantly,
bought candy for the bowl of the secretary of the Computer Science
department at Oakland U.  I learned while working in Boston that it
really pays to treat secretaries well when I finished a rush job that
normally took three days in one day because all the secretaries put my
requests ahead of others to the absolute amazement of my boss.  I had a
good reputation at the university so I let her know that if any
companies needed software help that I would do it or try to find
someone else who could do it.

Some of the leads were from individuals and some were from companies.
The individuals were very good at paying and were appreciative of the
work.  Some of the companies were just trying to get a cheap deal with
student help and as a result some of them were very poor leads indeed.
Those experiences led me to adopt the referral system I use today.
With the extremely high cost of hiring the wrong person you can be
confident that not having a great referral source will likely keep you
from getting the job.

The job I got at the consumer research company came through one of the
university leads.  A student who was working at a computer store saw me
showing another student how to use Access and told me about their
desire to produce a quote system for custom built computers.  One of
the reasons they wanted such a system was that if customers saw the
quote in hard print they wouldn't be as likely to haggle with them over
the price.

While I was finishing up that application their outsourced network tech
saw that Access app and referred me to the diabetic supply company I
worked for afterwards ($100/hr was nice but not excessive just after
Y2K).  Amazingly, the lead for the main company I work for was from a
pool league teammate.  He knew I knew Access and had some code that
needed debugging.  He was really a salesman and made much more money
doing that than almost any programmer makes so he set me up with some
contract work with them after I debugged his code successfully.  My
goal has always been to have five to 10 customers at a time but lately
it has been two to three really good ones.  So my advice is to get some
of your satisfied customers to refer you to other companies and get a
good hobby.  For me, pool is great because it rewards wisdom and
planning.

James A. Fortune
CDMAPoster@FortuneJames.com

When deciding how to distribute venture capital I survey potential
customers of the business and analyze the results with standard ANOVA
techniques to see if the company has a reasonable chance to succeed.
-- J. Knapp