This is along the lines of the advice I also give people, it generally boils down to a few things:

- Be hungry - I'm willing to spend hours with someone who's hungry and just lacks knowledge or a mentor

- Be humble - Always underplay what you know, especially in a market where people wildly overestimate their skillset being humble sets you aside

- Do open source stuff - It's a great indicator not only that you're willing to fail publicly and be ok with it, but it's also a great way to show your progression as an engineer. It also shows you can deal with occasional asshats on the internet (hopefully).

- Differentiate yourself somehow - Being knowledgeable about IT is only one of those ways (though probably the best IMO), if you can have security skills and a sense for business, or security skills and hardcore networking experience (think Cisco certification), etc you'll almost automatically shoot to the top of any stack of resumes.