How to get a job when you're past entry level and have minimal contacts.

A few pieces of advice, in no particular order: - Advertise yourself as an IT handyman in the local area. Go out and do onsite desktop support & small projects for home users and small offices (Target accountants, law firms -- small companies too big to support themselves, but too small to afford a full time IT person.) In this way, not only will you pick up cash and make contacts, you will also expose yourself to many phases of the IT project world, from doing small networks, adds moves and changes, putting out fires, wipes and reinstalls, etc. Bill hourly and don't sell yourself short -- you should charge at least what a plumber does. There are other factors to this -- advertising, purchasing, etc...but at the lowest levels you need a business entity of some sort, a name, a phone, a car, a checking account and a state tax ID. This got many an IT person through the downturn, while keeping them fresh. -To improve your shot at corporate / enterprise opportunities, pick a discipline and work towards mastery. Take something you know and like (and preferably something that's hands on and hard to outsource), like network engineering, storage engineering, systems engineering, etc and immerse yourself in it. Persue certifications and challenge yourself. Before long, you'll have enough of a background to get interviews and impress some people, and one of them will give you a shot. Then you can gain access to good mentors, and one day you'll find yourself mentoring some noob who reminds you of yourself when you were young and hungry. - Work all the time. Do not stop doing projects, whether they be paid or unpaid. There are a lot of open source packages (in other words: free) WHICH you can work on to challenge yourself -- Linux, Apache, Perl, etc. Hack your router firmware and create a transparent Squid proxy. Install VMWare or XenSource and make it hum. Do performance monitoring in Windows and learn PerfMon. Tweak things and see how they affect performance. A good IT person doesn't know everything. No one does, and the pace of change means today's skills have a very short shelf life. However, a good IT person has attributes that make them a good candidate -- they are quick studies, problem solvers and troubleshooters, good at research. They do the diligence and apply themselves to be thorough in execution. These are attributes that can apply to any IT discipline. And if you're that rare IT person who has above average communications skills, or sales background, you can write your own ticket with IT consulting firms (look for OEM partners, you'll find names in CRN and the like.) In the meanwhile -- pick a specialization that's hard to outsource and focus on it. Cisco. VMWare. Storage fabrics. Systems management. Disaster recovery. Whatever. Just realize that although it's being a generalist that will serve you well in professional IT, that it's specialization which opens doors. Targeting management/HR people is good, but hanging out with other techs is better. Go to local user groups and network yourself that way. Get on some mailing lists and attend local events. You'll get better recommendations from ground floor influencers that way than you ever will with sending customized letters. Challenge yourself, get outside your comfort zone. Hustle. E-mail in profile if you'd like to chat.

I don't know where the ape is but here in the DC area "too much supply" couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm with rachelpapers. You're young and new and consequently there's a lot of alternatives to you out there. So, while you may in fact be doing something wrong (we can't tell from here) you may not be doing anything wrong - there may just be a large number of people vying for the positions you're going after and they may not be positions where there are a lot of ways you can differentiate yourself. Giving you my reaction based on your selling yourself here: Totaling up your indicated career history I come up with 33 months. Then you relate this: My experience has been based in help desk support, management of help desks, minor networking, project management, training, technical writing, documentation, some SOX compliance, minor DBA work, server admin, technical support and change control. That's 12 things, 11 if we combine the help desk bits. Divided equally, you've spend 3 professional months on any given activity. To bastardize an old Dennis Miller joke, I've never worked in SOX compliance and you've only got 3 months more experience than me. SO, without seeing your resume (and thus shooting in the dark), I'd suggest that you make sure it's laser-focused in the area that applies to the job you're pursuing. Those other items can be there, but should be dropped into a narrative form in your history. Don't come across as someone who has had a short and varied career where you mastered nothing. Beyond that, have you worked any contacts at the jobs that have shown you the door, up to and including the most recent? If there was anyone you had at all of a relationship with, pick up the phone and have a brief, courteous call where you say you're looking for work, remember working on XYZ with them back at PDQ and particularly enjoyed it. "Do you have any suggestions of places or people I could contact where I could get back to doing that?"

There are two types of contractor: the type who does the work nobody in a full time job would do, and the other is they type who does the work nobody in a full time job would do :) Let me clarify: the first type is the menial work that nobody would do for more than 3 months without going insane. I.e. stuff that anybody could do. The second type is that "oh shit there is no way we can do this in X months" work. This is where contractors get overpaid because they can (hopefully) deliver something the normal 9-5 IT staff can't. Unfortunately it sounds like you are in the first group. Also, when people say "IT contractor" their first assumption is that you are in the 2nd group of high value professionals, where really you are in the 1st. If you aren't making more than 3-6x the salary you could make in full time employment, you are in the 1st group of underpaid "helpers" -- what people used to call temp jobs. Check the job websites against what you are earning. Contract work has an aura of megabucks but too many people are getting exploited over it.

I've even tried sending personalized letters/emails to district managers of companies of note to try and get some kind of "in." Have you tried companies "not of note"? It sounds like you're used to work in large companies, and it sounds like you haven't had loads of high-level experience. It's generally easier to get a job at a smaller company (expect perhaps to be paid a little less than you might expect) and you will learn a bucketload of excellent skills.

In my experience these types of jobs are often filled from contractor positions. So I would call the HR dept. of the company you are interested in. Ask them who their approved contractor placement firms are, then apply with them, mentioning specifically that you know that so and so company uses them as a preferred vendor.

Speaking as a fellow IT worker, I have to say, in the kindest possible way, that you still look like an entry-level employee to me. Are your aspirations too high for your resume right now? If you are getting no replies to your applications, consider looking down the ladder a notch.

Your first couple of technology jobs are going to be not-so-great and tough to find. There are just so many people willing to work these jobs and lots of them only got into the field because of the promise of big money in the late 90s and early 2000s. There's no shortage of people who really dont have much talent but fill out the lower and entry-level positions. THey have a huge experience advantage on you, even though you sound like you'd be a better employee than some of these people (some of whome ive worked with). Many of these people are permanent contracters because no one wants to give them full employment. I would suggest getting those certs. They really do make a different with HR. I'm currently working on a couple myself even though I have years of experience, but in the world of HR that's almost meaningless. I would also highly suggest to learn some kind of basic programming and put it on your resume. Did you take any programming classes? Can you do any scripting? In the meantime keep looking. Assume the job hunt will take much longer than you think. Perhaps get a PT job somewhere to hold you over. Its a tough field nowadays and the opportunities are not there. Its basic supply and demand. There's currently too much supply and not enough demand. Perhaps in the long run grad school is the best bet.

IT Research? http://www.gartner.com in Stamford is a really good place to work for. I did a 2 year tour there before moving. I know CT is aways off but there are some good companies there. Good Luck!

PetiePal, Please contact me off-site. I may have something for you. Cheers, mikew at thecomputervalet . com