It's also a matter of the market being saturated with
unemployed people with paper certs, genuine competence,
and some with both. The company I worked for sold out
5 months ago - I too have been looking ever since.
I've made it a point to ask the recruiters/companies
how much interest they've had in the position. The
/typical/ response is "*gasp*, we've received over 1300
(thirteen hundred) resumes for this position in the
past week, I only talk to the people who call to
follow-up".
Extremely frustrating to say the least.