Landing a "Regular Job"?

sfe_software asks: "I'm an out-of-work programmer and systems administrator. I've reached a point where I have to find a job - any job - and I am finding this quite difficult. I'm apparently 'over-qualified' for everything from flipping burgers to fixing PCs at the local CompUSA. Noone wants to hire you at $6-$12/hour when you were making $45-$75/hour on previous jobs, yet, I'm not finding the high-paying work any more and need *something*. As a contractor, I've always kept a savings, but at this point that river is quickly running dry. What are other out-of-work techies doing? How do you convince a hiring manager that you aren't simply using them as a temporary stepping stone (even if this is true)?"

Comments

Lie

[seigniory]

If you really *want* a lower-class job...

Instead of over-stating your resume, understate it. Problem solved.

Truck Driving

[Judg3]

I'm in (well was) the same boat you were in. I used to do all the systems and application managment on one of the largest Windows 2000 datacenters int he country, over 2300 servers. I've written articles for Hewlett-Packard newsletters about OpenView, written a few articles for Windows 2000 magazine, even see me in a book or 2 here.

Six months ago recession hit me. I lost a 65k/year job (Not to bad for Illinois) and the reserves started to go.

What did I do? Well, after an exhaustive search I found and settled on (quite happily I must admit) Semi Truck driving cross country. The company I work for pays for all the training, gets me my CDL, and sends me out in a truck. Pay is low for the first year (no more then 36k or so) but within a few years you go up to 60-70k/year plus.

Thing I dig about it, I only work 2 weeks a month. 2 weeks in a row mind you, but I have 2 weeks off. And Im getting paid for it. It's not as abnormal as I thought either, normal job stuff. Drive 8 hours, etc. Only thing is sleeping on the road thats odd.

And on the upside I get to work on my OWN projects now. I'm working on a free game for fun, and talk about war driving. How about over 2000 sites on a trip from Illinois to Oregon and back. Hell, if anything it's sweet for geeks. A lot of toys I get to bring with me on runs. Plus I do IT stuff on the side.

I used to work 15 hours a day. 3 hour round trip commute, plus 12 hours in the shop. Now I'm not so stressed, the money is good and you meet a lot of cool people.

So give it a shot. I went through Schneider Trucking but I see ads for a lot of other companies that do the same thing.
And yes, they hire ANYONE. Literally anyone. During training I was with 5 other IT pro's, one with a MIS. There was a college professor, and a housewife too.