Mid Career Creative Class Blues

Since the updated resumes went up on the four job boards a week ago, I have received leads from 29 prospective employers or recruiters.

Of those leads, only two are in my current city of residence. They are for positions that are very Microsoft .NET centric environments. The recruiters have been really big on wanting several years of prior C# experience. The willingness to learn new technologies doesn't seem to sway them. That's not surprising, though, because neither recruiter seemed to be able to interpret a resume other than by keyword matches.

I have now received five leads for finance software development positions in the Big Apple. Two of them are separate recruiters claiming to represent the same big customer. I've been going through the steps of applying with one of the recruiters for the interview practice and the potential for a free trip. It's improbable that I'd take the offer, but it'd be one hell of an ego boost to get an offer letter from them. I'll chalk it up to midlife crisis. ;-)

One was a lead for a 6 month contract in Redmond, WA, debugging the MacOS version of Microsoft Office (shudders).

Another was a permanent C++/Unix/database job in Conway, AR (double shudders).

Coolest sounding one has been a software engineering job for a DNA sequencing company, but it's way out east.

I put in my name with a local job that involves C# .NET, but requires a scientific background. The downside is that the job is a 3 month+ contract.

I have taken two online standardized programming language tests. I have another one supposedly coming down the pike.

I have taken three phone tests of varying duration. The first was a simple fill-in-the blank quiz that was done in 10 minutes. The second was about 20 minutes that covered C++, UNIX, and software engineering. The last one ran over an hour, a true/false quiz on C++, UNIX, IEEE arithmetic, and algorithms, with justifications.

I have filled out two good sized written questionnaires on my backgrounds that are supplements to my resume.

I could use a drink right now.