Recent Grads and Experience Beyond the Desktop?

over_exposed asks: "I'm a recent college grad (B.S. in C.S.) and have been on the job hunt for about 6 months. I've been playing around with tech toys as long as I can remember, but it all focuses around the desktop environment. Desktop-grade routers, switches and wireless as well as any/all desktop PC (and some Mac) hardware is what I could get my hands on with my limited budget. After looking through hundreds if not thousands of job postings, everyone is looking for 3+ years of network admin experience or 5+ years of C++ experience even for an entry level position. How is one expected to gain that kind of experience when no one will hire you without the experience? What kind of (part-time) work can you get as a college student to gain experience (Cisco, Exchange, SQL, etc) that will be marketable in the real world? Any suggestions from the Slashdot community will be of great benefit to myself and thousands of others who will enter the 'real world' in the next few years."

That's what I was going to say

[Atroxodisse]

Basically, people are looking for someone with the confidence to say they have five years experience and be able to show you that they can do what they were trained to do.

Re:LUGs

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly - I realised something the other day. Linux geeks aren't the hollywood-stereotypical geeks. Linux users tend to be social, gregarious folk, and a raucous LUG meet in a pub in Manchester contrasts sharply with the Rain Man Microsofties I encounter here in England, anyway. Linux folk are Social Geeks, a group that has yet to be widely recognised, but holds an amazing amount of latent potential - MBAs can control the Rain Man Geeks, but Social Geeks have the same networking skills as MBAs. Microsoft makes its money by acting as a bridge between the Rain Men and the MBAs. Social Geeks render them irrelevant, not just economically, but societally.

Open source

[mattgreen]

Work on open source projects as if it were a job. It shows initiative and you learn far more than you ever could in school about software engineering and design. Of course, realize that your code is going to speak for itself, so you might not want to do a sloppy job. ;)

Temp Agencies

[Discopete]

Register with your local temp or employment agencies and take whatever they have.

Once you're in the door start looking around for positions inside the company you're working at.

You're in, you can prove that you have the ability and not just the shiny new piece of paper that says you sat through 4 years of classes which probably taught you nothing that you didn't already know, and then you can see about moving up in the world.

Re:Fun with your resume + good references

[Kope]

I'm currently hiring about a dozen high level network security engineers. One of the biggest headaches I've had to deal with in the last month has been people who think "resume true" is what I care about.

When I schedule a technical interview for a candidate, and they arrive, and two minutes into the interview session I realize that this candidate has never done half of the items on their resume (heck, some haven't even bothered to read their resume) I do three things.

1) I end the interview abruptly, inform the candidate that I'm sorry for wasting his time, and send them packing.

2) I throw out every resume I received from whatever source provided me with that resume, call that head-hunter, and let them know that they wasted my time, and the time of my team members who I pulled in for the interview. I not-so-politely let them know that they are black-listed from my group and that I really would appreciate them never contacting me again.

3) I let the other managers I work with in the international, 200k employee company I am part of know both the name of the recruiter and the name of the lying applicant so that they won't be bothered wasting their time in the near future either.

So .. take this guy's advice if you want to. But don't end up on my doorstep.

For real advice I'd do the following -- by your junior year, find a part-time job someplace doing anything related to your field. Work your ass off, get good grades, apply for a fellowship or research position and get it. Find local contractors who do short-term and part-time work for large companies. Get on a team and get some experience. It really doesn't matter what you do -- make connections with people of influence in your field. Those connections will be your lifeline to meaningful positions as you advance.

Re:Stop with the dot com expectations

[c0bw3b]

Ugh. Don't do phone support. At least not for a major ISP. I answer phones for Comcast, have done so for a year and a half and now hate my life. My girlfriend has a Linguistics degree and now has a job way cooler and geekier than mine. And really, it's not a Linguistics job. Having a degree can open doors to you that are closed to those of us without.

Re:Lie

[chaffed]

What I meant was; Personally I have the proficiency in network administration. Equal to someone who has been working "professionally" for 5 years or more. However I do not have 5+ years "professional" experience.

So if you can answer the questions then what difference does it make whether you have 3 or 10 years under your belt.

Chicken and Egg

[ari_j]

It's a chicken-and-the-egg problem. The real problem, though, is that for a few years in the late 90's companies were handing out eggs left and right to everyone they could. When the floor fell out in the early 2000's, everyone got laid off, including people with 10+ years of experience with very specific technologies that are in demand now. What this means is that those people will be hired back first as the market recovers and, if there are any jobs left, you'll have a chance at that time. Find what work you can, keep your skills up, and keep applying for jobs.

