[rescue] Re: Perverse Question

[N. Miller]

--On Tuesday, June 17, 2003 12:22 PM -0500 "Jonathan C. Patschke" 
<jp at celestrion.net> wrote:

>> Agreed ...  I've actually thought about this myself in the past, but
>> never really figured out the right way to put it on my resume.  The
>> self-employed consultant approach is certainly a valid one.  Thanks for
>> the suggestion.
>
> No problem.  We geeks have problems with marketing things, especially
> when we're marketing ourselves, so we need to keep prodding each other
> when we run into blocks like this.

In business/technical writing parlance this is called "audience analysis".
You have to have enough HR-speak in your resume (read: marketing spin)
in your resume to get the attention of the recruiters and HR-droids.
You have to have enough tech-speak in your resume to nab the geeks
that get it at the second level.

It's a difficult line to walk.

If you really *are* doing consulting, I would also advise networking
through that avenue to find more consulting jobs.  Also consider
donating some amount of time per week to doing "freebie" small stuff
for schools, churches, and non-profits (and advertise that you do so).
If you let people know that you are doing the 'consulting' gig because
of the "tough job market", the people you meet doing freebies can lead
to "real jobs".

Figure out what you are good at, and sell that.  I'm no expert at Solaris,
and my biggest barriers to a job at the moment are: ex-manager, too high
of a last salary, age, and I suck at scripting.  So, my spin on my resume
is that I have great communication/documentation skills for a geek (English
major/technical writer).  Not that it appears to be working, but then, I'm
in Silicon Valley with about a million other unemployed geeks.

=Nadine=