Do you have any insight what it's like getting into this industry here in Melbourne? I've been teaching myself JavaScript and built a functional, interactive site. But speaking to an agency yesterday, they said they wouldn't even consider looking at anything for me where I hadn't worked for a couple of years already. Chicken and egg problem.

This website seems to be mostly Californians. (Maybe I need to hang out on Whirlpool more.) Is it worse here or better?

If you don't have any formal experience, you aren't going to have much luck with agencies. They're strictly looking to put round pegs in round holes - match up the experience and education credentials and listed skills with the company's posted requirements. But that isn't the only way to get a job. You're going to need to convince somebody with some hiring authority to take a chance on you.

This usually entails hanging around at tech conferences, meetups, user groups, and other such in-person social networking events, including more business-focused ones. Do things to contribute, and talk to people. You'll want to focus on smaller companies without a lot of strict hiring requirements. There are decent companies out there willing to hire junior people without a lot of formal experience. Flip side is that agencies also evaluate the companies for you before you even know anything happened. You won't have this, so you'll have to be more careful about checking out any company you might work for. You probably won't find your dream job right off the bat, just find somewhere you can build something with actual users, make some money, and learn things, and start building a resume. You might luck out and end up somewhere awesome, or you might find yourself somewhere you just want to get enough experience at before moving on.

I would definitely suggest getting along to MelbJS nights - aside from the fact that there's some good folks and great talks, there's usually a bunch of people who will advertise what roles their companies are usually hiring for.

also, make sure your portfolio site is up to date and has lots of projects that you're working on.

If you've got no commercial experience I wouldn't really recommend going to an agency, mostly because agencies are too expensive for companies if you're just going to hire juniors - plus there's usually no shortage of junior devs, especially this time of year.

any internships available?