Sorry I said that wrong, they both do hiring for companies rather than working at a recruitment agency.
Both of them said that you should put more emphasis on your cover letter and initial email as they won't even open your CV if your cover letter doesn't stand out.
Yea I get you, but honestly I have no desire to get into enterprise stuff and work for a large firm. I would much rather prefer working for a startup or a smaller more creative company.
I really just want to get some cash flowing in so I can invest them in my own ideas and hopefully one day start my own startup if the opportunity arises.
In my country as well, it's the same deal. However we are still behind the times as most employers somehow think asp is the shit when it comes to web development.
99% of the jobs here are for .net/java/c# and most them require you to be 'Microsoft Certified'. I've even seen a few jobs for Linux Support roles that require you to be 'Microsoft Certified'. That's probably why they the listings have been there for months :p
I mentioned in another comment but I ran out of space in the original post.
I've reworked my CV and had 2 people who do recruiting for a living help me refine it. I've also made it look nice with a bit of colour and some nice fonts so it doesn't look like a boring old CV made in word with Times, but at the same time still looks professional.
That's true, I do try to follow up every potential job, but even if I email them multiple times, I still never hear back. There's been a few jobs that I've rung up to ask if they have received my application, and I still never hear back.
The problem going through job sites (which I hate) is that you can never find the actual email address so it's kinda hard to follow up on potential jobs.
But I do see what you mean when it comes down to concepts. I still can't see myself using Java/C# however. I've never owned a Windows machine before and I'm interested in websites and web apps opposed to desktop apps, so I can most likely get away without using Java/C#.
I tried to mention my CV but I only had 2000 characters of text.
I've reworked it at least 5 times. I've shown it to 2 people who do recruiting for a living who have helped me tweak it to the best I can. To the jobs I got interviews with, most of them did mention that they liked my CV. There's always room for improvment but I think it is pretty good atm.
Also for some web design jobs, I've redesigned the employers website (cause most of the time they suck). I think I did it about 4 times and not 1 of them replied back so I kinda gave up on that idea.
http://d.pr/f/6bIc