No worries, I am not asking you guys to pick a career for me. I'm looking to start a career. What I really want is contacts. I realize that networking is the best way to find a job and I am doing my best to do that here. The people of S2Ki share a strong interest of mine and I thought I would see if I could also network through them.

I will admit that my interests and skills are a little broad. I think that saying there is only one thing that I can do as far as a career is concerned is short sighted, especially in IT. As long as I'm in IT I feel like I will always need to be developing new skills so I can be as versatile and effective as possible in my occupation. I believe I have the skills and interests to choose from a few different career paths and be passionate and successful with any of them. What I am doing is not quite as important to me as other things- work culture, opportunity for advancement, do I fit well with my co-workers, etc.

When I apply to a specific opportunity, I do not include all the things I listed here. I narrow the information presented down to the skills the recruiter needs to know about how I fit well with their position. In short, I customize a cover letter and resume for each application and address it specifically to the person responsible for the hiring.

ImportSport mentioned a headhunter... has anyone here actually used one and had it work? I have been contacted by headhunters in the past and nothing worked quite how they said it would. I have done research and most material I come across suggests that headhunters are only for people with very niche skills. Has anyone here gotten a job through one? As an aside, I would also be interested in knowing if anyone has actually gotten hired when their first contact was a response to an internet job posting.

White, you say you worked as an engineering manager... you are the kind of person that would be excellent to answer some general questions of mine. Do you mind if I PM you?

gotrice02, this is EXACTLY what I'm trying to do. I'm blindly contacting businesses that do the work I am interested in, I'm responding and following up to job postings, and I am talking to everyone I know. After all that I decided when considering how much I visit this place, I could take a stab here and see what people know. This way I get to read up on the S *and* do some work finding work!

So anyway, I appreciate the feedback thus far. If you know someone who is looking for the type of things I can do (Embedded Software, Software Engineering, Network Engineering/Administration, Programming in C, assembly, or Java) please refer me to them.

 

I'm a degreed engineer - I used a headhunter to get my most recent job. Worked great - I sent him my resume (referencing a particular job), got a respone two hours later, had three phone interviews, flew down for a face-to-face interview with the prospective employer and had a job offer waiting for me when I landed back home a day later.

 

That is exactly what I was saying: Don't go looking for a career, get a job first. Then find out which area is more interesting to you and then channel your interests and professional focus into the area of interest to you and develop your career that way. It does not matter what job you start out with (as long as it is related to the areas of interest to you, obviously). Once you are in the door (i.e., you have a job in a company that has room for you to grow) you can then develop your skills and make yourself known to the prople around you (either within the company or people outside the company that you deal with or network with) who can get you to the job you really wanted.

Although you may have many interests and skills, you can not stay a "generalist" for very long; eventually you must "specialize" in one or several areas -- especially in IT where technology changes so quickly, you can not possibly stay current with all the areas. But even then, don't make yourself so special that you cannot be replaced (if you can not be replaced that means you cannot be promoted or transferred to another job that offers you more, or you cannot find another job because you are too specialized).

At this point, there are several skills that you can work on: Resume writing and interview skills. Hiring managers could care less about your career goal, they need someone who can do the job for them. So make sure you communicate to your interviewer that you can do the job for them, and don't give the impression you are looking for a career and using them as a stepping stone to your career goal (even if it is your plan, don't ever give out that impression). Good luck.

 

White- I certainly agree with your comments about being a generalist. I am looking to narrow my field down. Of my current talents I want to find one area to specialize in. I think I could be good at and enjoy any one of them. I only need one skill set to work out for me to be on my way.

I also agree that resume writing and interviewing skills are important. I am always looking for new information. I worked in career services at the university for five years and I have received specialized training in writing resumes. I have access to people who know what a good resume looks like and I have worked with them already. I was part of our Mock Interview Team for the five years I worked in career services and was in charge of it before I left. I've done practice interviews to get feedback on how I interview and I know what I think are the areas I need to work on. My main focus right now is doing what you said- hammering it home that I want to do a job and do it well. I want to do that with everyone I come in contact with. At this point I feel I have a bigger weakness.

I am in need of new contacts. I need a better way of trying to get the job than monster.com. Right now I am a faceless document amongst the thousands of others who have hit the "apply for this job" button, even if I have exchanged a few emails and perhaps talked on the phone. I'm running out of people that I know to network with on this job hunt. I am now approaching people I do not know.