When I was applying for jobs about a year ago, the only times I got anything other than silence for a response was when I had a contact "on the inside". It has

When I was applying for jobs about a year ago, the only times I got anything other than silence for a response was when I had a contact "on the inside". It has been said that the success rate for just sending in a resume is under 5%; of course, people do get jobs by sending in resumes (or so I hear) - this just wasn't my experience. On the other hand, I learned that the contact does not have to be a friend - reaching out to an engineer working at a company shows you care, and makes the process more human. Note that I'm not advocating spamming busy people with your resume - I think this only works if the interest is genuine. Doing interviews made me realize just how much theoretical CS knowledge I was missing, algorithms especially (I did Computer Engineering for my undergrad). So that was the final push that made me decide to do a Masters (though I did get an offer). I hope that was the right decision :) But more to the point, make sure you brush up on your theory and practice solving problems on a whiteboard.