40+ JackOfManyTrades needs advice for job search

[Reflekt]

Hi peeps. Living in Germany, have a masters in chemical engineering. After working a few years in my own field, got bored and switched sectors. Then realized I really enjoy learning, getting good at a new position, and then get bored. Was young back then so I kept switching jobs, fields, industries. Have also been working as a freelancer on the side for 15+ years. Worked as a consultant, engineer, coding/language teacher (foreign languages and coding), social worker, marketing/sales agent, product/project/community manager, educator, workshop facilitator, devops technician, etc. This all used to be ok as I always somehow found a new job when I needed one. And I always found companies that didn't see this as a disadvantage. I have gained so many skills, but in the last 2 years it's been hard to find a job. My cv is pretty weird of course for typical companies and positions. I need to find people / companies who can see this as an advantage. Anyone else in a similar position? Any tips?

[muzani]

I find that people get weird when interviewing those with more experience. Managers tend to be okay because they've accepted that they're not the specialists, but when you get a tech lead with 9y exp interviewing someone with 15y exp, it's weirder. Some put you on a pedestal, some get insecure and treat you like some dragon to be slain.

Lots of people are T-shaped engineers, so they tend to interview in their domain of expertise and disregard someone else's T-shaped skill. Like you could be an amazing TDD implementer with an efficient code base, and then someone will grill you on how many bugs tests actually catch and bring up the myth of zero defect. Then they fight the candidate on home ground and ask questions on implementing encryption, because that's the Blub they know.

This goes on and they have "trouble finding talent" until they finally find someone who has a very similar skill overlap to the interviewer. The team ends up T-shaped, when it should be square shaped, with different people making up for the weakness in these teams. In this economy, companies can be pickier, so the problem is worse.

Your T-shaped experience is very much an advantage. I don't have a solution for this, other than making it clear what you're bringing to the team. Finding a job through a network might be one solution.

[tqwhite]

I think people are overly interested in self-promotion in an interview situation. In sales training I did many years ago, there was the maxim that, whoever mentions price first, loses. The better way is to get the person to talk about themself, their needs, the nature of the work, everything you can coax out of them.

In the sales mode (which, of course is what an interview is), the idea is to gather information to understand the real need and configure a product that meets it.

In an interview, that is you. If the job doesn’t explicitly require experience, then it should never be mentioned. In fact, it should be concealed unless, during the information gathering, there is reason to think it is necessary.

Too many of us approach an interview with the idea of “if I can just let them know how good I am”. Far better is, “how can I help them understand how well I fit their needs”.

During the information gathering, ask questions that help the other person actually say things that match your (hopefully narrowly targeted) resume. Not in obvious ways, “Do you use React?” but get them to think it up, “What front end framework do you use?” followed by another question about React when they say they use it.

The point is Focus on Them. Not Yourself. Learn don’t Talk. Fit in, don’t try to impress.

[aleph_minus_one]

> but when you get a tech lead with 9y exp interviewing someone with 15y exp, it's weirder. Some put you on a pedestal, some get insecure and treat you like some dragon to be slain.

The explanation is very simple: software development is divided into an insane amount of distinct "subgroups"/"subcultures". If you looking for someone experienced, you actually look for someone "experienced in the respective subculture".

If you now have some chandidate who is experienced in a very different subculture, he will either be a beginner in "your" subculture (will he like this role and payment?), or the department culture has to be adjusted more to "his subculture", which implies the the interviewing person will loose power.

[ghaff]

>Finding a job through a network might be one solution.

Especially as you get older, especially with a resume that isn't cookie cutter and ticks the right keywords, this becomes more and more important. And it applies even if you're self-employed. Just applying online works a lot better when you have some track record of very specific in-demand skills.

[coliveira]

Sometimes I think the best solution would be to avoid that people from the hiring group interview the candidate. This would force the company to hire based on the needs of everyone, not based on who I would like to work with.

[Uptrenda]

Yeah, you pretty much just described some of the worst interview experiences I've ever had. Seeing you write it here like this makes me feel much less alone. Thought I'd say I appreciate it.

[tqwhite]

My bona fides: I am old and have done it all. I will now tell you how it worked out.

Like you, I am a person who can do pretty much anything. I had nothing but success. Jobs came to me. Then, at around 45, the company I worked for went down and I found myself unemployed.

Like you, my resume was unusual. I broke it into skill groups. It was obvious that I had a lot of accomplishments and, if hired, could help with almost any need. Nobody hired me.

I did freelance work, started a company that didn’t work. Eventually needed a job again. Kept looking.

Finally, I ran into a headhunter who told me the magic: Decide what you want to do and remove everything from your resume that does not apply to that specific topic. Do not allow even a hint of general-purpose skill to appear.