I and many of my colleagues had predicted the storm would pass by the end of 2003. It's still here, and I'm revising my prediction: without knowing the right people (of which there are few), an entry-level programmer will not be able to get a job that matters (i.e., gives him experience that is at all pertinent to his dream job) until 2010 or later.

No such thing as an entry-level job

[cubicledrone]

How is one expected to gain that kind of experience when no one will hire you without the experience?

Because companies don't want to hire people unless they absolutely have to. HR departments are in the business of disqualifying people, not hiring people.

Most of it is due to middle management's inability to understand the concept of hiring entry-level employees and then teaching them the business so they can become valuable members of the company.

Entry-level means:

NO EXPERIENCE.

ZIP.
ZILCH.
NADA.
NULL SET.
ZERO.

NONE.

SPELL IT:

N-O-N-E.

Advertising for an entry-level employee with five years experience is an exercise in flagrant cynicism. It is part of an overall goal of making the workplace a joyless shithole.

Re:I could tell you...

[sloanster]

But then you'd take my job.

Ha, I wish - I'd welcome the help - it seems impossible to find quality unix admins who know linux well - usually we get some joker in here who plasters his resume with buzzwords, but in reality never uses anything but windows - we quickly find out he's a phony and show him the door. There are some real linux savvy folks out there, but they are hard to find among all the posers...

Sign up

[sql*kitten]

The army's always recruiting, and if you join the Royal Signals (or whatever your local army calls 'em) you'll get plenty of training and experience in IT and Comms.

ROTC

[Anonymous Coward]

You would be amazed at the experience the military gives you. Want some realworld networking experience? Want to work on extreme networks?
Want to learn how real disaster recovery works?

My Highschool education and military experience did me good for 14 years -just vendor courses as needed - before I had to start getting some college courses. Now a quick AAS and I'm back in the saddle with knowledge, experience and discipline. I'm making more than I can spend, I want to be a tech and not management, so all I have to do is keep current on technology, keep my certs up to date and I'm on easy street until retirement.

Re:Design and build a project of your own

[NineNine]

I got my first job with my porn site... all database driven with some decent traffic handling abilities, stored procedures, etc. I agree completely that sometimes you have to do something on your own to set yourself apart.

Volunteer

[div_2n]

Charity organizations or non-profits are always in need of people but don't have the funds. Volunteer as many hours a week you can offering your computer skills for free. Many of these organizations have in house networks that need occasional work.

If you are highly recommended by one of these organizations after a year or two of volunteering, you can bet that puts you up the ladder of resumes. It doesn't mean you worked 8 hours a day every day fo the week. While not working there, work wherever you can to make ends meet.

Re:Welcome to the present

[pvera]

This is very solid advice.

If you are fresh out of college but walk into your interview with a couple years of active work in open source projects, you will make a good impression.

If I have to hire a guy right out of college I would love to find one that has helped run an open source project that is in wide distribution. This way at least I know the programmer has been exposed to real life situations like scope creep, managing user expectations, quality assurance, etc.

Internships don't hurt either, my own employer has hired people that started with us as interns.

Re:Stop with the dot com expectations

[Anonymous Coward]

No need for a crappy job. Find something you enjoy doing, start doing it as a hobby, and spend some time hanging out with people with the same interests and in the right industry. Help them out with their projects; not only will you learn a lot but if you're good they'll hook you up with a cool job. Depending on field this can also be pretty helpful financially; I was enjoying my job at 17 (US$30k) and worked my way up to $60k by 19 by learning some new skills and making a lateral move. I've hired a couple of friends since. There's really no magic to it, knowing the right people, collaborating on projects, and a little bit of luck are all it takes.

Re:Welcome to the present

[cubicledrone]

Well, I lost five jobs in about 14 months. I once spent over two hours in an exit interview explaining why the 200 people still working there would be unemployed within a year. The happy oversized-coffee-mug-swilling, plant-watering HR blimp smiled and stream of consciousness-vomited some PC horseshit about "enterprise paradigms." The hairpieces in management were too busy scheduling their afternoon golf games and bean salad lunches to listen.

The company folded abruptly in about seven months. Millions of dollars in capital, value and wages were destroyed in the process. Management was incredulous. They were also WRONG.

I spent hundreds of hours in meetings trying to convince lying rat-bastard cheat fucks that treating employees like shit wasn't good for the company. Nobody listened. They were way too busy stuffing their pockets and shopping for new driveways so they would have a nice place to park their new SUVs.

