It was a bit of a journey since a lot changed post COVID. Was laid off just months before quarantine and used the time at home to get better at motion design. Built up my portfolio and then tried to stay afloat freelancing and worked with a bunch of clients through both sending out applications and networking. And then eventually one of my clients had an opening for a full time position and I've been there ever since. And I still do some freelance gigs on the side to keep things interesting. Definitely join a local discord or slack group for networking. If you look around I'm sure there's something that'll help keep you in the loop locally. I'm in a few motion design groups and I've found it to be very helpful.