I'm not surprised by this at all

My resume got me accepted into medical school but I chose not to go. Now that I'm looking for jobs, I'm facing the increasingly difficult task of getting that first career job out of school. The problem, for me at least, has been simply getting past the HR department. Consider a few scenarios I've faced so far:

Scenario #1: Government job that would utilize my science background. I have a family friend who encouraged me to apply and told her supervisor about my application. Did they ever see it? No. Some HR person on the other side of the country looked at it first, then decided not to put it with the handful of applications that would move on to the next stage. Our family friend went to her supervisor, asked him specifically to look at my application anyway. He agreed that I would have been the most qualified applicant but since HR didn't move me along in the process, I was out of the running. The main problem? I wasn't a veteran. If I had been, I would have had the necessary "points" to move on.

Scenario #2: Interview for a defense contractor. They asked me if I had experience with the software they used to track missiles. No. No I have not used your proprietary software to track missiles for the government. I just graduated. What I do have though is a history of high grades in a variety of technical classes that demonstrate that I could learn to use it fairly quickly. Too bad for me though, I didn't have what they were looking for exactly and instead of being given the chance to demonstrate what I can do I was told thanks but no thanks.

Scenario #3: Find a job that is entry level, fits my background well and is something I am interested in doing. Results? Never hear back. Why? Who knows sometimes. Other times, it seems to be that I can't get past the algorithms companies use to sort through resumes.

It's not hard to understand why this all becomes so disheartening that we just want to give up.