So, I have since left the cubicle-shithole. I'm happy to explain to those who will listen why forcing a person to forfeit every last shred of their dignity in exchange for a piss-wage sucks, but few people listen.

Your degree is experience!

[PimpStavros]

One thing I found out is that your degree counts as years experience. If you are applying for a job in the field that you studied in, it counts as at least 3 years! However, if you were an engineering major, and wanted to go into the world of finance, you would have 0 years experience. In my situation, I majored in finance and after graduation was told i had 3 years experience. Start putting that on your resume! GOOD LUCK!

Re:Stop with the dot com expectations: WRONG

[WindBourne]

The post said that s?he had a CS degree, not a CIS or something that had no real technical value behind it.

The real problem here is new grads are competiting against other grads, others with years of experience (and software to show for it) and connections, and the low costs of overseas. Basically, the job situation is the same as before the dot com.

This person has to do two things:

1. Aquire connections; this can be done at lugs, contract shops, moving to a new place, simply spend more time on-line
2. Produce software. Others need to know what a person can do and how they do it. If they are innovative, then they get picked up.

I would suggest that this person do both be doing some OSS work. They will meet others as well as have code to show for it.

Fedex also like HP

[EAB]

Turns out that Fedex only hires within its ranks. So there is essentially no way to get into the Fedex programming core without spending a year delivering packages. After that year, you would be free to transfer to a group that more naturally fit your skills.

HP was (and I still believe is) like this. I started out as a process operator making parts for printers. After two years and some college I applied for a new position as a database/software tech within HP and was hired. Soon after that I was offered a programming position with a different company (networking with friends of friends) and left HP entirely.

Don't expect to land in a high-paying dream job unless you are in the top 0.1%, have a masters degree, and there are empolyers banging your door down to hire you, as was the case with my brother. (lucky bastard!)

Re:I could tell you...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you pre-setup a "crisis" that can happen during the interview. While your are interviewing the prospective employee, have someone else come in your office saying they have a critical problem with a server, and needs your help. Have the interviewee follow you, and watch his suggestions / have him take a look.
That's basicly how I got my current job (except it was a real crisis, and I ended up "saving the day" during my interview :-).

Re:Pirate Software

[sniperu]

Not to mention the 3Gb worth of e-books stashed on my harddrive . Anyway , i do think Microsoft is actually happy with you pirating MSSQL for learning it . It may not be that good for buissness , but it shure beats you using open-source db's . Cause in the long run , they'll still get their money . If not from you , from your employer .

Re:Network! Not data-networking, social networking

[EvanED]

Here's a quote from the book F'd Companies by Philip J. Kaplan in which he talks about the downfall of a bunch of dot-coms (a la his corresponding website [fuckedcompany.com]. Specifically, this is from the analysis of refer.com, which paid people who refered other people to hiring managers if they were actually hired:

So...in contrast, in order of importance, here's how most companies hire people:

1) Internal referrals--Employees or stakeholders refer their friends and acquaintances. Even if the company you work for were offering a huge referral bonus, you'd still be hesitant to refer Bubba, your friend with corn in his teeth, for the sales manager position becaues it would ultimately reflect poorly on you.

2)External recruiters--Headhunters might be shit-shoveling pond scum, but they sometimes have value. Employers may have good relationships with certain recruiters, trusting their judgement. At the very least, you'd expect a recruiter to somewhat prescreen each applicant, as to not tarnish their reputation.

3) Solicited applicants--An employer puts an ad in the paper or on a job site. Motivated job seekers match a few keywords and send along their resumes.

4) Unsolicited applicants--Job seekers esnd resumes to employers who have not asked for them. These applicants are viewed either as having a genuine interest in the company, or as being desperate. Usually the latter.

213) Refer.com--Somebody whom the employer doesn't turslt and has never met, refers somebody that they don't trust and have never met. The person whose resume gets passed along doesn't even know they're applying for the job. Random people scour resume banks and refer thousands you people, hoping to get a hit. Employers get inundated with the lowest-quality resumes possible.

The last one isn't really relevant, but it's amusing :-p

Re:Welcome to the present

[rah1420]

1) explain to those who will listen why forcing a person to forfeit every last shred of their dignity in exchange for a piss-wage sucks
2) ...
3) Profit!

Seriously, if you have valid insights in the field, why not take it on the road? Become a pundit. You might even get paid for it.

Re:I could tell you...

