So, in those first few months after I got my A+, I tried some old school kind of things, like cold-calling local businesses in my home town, walking up to the doors of some of the bigger corporations (my hometown is the host of Aflac, home of that annoying duck voiced by Gilbert Godfrey) and, eventually, driving up to the local metropolis—Atlanta, in my case—and doing the same thing there. I actually didn’t have a lot of success finding a job that way, but I did learn a few important lessons about the hunt. For instance, be prepared for a large degree of cluelessness on the part of human resource personnel. As it turns out, most people don’t know what an A+ or Net+ certification means, who CompTIA is and why any of that stuff is important. Try not to get discouraged when you hit roadblocks like that. You can actually use that cluelessness as a conversation starter to explain what your certification means. At the very least, it gives you the opportunity to explain your qualifications and what sort of job roll you might be able to play.

Learn to market yourself. This is a big one. And, today, you have so many places to market yourself for free. Start a blog about the job hunt and the things you’re doing to stay current in the industry and get hired. Leverage all those social networking sites you’re a part of. I’ve seen three people get jobs simply by posting a status message that says, “Hey, I just got my whatever certification and if anyone knows anybody looking, let me know!” I have a former CPA relative that gets Facebook contacts hired to positions at his previous customers’ places of business all the time.

Another thing to keep in mind: you’re now officially “that guy or gal” that your friends go to for basic technical support. In our ever more connected society, that’s networking you just can’t buy. So, sure, go fix Aunt Patty’s printer problem; but make sure you tell her to let her friends and associates know what a great techie you are. Within a month or so of doing pro bono work for your circle of acquaintances, you should have a pretty nice list of contacts you can mine for job search data. (more…)