The technical skills are nice, but a positive attitude and good communication skills it is whats going to land you a job in I.T. To be truthful I never had ANY trouble finding a job in I.T. so I may not be the best person to comment. Right out of high school 18 years old I applied for an AS/400-Data Entry position with a local news paper (gannett affiliate). I landed the job with little effort as they wanted someone who knew very little ( I knew a good amount about computers, but little about networks) and someone they could pay a small wage to and teach.
I worked weekends and holidays for about one year and then finally my break came when the I.T. Manager/Director saw my potential that I could bring to the systems side of the department. They gave me one extra day working with the other Systems Analyst as well as training with them on the weekends. They and I were both then comfortable that I was trained enough to handle the tech side AND AS/400 side on my own and flew solo on weekends and that extra day.
I soon grew out of the position and was offered a full time position working still both sides (Tech & AS/400). I then grew out of that position skill wise and was moved completely to the tech side and earned my offical Systems Analyst title. It took 5 years, but it was worth every penny considering I didnt go to college. About 5 months ago I landed a part time gig in addition to my current news paper position installing and supporting networks in my area making a pretty good sum about $25/hr which wasnt much, but in addition to the newspaper it added up pretty quick. Now I have establised a pretty good all around base and know I can go somewhere and ask for $25-$30/hr without any problems. I had to quit the part time positon as it was draining me badly. I now plan to concentrate on building some advance networking/security skills and obtaining some Certs to back my experience. I still do freelance work which keeps me busy and I LOVE cause I can charge about $60/hr, but with the really rich old people it usually works out to about $130/hr yowza god bless the rich..lol.
Thanks in advance to any replies. 
