Reddit mentions of Cracking The Hidden Job Market: How to Find Opportunity in Any Economy

I would highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Hidden-Job-Market-Opportunity/dp/158008494X

Most jobs hire before they even do a formal posting. If you're just at home working on your resume and combing the internet for job postings, you're not going to find the job you're looking for. The formula to a successful job search is to identify the type of job you want and then talk to people who are doing that job and people who hire people who do that job over and over and over again. Asher goes into some more detail in the book.

You might not be doing anything wrong. The job search process is not a straightforward endeavor and you don't have insight into what's going on in the mind of the person across the table. Maybe they hired someone else because of nepotism. Maybe they didn't like the color of your tie. There's no telling. That said, there are probably things you could be doing better (which is true for everyone), but don't start with the assumption that you're doing something wrong. That can be counterproductive.

There are many options to volunteer outside of churches. (Though there are churches where you could volunteer without being a Christian anyway.) So, /u/admiralwaffles point about volunteering to build out your portfolio of completed DB projects is a good one. And volunteering is a good way to stay sane while going through the grueling and lonely process of the job search, because it provides the opportunity to work on interesting things and interact with other humans. If you're interested, pick something that you like and want to get better at and you'll be enhancing your skills at the same time you proving them and you'll create professional references you can include in your job applications.

You mentioned you have built projects with your new skills. Do you have them listed in your resume or cover letter? And do you have a way to show them to potential employers? Being able to demonstrate an interesting portfolio of work communicates much more to a hiring manager about your actual skills than saying that you completed some online courses.

For general job search advice, check out some of Donald Asher's books, like:

• "Cracking The Hidden Job Market: How to Find Opportunity in Any Economy", or
  
• "How to Get Any Job"
  
  He has some good insights into how to be more efficient at the search process and to find job opportunities that aren't immediately obvious.