A different tack

on a long enough time-line, i will find a great job as a linux expert in Silicon Valley. i do not doubt that.

what i do doubt is the length of time required, and for that reason, i have given myself a dead-line.

when that happens, i will be packing what i need into my car, and driving around the US until i find somewhere new to settle.

everyone i have met here, you guys have been great, and i hope that it doesn’t turn out that i need to leave, in the end, but… it’s already been a year, that is a irresponsible waste of unemployment money.

a friend of mine had to work over 6 months, full time, with recruiters and doing interviews daily to find a new job.

i’m not interested in doing that much work, because i feel there is enough information out there about me, in my resume, in my photos on flickr, my projects on github, my blog, etc.

all this information is out there, not difficult to find, and helps recruiters determine if i would be a good fit in a job or not.

my skills are easy to find a fit for, my personality and personal needs out of a job are much harder to narrow down.

yes, i could probably get a job next week, if i wanted.

yes, it might turn out to be my dream job, through random happen-stance.

but i’m not going to bet on it, i don’t need the money that much, i need to know the job is something i want. and that takes time.

it really shouldn’t, though.

the job market is over-saturated and there are too many people out there with the same qualifications listed on their resumes and the same keywords as me.

as i meet more and more of these people, i realize how ‘green’ they are, and how when someone who has written 100 lines of perl putting ‘perl’ on their resume really hurts me.

the current job market is not reputation driven. there used to be a time when skilled work had an apprentice-master system, which really helped improve skills and teach new people.

we need something like that more than ever, now, but i don’t see it happening, and i don’t know what i can do to change direction and make the job market in america more reliant on reputation and ability.

right now, it’s about building a giant network of shallow connections. i might get a job because someone mentions my name at a dinner party. that doesn’t make sense to me.

i am a journeyman linux admin. i am far beyond apprenticeship, yet closer to being a master than i am willing to admit to myself.