Hmm....

Is it only me or do others too sense some sort of slight contradiction here?

If you have experience you can say so, if you don't - you don't. But maybe the problem is not with your experience, but your presentation of it. It might help to go over your resume with some senior person because maybe what is lacking is not the experience itself, just the way it is advertised.

Then again, maybe your experience is not as strong as it should be (i don't know you therefore i take any possibility into account). There are companies specializing in hiring newcomers without experience at very low rates (from my experience with staff from there Accenture, for instance, is one of them - their consultants always were the hard-working, young, well-educated but lacking any hand-on experience of the things they were talking about type). Grit your teeth, get experience there (and be prepared to be underpaid at an appalling rate) and get a new job after getting the experience.

I hope this helps.

bakunin