Are you getting interviews? If not, look at your resume. Are you getting interviews, but no offers? Have a friend play a boss and record your interview. Be brutally honest as you review the tape. Make contacts. Most hiring comes from hiring somebody the boss already knows. Engineers can be too focused on their technical abilities. The organization is hiring you....not just your skills. Be SOMEBODY they want to hire not just some skills they might need.
Hope you are not one of those types who thinks that it is whom you know and not what you know that really matters.
Few, very few. I’ve reworked my resume a number of times, had it professionally re-done, have done extensive re-writes specifically targeting the requirements of individual openings.
Last company interviewed me for 6-1/2 hours, with multiple interviewers. The interview went VERY well, I liked them they all seemed to like me, I’m intimately familiar with their exact needs, having done essentially the same work elsewhere, know the equipment they are planning on using, know the process. They were going to check references and get back to me in 2-3 weeks. Two of my three references reported back that they had been contacted and gave glowing reports, they couldn’t reach the 3rd, and I arranged a 4th, and had the third call them as well.
Then nothing.
Finally was able to get a hold of the hiring manager. The story is they’d had a chronic need to fill another position and an ideal candidate showed up who was a perfect match for that position, but they only had room to add one body to their headcount, so they were checking his references to determine if they would create a req for him and close mine.
I suggested that I could set up their process as a consultant in the interim. He though that might be a good idea and said he would consider it.
A week later, he hadn’t bothered to mention it to anyone else.
*sigh*