Where do I go from here?

I want to break in to the field of DSP development. When I studied for my BS at Cal my focus was signals and systems. I did take the Discrete Time Signal Processing course, the only one offered at the undergrad level for DSP. But, since I graduated in Dec of 2003 I have not been able to find employment doing DSP design. I have designed embedded systems in C and Assembly. However, I was laid off June 30 and cannot find work.

My question is what tools should I get experience with in order to obtain employment? I'd like to do Pro Audio, designing effects and/or compression algorithms. I cannot get any answers from the businesses to which I've applied. The job descritptions typically require 5 yrs DSP development experience.

I'm really frustrated! Should I go back for a Master's in EE? Should I spend a small fortune on development tools? I'd like to do development work with Sharc processors. Do I need to use Matlab?

How does one break in to this field?

Thanks for any advice,

Greg