Hack your resume; or, how to get a job you love

I'll be honest, most of the resumes I've read are bad. They are not bad due to the resume's content; they are bad because people don't know how to sell themselves. As a job seeker, you are a product and you are your own marketer. While I wish there was a universal metric of awesomeness, there isn't and it comes down to your abilities to sell yourself.

Personally, if you are going to work for someone else, then I would say it is better to maximize d$/dt (and just learn to deal with all the stupid shit that makes you unhappy). So, if you will permit me, then allow me to give some advice on bettering your career.

Data mine the competition

Throw up an ad on various job boards (the ethics of this is questionable and may be illegal in some regions; you could also just go search for resumes) and offer jobs to people with a similar skill set (or a senior position you would like to have). With 50+ resumes in hand, you can develop yourself relative to your competition.

Use the pile of resumes to guide your education by targeting skills that are most valuable to businesses (this is relative to each business but generally profit producing skills dominate). Try to determine when opportunities present themselves and take initiative to gain the experience. That is, if a senior staff member offers up some difficult task to the team, then jump on it.

Learn people

Be social and go out and make friends in real-life. This is getting easier with sites like meetup.com, but there are many ways to do this.

I also recommend reading "How to Win Friends & Influence People"; the hacker community is not exactly the best environment for developing social skills that translate into business success. People skills enables you to network. It also gets you out in the world where normal people have normal day problems that you may be able solve. Once you see what problems non-hackers run into, then you can begin to solve their problems; this tends to produce revenue.

Make something awesome

Maybe you are a misunderstood genius? There is only one way to put this to the test: build a start-up. Make something that only a genius could make. Then go pitch it in your local investment community. You may get funding, which would be awesome. You may get many job offers, which leads to the path of the consultant. If you get neither, then you are not a genius.

Understand Team Dynamics

1. Join an MMO (Such as WoW)
   
2. Join a Guild
   
3. Study the Drama over time
   
4. Practice to Resolve Conflict rather than force a split
5. Quit Guild
6. GOTO 2
   

Do this enough times, you will understand people very well and know that getting people to work together is far more valuable than trying to build the perfect team. At the same time, you learn about personalities and how they interact with each other.