That's a big dish of good old american entitlement.
If you were on the market during the last boom, the demand for engineers was far greater than it was today. Because of that, for every 1 good resume that landed in my inbox I had to wade through about 300 bullshit resumes. Most of them were from Indian spam shops, kids in the midwest who got their MCSE and decided they were senior systems architects, and fratboy ivy-league types who felt the $200k that dad spent on their education meant they should be able to ride their degree onto the next big thing.
Treat your job hunt like it's a full-time job. You can probably coast your way into some me-too start-up, but if you want a good job at a company you're excited about it, you have to prove your worth by selling yourself.