Job searching in today's job market

I am in the middle of a job search with all that implies. I know that companies are starting to hire more and am seeing more jobs being advertised. I no longer send my resume through the "blackhole" of the companies job listings, I am a follower of the Liz Ryan approach. Take a look at her website http://www.asklizryan.com She advocates writing "Pain Letters" that reach the hiring managers not going to the HR department! This seems to give me a response at least 1 out of 5, much better than sending resume's into Monster or a blind ad on Craig's list.

Software Support

I recently started a new job in software support. It is interesting but not very fulfilling. Not much you can do but un install and reinstall the program. Oh, there are little things you can tweak or adding the program to the firewall. but over all not much you can do.

We do offer to login to the customers computer and then we can help them out a bit more. Can do a little teaching of basic computer skills also. That can be interesting, customers can come up with many questions! Most of which have nothing to do with the program you are trying to support! LOL

I will say that supporting customer's who at least have a bit of patience with the tech, try to follow directions and show some respect for those trying to help make the job a whole lot easier.

I am also getting a lot of comments on the fact that our support is here in the USA. It is not unusual for the customer to comment on the fact that I am here in the good ol' USA. It is unusual for support to be based here in America and not to have been outsourced across the pond. Having dealt with the lack of understanding between American english and the english spoken in India or Pakistan I can fully understand their delight in finding an American on the other end of the line.