A new direction on the job hunt

Posted on February 6, 2010

Okay, I’ve moved through the first two iterations of my job hunt–ramping up my profiles on Google and LinkedIn, and refining my resume so I have multiple versions. That looked promising for a while.

On the upswing?

I actually got two local job interviews last month. Granted they were referrals from friends, but nonetheless, things were looking up. I was fully qualified for both, but I didn’t get either position.

Could SAS work?

So. Cobol doesn’t appear to be panning out. I decided to try the SAS market, as I’ve used it quite a bit over the years, and I think I could pass muster on a technical interview. I created a SAS version of my resume and posted it on Dice. I got three emails the next day for SAS contracts, but none of them have led to anything further, yet. I haven’t given up on SAS, but I’m going with another tack in the meantime.

Never thought I’d say it…

Government work is starting to look pretty promising. As unemployment has gone up in the public sector, gov’t jobs seem to be increasing, too. And I’m only two hours from DC, the mother lode of gov’t contracts. I’ve worked in DC before, so I know I can deal with working there.

I’ve had a search agent set up on usajobs.com for months, but have been pretty much just monitoring those leads, not following up on them. Time to get serious.

Only time will tell, but I’m hopeful. Hey, at least I have a plan.

» Filed Under Contracting, Mainframe

Comments

One Response to “A new direction on the job hunt”

  1. dylan on January 6th, 2011 6:40 pm

    I think this story has a happy ending since I work with you. In this market you have to try multiple sources, friends, recruiters, the Feds, social networking, job boards. All three panned out for me in my job search, but it did take time and patience. Your other advice on an earlier post about tailoring your resume for each job is spot on. Also people way overuse the job boards. Something like 5 percent find their jobs on a job board. Also frequent updates of the ol’ resume on job boards tends to get more notice from head hunters.

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