A Personal Anecdotal Economic Data Point

On Monday, I sent out an update of my resume including my brief stint as a tech writer (also here).

Basically, it needs to be included, because I want to plug the hole in my employment history, so something with "2010" in it is useful, but I don't want to get a bunch calls from recruiters who do not look past the key word search calling me with technical writer positions,^* so I listed my title is listed as, "Developer/Writer."

It is true and accurate. "Developer" was my official title, and writer was what I did, but by avoiding the dreaded term "technical writer", I won't trigger a keyword search.

In any case, on to the data point:

I got a very strong response to my resume mailing,^† perhaps 50% more responses by phone or email that happened with my last resume drop in October 2009.

So, I do have a sense of things picking up.

BTW, if you want to look at my resume, you can see it, as well as an 8 page complete CV that covers everything back to college, here.

^*At least not ones from out of town. I'm not willing to travel to be a tech writer, but I'm willing to commute daily to be one.
^†I use a shell account at Panix.com, who I highly recommend, and I have a whole series of Unix scripts that allow me to send a few hundred emails, or do a mail merge into an email, with attached files, with each recipient getting an individualized "To:" header. (I.e. no BCC:) If you are interested, drop me a line, and I will send them to you.^‡
‡And there is no need to tell me that it's ugly C shell script. I already know this.