I had a 90% on a Visual BASIC exam one contracting company had me take, I got offered $60,000 a year salary but they couldn't find me any clients to work at. So even if I passed a cheap skills test, there is no garrenty that I could get a job.

One of the things is that like many people, if I don't use my skills in a while, I tend to lose them or forget things. Sort of like when Boxley forgot what CRON did because the interview was in the evening. If I can read documenation or get online help, I can refresh my memory.

So many people exagerate on their resume, like let's use Oracle for example, maybe they did a few queries in Oracle for one of their past jobs and didn't do too much work in it. They list Oracle on their resume, but they are still a newbie at it. They think they can handle any Oracle challenge, but when it gets to using queries with 12 tables or more with different join types, they freak out.

I still say it is best to hire someone who is willing to learn new things, and then if you cannot find someone skilled enough, send them to classes. Classes are an expense and can be written off in taxes, so it is a good thing. I've seen job descriptions that wanted skills in 20 different areas, and I only had like 12 or 14 of those skills. That is asking a lot.

than can be imagined.

Lucky you, 6 pages of hand written notes. With the law firm, I usually got table scaps from the meetings I was not invited to but impact my work anyway. As in a few paragraphs, about half a page of written notes and a few diagrams. The written notes being the bullet points from someone's Powerpoint slideshow, that I was not given the graphs and pictures to. Then the people I am to get more information from do not return phone calls or email, and when they do, leave incomplete answers or vauge descriptions which make no sense, and when I ask more questions,. they get offended and tell my boss and gets me into trouble with a "Communication Problem". So this leaves me doing a lot of guesswork, doing the work without the information provided and hope that it does what they want it to do. I felt like a mushroom, kept in the dark and fed manure.

In the last job I had, it was a small business. No notes at all, nothing written down on paper, just do it, we'll tell you if it is not what we want. No programming guidelines, no naming conventions, no documentation, no source code comments, just a lot of spaghetti code, an Access database (Needs SQL Server conversion), most of the code in Excel VBA format (needs to be converted to VB 6.0), and a coworker who is constantly calling me names instead of helping me learn how the programs are supposed to work. I was given 3 months to convert the database, roll out a few programs, and help teach two coworkers how to run a SQL Server database. The database and programs were 80% done, and the two coworkers had learned SQL Server enough to support it. Then I got let go. It was major stress for me, I was almost going to finish it before the deadline, despite being forced to rewrite code after my coworker got upset that I used Execute on all my ADO objects instead of Open, and she had me change them all to Open, etc. Apparently my programming stlye was different from hers, and it made her very upset and she costantly called me names because of it.

But in both cases, they were not good places for me to be working in. I'll be better off working in a more structured environment with cooperative people who actually care about helping others and working as a team to get things done.

I would say that if you want long-term, you need to start your own business, or find a profession that will always be in demand, like nursing, grocery, garbage collection, phone company, etc.

I started my own business, it is more like a hobby and I put a lot of money into the business and got nothing back. Nursing, my wife is a nurse, unless you are very quick and skilled, you get let go, they have it almost as bad as the IT industry. H1B Visa Nurses, downsizing, strict policies, etc. Grocery, well I'd have to join a union and then wait for them to get me into a local Grocery store. Garbage Collection, not with my allergies. Phone Company, I tried that but they want me to take a lot of tests, I didn't take their tests so they didn't want to talk to me anymore. I freeze up on tests, I have test anxiety.