After 5 years of postdoc in Physics I decided to change career and to move to IT. I decided to learn Object Oriented Programming first. I chose Python since it was already installed on my Linux machine and it was easy to tackle for a beginner. In the process of learning Python I began posting to this newsgroup: first asking questions, then answering them. I also wrote a few papers about Python. After a year or so I was kind of known in the Python world, with a respectable curriculum. Then I got my first job by answering a job offer on comp.lang.python. My advice is to contact some local Python user group, to go to conferences and to make yourself known in a way or another. It takes time. Good luck!
Michele Simionato -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list