Ask HN: What to do when all you have is talent?

I started in IT 15 years ago as a help desk jockey for a small ISP back in the dial-up days. Since then I have done everything from low level hardware support to leading a large government project installing a new telephony/messaging solution for a school system.

Here's the thing: I dropped out of high school and got a G.E.D. my Junior year. I have always had a weird knack for learning on the fly (are the rest of you like this too?). I always bluffed my way in to jobs I was completely unqualified for and pulled it off quite well.

Then the recession hit my area particularly hard so I tried the local technical college but decided it wasn't worth the debt or time learning stuff I already knew.. Lately, I have been wasting my time trying to break into IT Security (always my primary interest), with no luck because my security experience isn't professional. I was able to self-study for both my Network+ and Security+ (gotta start somewhere) and did surprisingly well. I'm proud that I was able to score 895/900 on the Security+ exam after just reading for two weeks but these certifications didn't seem to make a difference.

I'll get to the point. I can't seem to get my foot in the door anywhere to do anything from level one help desk work to anything else. Add a new family to the picture and you can see why I need to make a move now. What's someone like me to do? I am talented (some past coworkers and managers actually called it freakish), but you cant put talent on your resume. I'd relocate anywhere on earth for a stable job. I pull a deer-in-the-headlights every time I try to find a new skill to learn. Too many options. I don't know what's in demand. What can people still turn in to a long-term career? What area or "discipline" in IT shows promise for a career?

I did very badly in college, and majored in American History. About three years ago, I quit my job and learned how to code. I was focused on machine learning and data analysis. I faced the same problem you did -- no way to prove I had any skills.

The way to stand out to employers in your field is to do things that are publicly visible. It's hard to judge someone's talent from a resume, but it's easy from a github repo.

Some ideas for you:

* Contribute to open source projects in the space you're interested in.

* Start a blog. You'd be surprised by how much sharing some of your own experience can help others, and it can raise your profile a lot.

* Lots of companies offer bug bounties -- try to find some vulnerabilities and collect some. Blog about your experiences. I don't know how hard this is, though.

* Make cool projects and share them on github. Blog about them. Post them on HN.

* Go to meetups in your area on topics that interest you. Meet people. Make cool projects with them.

* Go to hackathons if you can. They're a great way to meet people and find interesting projects.

* See if you can take on a small part-time role helping out at a startup in your field.

As for what's in demand, take your pick. I've talked to companies having trouble hiring web developers, mobile developers, and data scientists. Any of them is a good choice (again, don't know anything about IT security demand).

Here's one rule of thumb I've been using to gauge demand. If someone's willing to hire you to use a tool even though you haven't really used it before, then the demand is there.

Another warning is that what's hot now may not be hot 5 years from now. iOS is hot right now. I'm concerned that, with Steve Jobs gone, Apple is going to implode and lose their market share. So there may be no iOS jobs 5 years from now.

Just keep sending out resumes. You'll find something eventually. It's just a numbers game.

Do you have any savings? If not, get whatever you can right now to get back. Be prepared to take something lousy and be looking to jump to something better.