Your point about personal appeal is well made, and I'm pretty good at projecting even though I pretty consciously avoid a lot of what the startup world thinks makes it great (and I won't work at one again because I respect myself). It helps that, to toot my own horn a little, I'm pretty good; I have a broad base of stuff to apply to a problem (even when I didn't know Ruby I knew Perl, Python, JavaScript, Smalltalk, Lisp...) and I can talk my way into an understanding via analogy and fundamental knowledge.

But what I think really matters on this front is that I'm able to express that I'm competent to somebody, and I don't need a whiteboard to do it, and I really do think that's key. My view of it is that all I need is to get somebody who's willing to listen and I'll pry that door wide open. I'm one of those people who interviews (well, interviewed, I like consulting) aggressively and habitually, and I have an Excel file with the results or non-results of every resume I've ever sent out in my life (155). When I look at he number of times I have gotten to at least a phone interview (112), not gotten an offer (53, but that includes me declining them), and gotten a reason why (21) that was related to a lack of direct subject matter expertise...I get a real small number. Two, as it happens. And this is totally a small sample size, I am not claiming statistical relevance. But I think the recognition that this industry, despite protestations of logic and high-mindedness, is still fundamentally and inescapably about making connections with people and making them like you, is something that even small-sample data like this can indicate. Most tech folks won't take this to heart, because of all the weird factors and weird people involved, but I do think that some pretty straightforward Dale Carnegie stuff is as beneficial to a reasonably good developer as anything they can learn with their hands on a keyboard.