Re: Can this career be saved?

["William Sherman" <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>]

If I were in your place, I'd just go get a couple of jobs and run with them. 
You need to answer a few questions:

1. How far are you willing to travel?  Close to home? Away overnight a few 
nights a week? Away a few weeks at a time?

2. What are your pay requirements? (You don't have to tell us.)  If low in 
the $15 to $20 per hour range, you should be able to find many locally. 
Figure most will be short contracts and not worry if it runs only a couple 
of months.  Of course, if you go on the road, you need more just to cover 
the extra living expenses.

3. What can you do?  I mean, in 25 years, from 2003, you would have started 
around 1978.  If you were in Michigan all that time, odds are you have 
automotive and military experience. If so, I have heard of a place looking 
for military vehicle writers in Warren.  I'll send your contact info if you 
are interested. want to go to South Carolina?  A lot of month in a short 
time, but frankly, I've heard from a few in SC who say the project is a mess 
and short time is about all anyone lasts.  Still, 60 or 70 hours a week 
overtime makes a nice paycheck.  Or are you more into the computer side? 
Software?  Pharmaceuticals? Finance?

4. What do you know?  The biggie in most places is Word and Office products. 
Why? Because EVERYONE has it on their desk, unlike a real documentation 
software that costs $1000 per license. So if you are current on Office 
2007/2011, then you have most of the battle.  And in reality, you should be 
able to figure FrameMaker out enough to cover your first couple of weeks on 
a job until you can learn more about it.

Don't worry so much about the referrals and current software. You'd be 
surprised at the number of companies running 5 year old and older programs. 
On a contract, it is all about how you handle the phone interview.

Get your resume on Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, and Linked In.  Let the 
recruiters find you in their keyword searches.  About CareerBuilder though, 
I have found it is generating a lot of spam email and phishing emails 
lately.  Apply online with a job but be wary on the emails.  There are the 
infamous ones that want to hire you for $80,000 to $100,000 per year, US 
resident, no experience, have a computer, blah, blah. And there are a bunch 
of franchise emails and become an insurance agent emails from CareerBuilder.

So instead of sitting in a class learning about how to do it, get out there 
and do it.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Becca" <becca_price -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TechWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 12:11 PM
Subject: Can this career be saved?