Not to minimize your efforts, but I get the impression you have looked for companies hiring for jobs, and sell yourself based on a list of technical skills. I

Not to minimize your efforts, but I get the impression you have looked for companies hiring for jobs, and sell yourself based on a list of technical skills. I suggest focusing on business problems you can solve. A business may have a broken or slow web site, for example. They probably won't have a job opening specifically to fix that, but they still have the problem. Instead of calling around asking "Do you need another Python programmer?" ask "What problems would you like to get fixed that your staff don't have the skills or bandwidth to deal with?" No business ever had the requirement "I need 5,000 more lines of Javascript this month," so don't try to sell that to them. Every company will hire (or contract) when someone comes along who can add value to the business. This approach has worked for me many times. Reframing the gig-hunting process in terms of business value rather than my specific "skill set" made all the difference. Recruiters use databases full of yes-no and 0-5 rankings of keywords, they focus on moving interchangeable people around. They may also know about business problems their customers face but they make money putting bodies in chairs so don't expect too much out of them. Think about the difference between someone knocking on your door asking if you need a person with a lawnmower for couple of hours, versus someone telling you they noticed your yard needs some care and they have the skill and tools to do it. You don't care about the brand of lawnmower they use. They identified a problem and offered a solution, one that doesn't require you make any decision beyond how much it will cost.