[wschalle]

With an attitude like that, you'll probably be fired before you can train a replacement.

In today's tech environment, IT managers and sysadmins don't usually have the time to supervise every project themselves. The more people collaborate and network within an IT department, the more seamlessly services are integrated. Keeping knowlege close to your chest is one of the things that really turns me off about some IT managers.

The education field is usually a good place to look for initial work, especially at the college you graduated from. College IT departments are constantly growing as colleges and expectations grow too. At the very least, look for part-time work with your school, and if that fails, get some independant projects going. The age of one-man software development isn't over. One of my professors created the popular game Snood [snood.com], and he makes about 15K a month from it. Teaching is what he does to fill his spare time.

Become an asset to good/important people.

[ForsakenRegex]

I've never had any trouble getting jobs, even during the "downturn". My ability to get hired is more from who I've worked with than what I've done. A lot of people have "impressive" resumes. There are generally more than a few that actually live up to the resume, so even if you're truthful, you'll still have a lot of competition when you go the direct route to applying for a job. The three keys to avoiding this competition are 1) the lead, 2) the inside push, and 3) the references. You don't need all three to get a job, but the more you have the better you'll do.

The "lead" is how you learn about the opening. A good lead gets you the news before it hits the normal channels (consulting agencies, newspapers...etc). This gives you a jump on the application process.

The "inside push" is when you're lucky enough to know someone working at the same place. The more valued the person is at his/her job, the more likely their push will benefit you. When a company has someone they know is good, they are more likely to take their advice, and they are also more likely to want to please them (the better to keep them there). It's also important how close the person is to the position you wish to fill. If you're really lucky, you know a good manager, team lead, or technical lead on or near the project/unit hiring.

Everybody knows about references, but the relative quality of your references can make a big difference. When you can put down executive or upper technical level references, it can make a huge difference. Having people equal to yourself isn't bad. It shows you are liked/respected by your teammates. However, when VPs and Directors will take the time to vouch for you, it can impress upon your new company how valuable you were to your former employer.

If you've never had a professional job, take the best that you can get and live with it until you're able to move on. If you do well, and make yourself valuable to your employer and teammates, you'll be able to leave sometime relatively soon (2-3 years) if you like. I've been able to avoid unemployment because I have good people pulling for me. In my opinion, there's no better asset in getting jobs than the support of respectable people.

One last piece of advice, regardless of how much you hate your job, never quit voluntarily unless you have an accepted offer with a start date somewhere else.

Re:Internships

[John Courtland]

This is very true. It's most likely too late for the story submitter, but I have a (lucky and smart) buddy who interns every summer, last few years he interned at Honeywell, and this year he actually had three companies offer him NICE internships, Honeywell, Cray and Qualcomm, to be exact. Not only is it great resume fodder, and a chance to get real world experience without really having to deal with a "real" job where they demand you know everything at interview time, but he gets paid pretty damn well to boot.

Re:Design and build a project of your own

[NineNine]

Luckily my first manager was a young guy, and was able to look beyond the subject matter to see the technology behind it. But I agree... at least on the web, porn is where real technology is at. Porn web sites handle traffic that would make sites like /. melt in no time, and have been doing that for many years.

Resume shredding time.

[Glonoinha]

God I love doing this - mostly because it lets me be a prick from behind the thinly veiled pretense of being helpful. I'm going to critique your online resume and I'm going to be honest. Someone did it for (to) me a dozen years ago and I cried during the process, but I took their advice to heart and about a month later had a job.

1. Lose the picture. Getting past the first HR screening means letting them be able to prove lack of prejudice, so being a 'while male in his early 20's', while putting you in the 'good' bucket, means that HR can't say that they picked your resume on its merits without regard to race, color, creed, age, or sex. If they know, what are the odds they skip over you because they couldn't show lack of preferential treatment?
2. Double ditto on the horse picture. How do you know that the interviewer isn't a big Christopher Reeve fan?
3. Lose the personal stats, Title (Mr.), Date of Birth, and Marital Status. If the reason isn't blatantly obvious, see #1 above.
4. The personal stuff at the bottom, specifically the bit about being an avid four-wheeler and gun freak wouldn't go over too well in the People's Democratic Republic of California or the Communist Federation Commonwealth of Massachusetts (where Boston is.) I'm a bigger gun freak than you are, but I don't admit it on my resume or during an interview.