She made me understand that nobody had a requisition for a ‘jack of all trades’. They have a requisition for a sales agent, bookkeeper, programmer, database guy. Specific stuff.

I was broke and did what she said.

In my case, my education and fundamental skill was programming. Gone were all of my proud accomplishments in favor of all the things I knew about PHP, MYSQL, LAMP of all sorts (this was in the ought). Also some things where I had helped a project team. It made me sad because I have done some very cool stuff that went by the wayside. But it was the resume of a professional programmer, dedicated to the craft.

I have never been unemployed since.

[bambax]

I think you're right, and I find this extremely sad. Recruiters are like toddlers trying to fit square pegs toys or a key to a lock. If shown a master key they won't accept it.

This is not just sad but incredibly inefficient, because it's better to hire a clever person than can get things done, who can learn anything, than to hire an "expert" in some stupid tech that will be obsolete in six months, and who will probably have a hard time learning anything else.

[baxtr]

I used to work for a consultancy. Usual practice there was: adjusting your team's individual CVs for a specific client. This is not about lying. It is about highlighting relevant skills and experiences for a project and not listing those which are irrelevant. There is no way you can "tune" a CV that is completely off-topic, but in many cases (since generalist have so broad experiences) there is a way.

[codegeek]

"Decide what you want to do and remove everything from your resume that does not apply to that specific topic"

The only correct answer to finding a job as a generalist/veteran. You need to focus on 1 specific thing and go hard at it. It is extremely difficult to read a Resume which has a bit of everything.

[rozenmd]

It's like tuning signal:noise ratio - as a person looking for help you're inundated with CVs, if you see one with "I know literally every web technology and have been using them for decades" it isn't as easy to parse as "I know literally the technology you use, and can help you from day one".

[eggy]

Great advice! I will try trimming my CV/resume. The only rub is people ask, "What did you do those 6 years in between listed jobs?" I realize this can go both good and bad. Thanks!

[michelb]

I work for myself, so I don't interview for jobs, but I do interview for projects or interim positions.

Being a generalist myself, my CV is also all over the place. I tailor my 'CV' to the company/project I'm interviewing for, so it appears less confusing. I have several versions where different skills and projects are highlighted, downplayed or even removed. I also write a tailored text for the position or project, making it explicitly clear why I would be a good fit, to make sure the person views me the way I want to be viewed. I try to ensure that my CV leaves no room for their personal interpretation. (many are often skeptical of a broad skillset, or lack the experience to properly value it)

That said, it could also be the current economy that works against you.

[weinzierl]

I have similar age and bio and I also live in Germany.

"I need to find people / companies who can see this as an advantage."

My opinion on this is, that it is good to have diverse experience, even more so in times of crisis. Specialization is for insects.

However, I am convinced that you never ever should present yourself as a generalist. In German there is the saying: "Geh gleich zum Schmied und nicht zum Schmiedl.", meaning no one takes the almost expert if they can have the real expert.

Our superpower is not being generalists, it is that we can be experts in more than one discipline.

[theK]

This is great advice. I don't know about other countries but Germany does have a severe "specialist" fetish when it comes to recruiting IT professionals. Less severe for permanent positions but very painfully apparent for contracting/freelancing.

This wasn't a problem in the past decade or so because the IT market was extremely supply side limited. Now this changed and people are getting tripped up.

Its kind of sad really. Recruiters and hiring managers need to better understand that they don't actually need that much specialist expertise as they typically think. But there plainly is little way around checkbox hunting recruiters right now, except ones personal network maybe.

Case in point, a client of mine was looking to improve their Data platform offering so they brought in a couple of experts and me, a generalist (via a friendly recommendation). While the experts did deliver their expertise they would have actually put the org down a multi year path of migrations, platform development and mid seven figure annual licensing deals. Back in the real world, the facts where that the requirements and scale where scratching the upper end of most OTS products in question and also that they already had the correct solutions in play already, just not necessarily wired up and maintained correctly. Long story short, we reached the intended results in months with just minor re-orgs and a couple of additional FTE for maintenance and build out and the client avoided a multi year, eight figure initiative that might or might not have worked out.

[xlii]

I’d recommend spinning story. It seems that while you’ve changed environments all jobs revolved about communication. That’s a great skill. So instead of „I had many different jobs” maybe use „I’m people person with experience in various settings”.

This is the same as with software engineering. You can spend year developing games, year developing fintech, year developing funny car website but no one cares as experience seems focused around code.

[brookst]

This is a fantastic insight. I’m not OP but it will help me. Thank you!

