When I interview potential co-workers, I usually have a few criteria. In order of importance: First is personality/culture fit. We don't have to be BFFs, but I

When I interview potential co-workers, I usually have a few criteria. In order of importance: First is personality/culture fit. We don't have to be BFFs, but I need to know that you can get along with the rest of the team. If I hire you, I'm going to have to work with you for the next few years. My ideal team member is smart, respectful, and can take a joke. Can you disagree with people respectfully? Can you admit when you're wrong? Even more importantly, can you tell me when I'm wrong? Second is willingness to learn. In a given year we might start out building a Rails app, switch to another project building an Ember app, write a backend service in Java, then finish off the year with an iOS app. I don't expect you to know how to do all of those things, but I need you to be willing (and excited) to learn a new technology when the need arises. Third, and this is a somewhat distant third, is all the stuff I told you I needed in the job listing. Most of the stuff that I claimed to need is actually negotiable, even if it didn't sound negotiable in the ad. I'd sooner hire someone a bit more junior than I'd like if they surpass expectations on the first two criteria. Don't worry too much about the job listing. Get in there and scedule an interview. What's the worst thing that can happen? It's not like they're going to stab you because they wanted someone with more experience. Your best bet is to make some friends in the software development community. Find out where the nearest user group or meetup is taking place. Chat with some people, make a few friends. A lot of them will have leads on a job, whether you're looking for contract work or full-time. Maybe their company is hiring, or they've got a friend who needs a junior developer. Maybe they're fully booked with consulting work and they can toss you a contract from their backlog. I've gotten more jobs given to me by friends and past co-workers than I can even begin to recall. Just remember to return the favor. When a job offer comes in that you don't have the capacity to handle, pass it on to a friend.