How do I find an entry-level software position?

Is it me or have entry level positions almost completely dried up in the software industry? Almost everything that I find requires 2+ years of experience. I apply anyway, but needless to say I'm not having any luck finding a job.

Am I approaching the job hunt the wrong way or something? I'm beginning to worry that I'll never find any sort of desirable employment simply because there are hardly any reasonable positions for me to pursue.

P.S. I'm looking for jobs in and around Chicago (this may be contributing to my lack of luck finding a job, but I don't think that's the case).

That may help give you cred, where you have a dearth of it, otherwise.

I would recommend learning Rails or Laravel developing web applications. Those jobs are pretty interesting and they are out there.

Usually when you find jobs it's through someone you know or meet so go to meet ups, contribute to an open source community. Pick a side project to build so you have some samples of your work.

Landing your first job takes work, keep at it.

Good luck.

What do I look for? I look for "can you code" as an entry level developer. I don't expect you to understand design patterns and all that crap. Can you hack your way around and get the damn code running? Great, you are better than 50% of the candidates. Have you taught yourself any new tech recently? Great! Do you know more than one language? Great! Have you finished any online course? coursera, udacity, udemy, whatever, just something or a book? Awesome. Can you show me some of your shitty code for a silly side project? Awesome. Are you passionate and willing to learn? Great! Do you know other things that you need not know such as Unix, DB, RESTful API, git, etc?

You already met everything I need in tech. The only other thing is to at least pretend to be a decent person during the interview be nice, polite, respectful, punctual, clean.

Go knock on doors.