I have a pretty small network but the people I've worked with know how reliable I try to be. While an intern I've solved many business problems with languages I didn't previously know, such as Excel VBA. None of those people could help me get something although they could have, with a different timing.
My biggest achievement is creating and managing a WordPress site now visited 50k times per month. I used to think it was an excellent asset when seeing what my classmates were up to (playing video games, mostly), but companies are definitely not impressed. And in a sense it's true that I didn't write a lot of code for it. But the code I wrote is rock solid. So yeah, I don't know.
So what should I do? I live in a small country where German and French are spoken. I speak English and French. I have theoretical notions of German and I could speak it in a matter of months if somebody gave me a chance. Since French-speaking companies don't, I doubt German-speaking ones would, though, and so far they haven't. What have we done for companies to be so afraid of us? I grew up in this country, graduated in an excellent high school and in a decent CS school; somebody'd make a pretty damn good deal if they hired me while I'm cheap. But everybody's rejecting me despite my motivation and my clean profile. This is wicked and there's a point at which I will simply stop and go milk cows instead.