[frnd123]

I'm in my early 40s, however I don't have such impressive range of experiences like yours. I do have some experiences that are outside of the field and I think I can give you a piece of advice:

1. you are not under obligation to disclose each and every experience in your CV, I was given this advice by proffessional CV writer and also have seen it given on this very forum; probably anything older than 10 years is not relevant, that's why I started removing some of my older experiences

2. I was in the shoes of tech lead who was hiring and was presented with variety of applications, and when dealing with more experienced people I always was concerned if they will stand in line and respect they are not in charge; I was looking for signs of this during interview, like- is the applicant digressing when answering my questions, is applicant talking a lot about his past and how unique she/he is and simillar. When interviewing it's best to not do that; and from my past experiences some more experienced people I hired had difficulties with authority, this presented valuable lessons to myself what behaviors to look for in me so I don't repeat those mistakes

3. I'm also believer in networking; my network is not great however those limited contacts I have always get warm welcome from me and I always strive to be helpful when chatting. I have tendency to start lifetime relationships- I'm friends with some people I worked with 15 years ago, we jump on occasional phone call just to talk about life, and sometimes they call with hard tech questions (sometimes about systems I had not worked with for 15 years too...); try to embrace your network :)

4. My strategy for job hunting (when I'm not referred through my network) is to shortlist interesting applications from LinkedIn as well as from my local job portals and call recruiter to have quick chat; I always preferred quick prelim chat as I got fast feedback letting me to avoid given application

[DoingIsLearning]

> you are not under obligation to disclose each and every experience in your CV,

This is great advice, which I followed as a 40+ coming from another domain who went back to university to retrain. However YMMV, most North America, UK, some countries in Central Europe, are pretty PC (at least at surface level) with regards to rules against age discrimination. However, other job markets like Germany, Switzerland, Austria, expect stuff like CV photos and DoB in your CV header, which makes it harder to ommit stuff because HR people love to jump on timeline 'gaps'.

Your third point is the most important for 40+.

As you age, network becomes far more relevant and job applications less so. Specially now with all the LLM usage both on employer and job applicant sides it is likely a very frustrating numbers game.

[csomar]

I suspect this has more to do with Germany's economy rather than your CV. You didn't have issues finding gigs before. You are not alone on this. My suggestion is to consider starting your own business creating and selling something you make. Based on my own observations, if you really can't land a job in these circumstances, there is a good chance that you can't possibly land a job. I stopped wasting my time applying for jobs and using this time to create something.

[_kb]

This is good advice is you have the capital to back that. Not everyone is/has been on US SWE salaries though. There's also a non-trivial amount of meta-work in a self venture that's frankly not that fun.

Speaking as someone also non-US, without a financial safety net, and with a diverse background, larger orgs - both public and private sector - can be an interesting place for a multidisciplinary skillset. This is particularly true if you enjoy switching roles. While absolutely not the best path for optimising monetary gain you may be able to land a substantive role then continue to pursue new projects and secondments as opportunity tweaks your interest. This removes some of the volatility and risk while keeping the intellectual stimulation of a new challenge if that's what you enjoy.

[doubtfuluser]

Slightly unrelated- what you describe yourself sounds pretty much like a “scanner-personality”, maybe reading into this might help you. When I read about it the first time it was a pretty exciting moment seeing my personality matching and also seeing my struggles with staying motivated/interested after I learned what I wanted as a reason of it

[INTPenis]

I see myself in your description, I also love to learn and it's sometimes a negative trait because I have this urge to just move on to something new as soon as I gain enough understanding on the topic.

I have no masters, no education at all. I just dropped out of school and started helping at a web hosting company back in 2004, and my career took off from there.

The only advice I can give you is to specialize on something that matters. Like provisioning, kubernetes, cloud services, or whatever. I never got a job that wasn't interested in some specific thing I had experience in. None of them had any interest in me being a jack of all trades.

Start building stuff at home, publish the code and infrastructure definitions on github. Start writing about it in a blog, show in every way possible that you have a passion for it.

[freetanga]

I think that if you want to work for somebody else, such broad experience can be a bit of a burden.

HR people want to pigeonhole you in a 2 line paragraph to know which profile you fit. So I try to make it easier for them… I work out industries /roles I can realistically target, and prune / rearrange / focus experience to match their checklist. Almost spell out in neon lights which is my profile.

Once you pass the first round you can loosen up a bit and make space in your story for additional relevant experience.

Also, make sure it’s relevant experience. If the role is multi country, I highlight international exposure (even if the actual content is not relevant for the role)

Good luck !

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I'd say that startups are a good target for JoMT-type folks. They may be a bit crazy to work at, but they actually have a need for folks that can pivot to many different areas.

I sincerely wish you the best. In my case, I just gave up looking, but I also have the luxury of being able to.

[skeeter2020]

the problem is these are also some of the most agist environments, with little respect for full, diverse lives. They want the breadth of experience, but don't want to support or fund it.

