Mid Career Job Searching- UGH!

I've spent the last year or so in job limbo.  A year ago, I jumped at an opportunity take a position that had the potential to be a really great career move.  The position, rather the organization, didn't really pan out as I had hoped.  It was a good move career-wise in many ways, but has left me in limbo many times over the year.  I was very fortunate to have a recruiter contact me late last year about a short term contract so I was able to work very full time for several months this spring.  That contract is winding down and I've been embroiled in a pretty intense job search for the past month.  I've had some good interest, but nothing has panned out so far.  I know something will work out, but I grow increasingly impatient with each passing day.

I have recruiters from several (probably 5 or 6) agencies who are actively looking for something for me- all say the same thing- you have an impressive resume and I'd love to help.  The downside- I have an impressive resume in a very specific industry so I'm hard to place outside of that industry and I'm also hard to place within that industry because my industry is driven by functional areas and fails to see how the skill set is the same across functions!  Frustrating to say the least.  I also am in that weird place where I'm overqualified on paper for many jobs that I'd happily take (and probably would open doors for me to advance within an organization).  I'm under-qualified for the jobs that I appear to be qualified for although the "missing" items often are pieces that I could quickly learn and really are helpful things to know before starting in a particular position, but aren't skills and frankly fall into the same category as items that are organization specific, which I would need to learn anyway.

My take away from this search is that even though I live in an area with a relatively low unemployment rate and have the educational background and experience for many of the jobs out there, I'm not able to get a job.  It's so weird to me that our market has become this way and I'm starting to wonder if I'll be stuck not working or being underemployed simple due to the fact that I haven't worked for the right organizations at the right time.  Couple this with the fact that I desperately wanted to leave my old job because it was a horrible fit for a working mom.  I'm feeling like if I find a job, I'll end out settling for another job that will be a horrible fit personally simply because I really want a job.

So I'm left wondering, who are they hiring?  And what could I have done differently along the way to not be in this situation?  In the mean time, I'll overhaul my resume again, keep applying, and hope for the best!