Hey man, I live in San Francisco and have about 2 years in the industry now (at one of the companies you mentioned). I'm looking for a new job as well because I am contracting and can only legally contract till the end of this year. I've applied to about 50 jobs over the last couple months (including at the company im already working at)as well and have only received one interview offer and it turned out to be an overnight shift which I am not interested in at all. I'd recommend getting set up with a recruiter (aerotek or bayside solutions). The former got me placed at genentech but can't help me find something new until I'm off contract at genentech which is really unhelpful in my situation. The bad news is that you will be paid less than your non contracting counterparts while doing equal or more work and you will have less benefits and no job stability but hey at least you have a slightly better chance of getting the interview as people have to associate with a recruiter to usually get there resume in front of the manager for these positions. There's always a possibility of being hired on but that unfortunately is not in the cards for me as they've hired one person in 7 years in my lab (crazy). The other thing is since so many companies utilize contractors they usually wikl hire the contractors already in the role than interview people not there because they've already tried out and done well. So they post the positions on line because they are legally supposed to but already have one or two candidates in mind. Unfortunately your teachers weren't very honest(or at the very least were clueless) when they said there is work available. I'm currently learning programming and hope to transition careers in a year or so when I have that skillset honed more. I don't wanna discourage you too much but it is very hard to find a job around here despite there being 100+ biotech companies around.