Old Dog, New Tricks: IT Retraining
This old dog needs to retrain. No question, the skillset on my CV is not going to get me where I need and want to be. My personal circumstances have changed, making it imperative that I work from home or very near home which means teleworking is my preferred modus operandi. I have decided that learning Ruby may be the gateway to my goals, but I have a problem.
My CV doesn’t indicate to potential employers that I can hack Ruby because I am self-taught. ‘Self-taught’ in the sense that I have bought books, read articles and collected information from the Internet and completed tutorials. None of this seems to make a jot of difference to employment agencies here in the UK, not to mention that teleworking opportunities seem to be in short supply.
In an attempt to gain some ‘real world’ Ruby experience I have offered my services free of charge in exchange for the opportunity to do some CV friendly Ruby work. I put out a brief message on a couple of Ruby Google Groups asking for help, not really expecting positive feedback. To say that I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. Not only did I receive encouragement and support, as luck would have it a kind soul offered to set me some Ruby coding exercises (thank you kind soul!) which I started yesterday.
My faith in human nature somewhat restored, I continue on my quest for that elusive Ruby teleworking gig. If anyone reading this can assist me, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
I may be able to help you, but I need a better idea of what you are looking for. If you would send me a copy of your CV so I know what breadth of experience you have that would help to start. Then since I am in the states, what kind of compensation are you looking to get short term and long term? I am in the process of closing a Ruby gig that is going to be 99% from home, and may be willing to share some of the work, but I need to know how technical the shared work can be.
Michael Latta - April 13, 2007 at 2:45 pm |
I’m in the same position as you, but a year down the line. I’d be interested in hearing what the result was, and if you are interested, I’m compiling a list of available people for teleworking gigs in the future. I picked one up in PHP which is a drip feed which doesn’t quite do it for me, since the work is more sporadic than I would like, but I have a plan to develop a group of teleworkers into a virtual (read officeless) company specialising in Ruby and RubyOnRails. If you can also pass my details on the Michael Latta I’d appreciate it.
Paul McKibbin - March 7, 2008 at 7:06 pm |