I graduated during the peak of the recent recession. I ran into this a lot. What worked best for me was to stop fine tuning my resume and do my best to skip HR.

I graduated during the peak of the recent recession. I ran into this a lot. What worked best for me was to stop fine tuning my resume and do my best to skip HR. I got a few interviews by calling friends already in the field (some of those parents of friends) and asking to be put it contact directly with a technical hiring manager. Of course, none of those panned out either. A few took hires with more experience and one offered me a job at an embarrassingly low salary (i.e., less than I made as a summer lifeguard). Ultimately, what worked for me was getting in with a good company doing low level tech work (help desk) which got my recommendations for an internal position. This was my first lesson in corporate hiring: the most effective way to find a job is knowing someone.