thebardingreen

First off, you're NEVER unemployed. You're consulting / free lance writing. With your background that's 100% believable and no one ever checks on that. Even if they did... did you do ANYTHING related to your skillset to help ANYONE (friends, family)? They'll probably agree to be a former client a potential employer could talk to. Did you do any volunteer work? Get involved in any non-profits? Get references from folks there.

• I shouldn't say no one checks. I had ONE potential employer in my entire life check on ONE of my consulting stints. I had 3 real clients happy to say super nice things about me and I got the job.

2nd, if you're working part time somewhere off and on... you're working part time there the whole time while also working on your consulting business. That's why you were part time. If you were promoted, you note the dates of your promotions.

My resume says "Consultant at Coyote, ltd" for an 8 year period. Overlapping with that period is 1 year as IT director at a now defunct startup, 1 year as a project manager at a cybersecurity firm and 1.5 years as Cyberoperations Director at a spaceflight electronics startup. The CEO at the space company tried to get me to sign a no moonlighting clause and I flat out told him no. He was a bit of a dick about it (and whined about "this is standard stuff!") I held my ground and they didn't fire me. Fuck that noise.

3rd, Don't hesitate to clean up your LinkedIn. I HATE LinkedIn. It's intrusive and invasive, it serves corporations while exposing humans to a hypercompetitive stressfest of bullshit career posts to "like" and "engage with" and it exposes your past dirty laundry (or job history at dumpster fire positions) to potential future employers in a way that feels icky. I fucking hate that company, and wish death upon it.

That being said, you DO need to use it and game the shit out of it. Every hiring manager EVER will check your LinkedIn profile to see if it mostly matches your resume. But they won't spend time to dig too deep into it unless your REALLY STRONGLY being considered for a senior position. They'll just check that it exists and you have connections with people from former positions. Which if you're NOT connected to former co-workers... get on that.

Add a "Freelance Writing / Editing Consultant" (or whatever) position to LinkedIn covering the years from your first to your final unemployment period.

4rth, You're applying in a field where a gajillion liberal arts / humanities grads are competing over jobs that are being replaced by generative AI at companies that are being looted by vulture capitalists and repurposed for propaganda by right wing billionaires. I'm SO sorry about that. It sucks.

Realistically, it's time to ask what ELSE your background qualifies you for...

• Lots of small businesses, including high tech ones and consultancies will hire project managers with diverse backgrounds. I just hired an old friend of mine with NO tech company experience to be a project manager to help me wrangle a bunch of programmers working on different consulting gigs. Because I KNOW him and he's gonna kick ass and take names at that. In the past month of having him aboard, he's made ME significantly more productive. His back ground: High school teacher turned Whole Foods dept. manager, who spent a bunch of time trying to make a living hand forging swords and knives.
• Lots of successful business folks need personal assistants / executive assistants. It's often a shitty stressful job for a dickhead you don't like or respect, but it can also be an awesome job for a sweet decent person if you get lucky. My clients are small businesses. EVERY SINGLE ONE has one of those to help the big boss, and they have, like I said, a diverse set of backgrounds. One of my clients is a medical cannabis manufacturer and the CEO is a super sweet old lady. Her executive assistant is a guy in his 50s who survived cancer and whose background is in patent writing.
• Start ups and small businesses of all kinds need operations directors.
• With your back ground, you could consider roles in PR / publicity.
• You could also consider roles in technical writing.
• Government departments need case managers and supervisors all the time. A BUNCH of my friends with a wide variety of professional backgrounds work for the Colorado dept. of Unemployment, for example. None of them are rich, but they're not starving either.
• Your profile page claims you were a tech enthusiast before you got burned out (is how I read it). Are you enough of a tech enthusiast to help some boomer middle managers trouble shoot their printer problems and deal with scam popups locking their work computers? If so, an MSP may be willing to take a chance on you. It's part time and it's never enough money, but it's some income while you figure out your next steps.
• Your profile page also says your a van dweller. High five... I did that for 8 years and it was mostly awesome. Apply in any city you're willing / able to drive that van to.
• Dust off the old Reddit account (or make a new one) and just check all the job subreddits (r/DenverJobs and r/SFBayJobs are the two I'm most familiar with). If you get a call back, tell them you are in the process of moving (also say that on your initial application).
• Get in touch with recruiters. If you have a good looking resume, they will WANT to sell you. Look for recruiters that specialize in the industries you want to work in. Contact recruiters in cities you're willing to live in and tell them you're looking to move there.

Finally, your timeline makes me think you're in your 40s or 50s maybe? These are your PEAK earning years. Don't waste them.

But... why?

I'm having fun with what I'm working on, but I simply have too much to do, too many places to go, too many people to talk to.

I'm not going to get it all done today, that's not possible and that makes me feel tired and discouraged, even though I'm having fun.

So... a very normal Monday.

It's interested that they say "oxygen could travel below the ice and support life."

I would expect life on Europa to be anaerobic, given the obvious lack of photosynthesis.

The corporation doesn't love you, nor does it hate you. But you possess economic value, which could be made to belong to the corporation's shareholders.

I'm making fun of it. I am also a libertarian socialist or something.

I don't care what the science says! I don't care about the suffering of others! This offends my capitalist sensibilities that I have never questioned and I'm not about to start thinking too hard about it now just because some hippy libs want to sneak communism in the back door!

I have zero respect for this world view and hope we are able to simply bulldoze it with unstoppable momentum.

This is exactly how I feel. I can't relax into my work (and my work quality is impacted) when I have to use Windows.

WTF red states?

I can only assume they WANT this to get challenged so it goes to the Supreme Court because our insane SCOTUS might uphold it.

Anymore, Wine can run anything I care to run.