It's a funny thing about Dice. You post your resume up there, you get five or twelve calls the next day, some of them legitimate, some of them a complete joke. Then... nothing. Nothing for the next five months, until Dice warns you that your account is about to be deactivated unless you do something, like update your resume. Which you do, which results in five or twelve calls the next day, some of them legitimate, some of them a complete joke.
This is the new tech job environment, not at all like the old tech job environment wherein you could apply for a job, go for the interview, and have a message on your answering machine by the time you got home begging you to take the job. Of course, that was in the good old days, the days when the Sunday paper had maybe a page-and-a-half of jobs under the heading of "Computer." Now? Two columns, tops. And there hasn't been an advertised technical writer job since around 2001.
Which, sadly, is what I do. But now there's a local opening, and Dice has a whopping four listings in my area for technical writers -- one of which isn't really a technical writing job, by the way -- so my guess is that the thousands of tech writers in the area will be competing for these jobs. We shall see. One of the head hunters who called me was thrilled that nobody else had contacted me about this position. The second head hunter calling about the same position? Less than thrilled.
We'll see if I can remember how to interview, if I can put together more than one person who will praise my talents and trustworthiness. It's been a while since I've done this, gone through the marketing dance of selling myself as the perfect candidate for whatever the hell it is they want me to do. Ah, the things we do for a buck. Meanwhile, I have a raft of characters who are just going to have to languish for a while. Assuming that I get the job.
Unless I hire a ghost writer... Isn't that a song by the New Riders of the Purple Sage? Ghost Writers of the Sun?
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