Its not easy at all. Try it out with your family on your LAN.
People are used to so much convenience, its easy to brush under the carpet, just how much work is happening behind the scenes. Just coming up with a basic list of 3 mordern conveniences you want to support for your family will be non trivial.
In fact, just try supporting one.
(Worked as an RA in a distributed systems lab back in the day, and just getting everyone who proposed the algos and systems to use them was a nightmare)
Move Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein 10kms away from where they were born, surround them by a different set of chimps and the story doesnt end the same way.
A good book from Niall Ferguson - the Sqaure and the Tower - makes the case tradionally Historians have studied individuals instead of groups because its easier to collect data on one chimp versus the entire troupe.
Can we get a rule where the adjectives like startling, striking, profound etc get applied after an application has been demonstrated. Speaking as someone who suffers from adjective overload.
The key is finding the "right" people and proving to them you can be useful. That opens doors to all kinds of opportunities.
I had subscribed to a local newpaper and an article showed up where a govt official was complaining about how most of the historic local budget data was still in paper or pdfs. I found the pdfs and converted them to csv and excel files. Found the contact info of the guy complaining and sent him the data. He was so happy about that, he put me on a mailing list where there were a bunch of serious people talking about local issues. That was the big door opener for me.
The question is totally irrelevant without knowing what your need is from the software.
Different people have different needs. So completeness will always mean different things. You worry about what you need out of it and whether you are getting it.
First of all its not about standing out. In the vast majority of orgs, no one experienced expects some one fresh out of college to be a MASTER at anything. Most of them arent masters of anything either.
So dont worry about that.
Worry about location. If you AND all your friends in town arent getting responses - move. If you are sitting in the boondocks move closer to larger cities. Best case would be to move to the most buzzing active cities where you have friends who have access to school job boards and/or have landed jobs/know the process enough to help.
I spent 6 months in a smaller town getting no calls. Moved to NYC and the whole story changed. This ofcourse was because I had friends going to multiple schools there. Thanks to which I would keep getting info on which company was on campus, which team within the company, what they were looking for, what type ot questions etc. So even if I missed them on campus I would apply via the site knowing which positions to target.
Also keep brushing up every single day on a list of fundamentals, known interview questions etc. Dont let the activity over time rot the brain away. So when a call does come certains basics are on your finger tips.