Its hard to say, a lot of it has to do with being at the right place at the right time. For now though, it appears that you need to strengthen your resume. If you know people who run businesses (friends/family or referrals), talk to the owners. Ask them if you can volunteer or help out on the weekends or on free time as a financial/risk analyst. This will allow you put this experience on your resume (particularly strong if you can use them as a reference). Help them prepare budgets, variance reports, allocate free cash to investments or whatever. This will look great on your resume. Even if the recruiter doesn’t know the company you are working at it shows that you can do the work, thus it validates your FRM designation. They will more likely believe that your work is legimate risk analysis because you qualified for the des. Further, if you are asked details about your work you should be able to dance around the questions with the knowledge that you gained thru the FRM. Make sure you read the news lots because discussing the markets is a great way to break to ice w/ finance interviewers. As for job search, network around, but don’t just take any job. There is a high correlation between job satisfaction and time to search. Especially for the higher end jobs, it may take a while. But as always, you set the bar high, you fall high even if you don’t hit the mark. Good luck!