The good stuff :
MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and BS/CS (cum laude, in three years - good job.) Oh wait, that's not a degree in software engineering, it's a degree in multimedia on the computer (also known as Flash / Macromedia.) Hmm. That one could go either way, depending on how well you interview. If you were seeking a spot in America I would drop the classes / certs on equine behavior and being a certified murderer (that's how some people view firearms in the two states that hire the most tech guys, CA and MA - but in Texas that might be ok.)

Last thing - if you are going to post your resume, do it on a domain that doesn't have anything else on it. Nothing like finding a resume in www.yourdomain.com/resume and when the HR folks go up a level and find a blog talking about sex with a different college chick every night. Your main page is pretty tame, but I didn't probe too deep.

That wasn't too harsh - but not for lack of trying. Good luck on the hunt.

Re:Get rid of the H1-B's

[furry_wookie]

I agree with you but not because of some type of bigotry... its for one simple reason.

Until those countries give the same opportunities and have as open policies for american workers to go to their country then we should not do it for them.

I have friends who tried to get jobs at startups in India, and its impossible for someone outside of that country to work there because of their laws.

What's fair is fair I say.

Why should we open our doors to their workers when their doors are locked-shut to our workers...until then, our doors should be as closed as theirs.

I am for global free trade... but a free market is not a "one-way street".

QA/Test/Support

[Titusdot Groan]

Look for QA/Test/Support roles at medium to small companies. Our company often moves ambitious, smart and hard working people out of QA/Test/Support into Development, Product Marketing or Sales Engineering.

The key is once you get into these roles work yourself out of them and into better positions. If you try to whine, complain, or brag yourself out of them it won't work.

It's also important these be small companies or small departments -- large companies usually don't care if Junior Support Technician #2679 is performing in the 98th percentile this week.

Re:LUGs

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I fit the geek recluse stereotype fairly well and I've been using unix for a long time. I guess it depends on what you mean by linux user; in my experience most of the people that use linux but don't actually develop anything spend much more time chatting. Even introverted humans are social, all that differs is the presentation. I wouldn't say that using linux even implies that you're a "geek." I think you'll find a lot of Windows users enjoy a good night at the pub, too, but that doesn't really say anything. Using a computer compulsively hasn't been a fringe activity since the mid '90s.

Re:Network! Not data-networking, social networking

[Talennor]

And here's even better advice when looking for an internship: get someone inside a tech company that doesn't normally do internships to ask around to see if they want to get an intern. Really, the ideal situation you want is to create the internship position, in which case you have a high possibility of being the only applicant! Then there's no difficult interview or application packet. I'm working an internship this summer, and this is how I got it. I made it into town on my spring break for the "interview" which was short and sweet, and more an outline on what I would be spending my time working on. And no, I'm not going to give out a company name. I would rather not have any compitition for the next time I want to work there, either.

The blank resume...

[nsxdavid]

We, for one, hire coders (and others) who have no prior work experience. In fact, that is my prefered choice. And I'll tell you why.

First, let me be clear... no prior work experience doesn't mean we hire people with no talent. It's just that we don't count of a long resume as an indication that someone is without merit. That's just laziness (or necessity, time being money in the hiring process).

What we look for is someone who knows what they are doing and can demonstrate that to is in their resume cover letter, and ultimately at one of our interviews. We won't ask any of the stupid Microsoft questions except to see if you've been to the web site that has the answers accumulated (grin). But we will put you through a tough interview that focues on your ability to write code. If you can do that, it's a walk in the park. If you can't, we'll both know it's not a match real quick. But we'll still take ya to lunch, our treat. ;)

One thing I've learned over the last 15 years... a resume is a damn poor indication of someone's talent. Therefore, if you ever want to apply for a job with us, go ahead and incude a resume but be damn sure you spent the time to make a cover letter that sells yourself. This will probably be true of any place you try to get hired on. (isclaimer: I've never really had to send a resume or go on an interview, but I've interviewed and hired hundreds over the years. So I can only speak to my experience directly.

In my case, I read resumes only if the cover letter intrigues me. A good cover letter should skip the pretence ("Seeking growth opportunities where I can apply my extensive education in bladibla..."). Save it. Just tell me how you code your butt off doing the kinds of things we do, and it might be cool to see if there is something we're doing that you'd like to be part of. Some examples of the stuff you've done is a huge win. Talk the talk. You're cover letter is being read by coders.

For me, I also like to see what areas an applicant wants to learn more about. We strive to find raw talent and give them a chance to really learn in the trenches. We've trained a lot of coders and 3D Artists, fresh out of college (or still in college) and continue to today. It's fun, rewarding and a way for us to give back.

