Part of the trouble with finding a job nowadays in our area is that everyone in our hemisphere wants to live in the PNW. Most of the jobs I have interviewed for, I was up against people who had flown from all over the country and they were usually very over qualified and guess what.....I didn't get the job. I think our area is an absolutely terrible place to get a career started in some fields we are well known for. You have to leave and pay your dues and than maybe you can make a step up. I am thinking about doing that but fear I can never get back here and I wont be able to help my parents in their old age which is very important to me after living with my grandma in the final year of her life when she was a widow and very senile.

There are plenty of places in this country to live and make ends meet but that is because people are leaving those places as fast as they can because they suck.

Some things we have more of than our parents but it certainly isn't more opportunity in our area. I am in my mid thirties and remember when Bellingham was like a ghost town and vacant houses and buildings were a normal thing. With my current wage I could have easily bought a dream home just 15 years ago and now that dream home is worth at least 2.5X what it was. The house I bought and lost in a divorce was sold to us by a man wishing to help my wife and I get our lives started. The seller had about a dozen cash offers of up to 10K more than ours made by "representatives" of the buyer. The seller loathed those representatives from Seattle. That is the PNW nowadays in a nutshell, it's going to be alien to me in another couple decades.

Jason,
I don't know what field it is that you are looking, I'm guessing computer technology. But I will say, as a hiring manager in my group (in engineering), I usually decline folks from out of town an interview, usually because they are either, as you say, overqualified, or are trying to escape an area that they have already burned all their bridges. Unless it is a management position, or we have no local applicants, we try to keep it local... so keep at it...

regarding making a nice life in the northwest... you can still buy a waterfront home in kitsap for less than the going rate for a dump in king county... Many companies in Seattle offer flexible work hours that allow you to work on the commute or at home and will even pay for your commute... In my case, I get both, so I'm essentially getting paid to work on the commute...

get in now where ever you can, because as sound transit expands and shortens commutes, house prices will go up.

Thanks for your insight Piper. BTW, I am not down by any means. Its just the rat race as they call it. Never a dull moment.