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[untenured]

My experience was the opposite.  I emailed department chairs when I had plenty of guts and no experience.  Once I had that one adjunct job, I focused my efforts on research to puff up the 'ol CV.  Too many adjunct classes can be a trap.

Part persistence, part networking, part luck.

Untenured

[lihtox]

When I first moved to this area, I toured all the local colleges, leaving my resume with each.  When I visited the community college just down the road, the dean practically offered me a position on the spot.  I've been adjuncting with them for a year now.

My second adjunct job was with a university, and that came about because I had applied for a visiting position there, lost to a candidate with a better research-specialization match, but the chair offered me a summer teaching gig.  I taught my first upperclass course there last fall, which was great fun.

And just a month ago, I got an email from a local liberal-arts college which I had visited last year during my "grand tour"; they didn't have an opening then, but they do now, so I'll be teaching two courses there in the fall.

[malvolio]

I moved into an adjunct position at my degree-granting institution after my first year on the job market failed. I had to apply and beat out a bunch of other people, because it was a sweet gig--full time pay and benefits for a 3/3 load, and they even arranged my schedule to leave Thursday afternoons and Fridays free for campus interviews.