[mrweasel]

My experience, also being 40+ with a somewhat weird CV, is that SRE positions are good option. SRE/Operations, especially consulting, is a great place for weird CVs, because you need to be a "jack of all/many trades".

Based on your experience I'd definitely look for small to medium size SRE/operations consulting companies. I think most of those would see your CV as a positive.

[jfuwllllkasd]

Skills are threatening in a layoff market.

"Dumb it down" as my recruiter said. I eliminated 99% of skills from my CV and now I get a lot of interviews.

[quesera]

> Skills are threatening in a layoff market.

Oy vey. This is shocking, but also perfectly logical.

Human psychology will be the death of us all.

[inahga]

> Skills are threatening in a layoff market.

Elaborate? Why is this the case?

[Quinzel]

I don’t think I have a same level of experience you do in terms of work because I’ve only had two different careers, thought I’ve done multiple jobs within those careers. However, I’m a perpetual student, and I collect degrees. Not just for the sole purpose of collecting degree’s but I like learning, and find it rewarding, and I find that doing it in a formal setting provides me with the structure I need to learn effectively. As such, I have a long list of “qualifications” I can put on my CV and I have figured out, if I list every qualification, I almost NEVER get an interview. Whereas before, when I had just two degree’s I’d find I’d almost always get an interview. I’ve figured out, if I only list one or two qualifications relevant to the job I’m applying for, I have a better success rate.

This makes me think that in terms of job searches, too many qualifications are a disadvantage. If the initial short listing is automated, then I assume too many qualifications means that you’re not slotting into the right niche that gets through the automated process, and if it’s humans doing the shortlisting, I wonder if they assume that someone with multiple qualifications doesn’t know what they want to do, gets bored easily (which for me is true), or they’re intimidated.

So ultimately, my experience is that your CV doesn’t have to list everything you’ve studied, or every job you have done. You can tailor it and only list qualifications, skills and experiences that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. But remember, if you do that, at the interview, you need to also only draw on the experiences you’ve listed in the CV because you can’t really throw in other work experiences that are not listed in the CV or they’ll ask why you didn’t list them. Overall, it’s easier to keep things simple. I generally find most humans prefer simplicity, so perhaps just package yourself up as something simple, but be excellent in the stuff you choose to focus on. That’s my current strategy for myself anyway. Not sure if it’s that helpful, but just another perspective anyhow.

[Joel_Mckay]

Been sometime since I looked at these services (YMMV on chrome), but these folks handle engineer placement: https://www.aerotek.com/

Also, could look for a local city Union position to gear down your workloads... as collective bargaining is the only real mitigation for institutional "culture fit"/bigotry, and massive influxes of qualified desperate people.

One should know what you need by now, but ikigai may help guide you into an area that increases well-being:

https://themindfool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Ikigai_do...

Regulatory capture of the training/certification for technology has always been a serious problem. It does create fungible staff, but provides no economic advantages for most firms.

Best of luck, =3

[CoastalCoder]

If you'd like to post your actual CV, we might be able to give more specific advice.

[jftuga]

I agree with this - good idea.

[nicbou]

> My cv is pretty weird

Perhaps it’s not what you’re selling that’s wrong, but how you’re pitching it?

[CharlieDigital]

There are some CVs that are just going to be a bit out there when detailed out.

I get it because I've been on both sides. Moving around a lot and short stints can be a red flag. Candidates might be seen as a flight risk. Candidates might have culture and personality issues. Not having long stints and progression is a red flag.

Advice from one recruiter from a major tech SaaS co. was too simply trim the resume.

[ttoinou]

Right, he didnt find its own mission yet. He needs to work on storytelling :D

[skeeter2020]

I think you either need to find someone who needs a JoaT but likely doesn't know it (ex: smaller, newer companies, places where SW and IT are not a core focus) and educate them, or aggressively personalize your resume and focus on specific roles and positions. Smell test: you have a huge resume that's not padded but required to describe all your experiences & skills. AI could help you narrow down and focus. I'd also suggest pulling anything more than ~10 years old and remove content where the dates hurt you more than the specifics help.

[knbknb]

I think, in Germany, only small companies (sole proprietorship businesses) will see your diverse skillset as an advantage.

Or one of those companies who are really desperate to hire someone for whatever reason. Perhaps you can _take over_ such a business (search for "Nachfolger gesucht unternehmen")

It is not clear what your problem is. Has the freelancing side-business dried up, or is the "main day job" gone, or both?

It is also not clear what you are looking for.

[upghost]

My CV is pretty weird too. The two things that have really helped me are open source work and going to (coding) conferences. And I don't mean going there to grease palms, just to make friends. But there's nothing wrong with telling your story either and admitting you are looking for work.

This applies to software pretty exclusively though, can't comment on anything else.