Well, it was fun to build, but I'm not getting calls.
I get an average of 4 calls a day from head hunters or internal recruiters , some of them even beg. The secret for me has been experience. I started out getting that experience with sandboxing at home. for the past 25 years, I've always had some sort of low-budget Frankenstein network and mini-data center running in my basement.
I pick the technologies based on what I see listed most commonly on job boards and after a while, the rest came naturally. for instance, right now I have a full-blown VMWare cluster running at home, complete with redundant networking, fibre channel storage (SAN), iscsi storage and a simulated DR data center. I spend my free time staying sharp and tinkering with the newest trends. Certifications help when it comes to merit increases and maybe initially attracting attention to a resume, but experience trumps all. when I hire new people, the conversation tells all. Simply studying and getting certs won't get you through that with an experienced IT guy.
I have different goals though. If a company requires a college degree, I wouldn't even talk to them because it's an indicator to me that they don't even know what they need. This often baffles recruiters when I tell them that. I recently even had the outstanding pleasure of directly telling Salesforce, Angies list and Facebook dev that I would starve to death before I considered working for them. I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed that opportunity.
You will know when you are doing it right it right, you won't have to look for a job ever. They will be looking for you.
If a company requires a college degree, I wouldn’t even talk to them because it’s an indicator to me that they don’t even know what they need.
Heh. Almost an exact quote of what I told a recruiter, replacing “need” for “want”.
Well, it was fun to build, but I'm not getting calls.