So, yes, there are places you can get a job without experience. And have a blast doing cool stuff at the same time. I think there should be more, personally.

We're even hiring now, if anyone's in the market, email me and I'll turn you onto the right place to inquire.

Get your foot in the door anyway you can

[bigusputicus]

Black Box Testing

White Box Testing

Build Engineer

Release Engineer

Tech Support

Customer Support

Installation Engineer

System Administrator

Web Programming

PC Technician

Tech Pubs Writer

Sales Support Engineer

Take short-term contract positions, anything to get some experience and get references

Join an open source project team that is relied upon by the commercial companies, i.e apache

Develop your own open source project that requires you to develop and display your range of skills

Do a research paper on a particular technology or user group and submit to known publishers and web sites

Identify a specific area to develop deep expertise in (depth) or go the other way and develop alot of skills with less depth (breadth)

Take any position you can get even if its not technology related in a technology company

Tenacity, persistence! It may take some time, but keep knocking on the doors of the places that are of interest to you. My first job in hi-tech took 2 years of knocking on the same door, followed by another 2 years once I got in to get into the right slot You'll get there! Good Luck!

ah the ole "x experience only" tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

well remember that this advertising by employers for applicants to have "x experience" is as old as the hills. They all want experience, and highly educated and pay you next to nothing. It's that way for every job. Heck even janitor positions have the same ridiculous in their ads. You just have to realize that a) want ads only serve the purpose of letting you know there's a demand for a job out there. and b) you have to sell yourself, not their silly 'requirements' afterall if you think about it Einstein and many brilliant of the past wouldn't be able to get a job today either if they let those ridiculous "requirements" stop them. Especially when you consider the fact that formal education and experience even is of only marginal benefit in the tech field which changes more quickly than text books can be made.

Heck I remember back in 1995 an ad demanding applicants have a "BA in HTML" and 5 years experience in it. -- No joke, thats how ignorant HR whose responsible for these employment ads can be sometimes. Well that and its the good ole boy network still in place. "grumble grumble well I had to go thru hoops and walk to school up hill both ways to qualify for a job so will they...etc"

Internships

[DarkOx]

Seriously this is what internships are for. Maybe you can't get 3+ years experience but you certainly can gain lots of experience that you can truth fully list as independent items. Lots of IT companies are happy to take interns unpaid and often even paid, for the summer or part time durring the school year. The career services office or some of your profs SHOULD be able to hook you up. If they can't then your school has big problems. I know my school now requires an internship to get a degreen is CS or IS.

Confirm the experience you've accumulated

[DeanFox]

It seems to me you have experience, maybe even enough for what they're looking for. All they want is confirmation that you've done what you've said you've done. If you've really done it, setup a network of confirmations your hiring company can check out.

I've given my own recommendation before. Once a company I was interviewing with called the company I was currently working at. I just happened to answer the phone. They didn't ask my name and really didn't ask a lot of questions except to confirm what I had put on my application. I didn't lie on the application and honestly didn't and still don't see it as lying to confirm what I wrote. I got the job and worked for that company 15 years.

Don't lie, don't over exaggerate. If you have 3 years experience setting up networks (SOHOs for family and friends) with a Linux server, establish a validation network for the companies you're interviewing with. If you really do know xyz or have done 123 then have someone the hiring company will trust confirm that. That could be a $5 a month 800 number that a significant other answers.

I see it this way (and differenty than most) I start a job with the hiring company from the beginning assuming that I'm a lier who cannot be trusted. They demand I make availible others who will confirm my experience. I don't lie about what I know or can do. My word alone should and is enough. So, if they want confirmations, I make sure they get confirmations.

Re:Go ahead and apply

[Iaughter]

I mean, apply everywhere. Any job you think you might possibly be able to do. If you get one nibble for every hundred resumes -- well, these days, in the post-.bomb world, that's not bad.
Now, in many companies, your resume will just get thrown out because you don't match some HR monkey's checklist

I disagree completely. You need to find a few companies that you're interested in, find more than one contact to the person that's hiring (even if it's through another employee at the company), and figure out how you can help the company.

You should never apply for more jobs than you can keep straight, the whole idea is to send a cover letter that creates interest, a resume if they want details and then to gently push, push, push. You want to surround the person that's hiring, everywhere s/he turns is your name. You need to find an idea/project/desire that the company/department is working on/starting/or thinking about and explain how you could help.

This is how one get's a job. Sending out resume's from Monster is a waste of your time and is the reason that HR monkeys with checklists exist.