I am over 50 with a MS technical degree and than 25 years of IT experience. I was laid off 18 months ago after a year as a Customer Service Manager when the foreign software company decided to abandon the US market. The job was building the US technical support function — both pre and post-sales. It was somewhat a career direction change as much of what I did in the new job was pre-sales related. I had been doing post-sales technical support as an individual contributor for the previous 6 years. Prior to that I was a Help Desk Manager (3 years) and before that Applications Development/Project Manager (10+ years). I discovered a real knack for the pre-sales process and received great feedback from a number of customers.
I would like to pursue a Pre-Sales Engineer job, but with the poor job market in Silicon Valley and minimum experience, I have been applying for jobs related to my background such as Technical Support, Help Desk and Development Manager as well as staff positions with no luck?no interviews. In the mean time, I have been taking on-line courses in the newer web-based technologies to keep my skills current. I feel like I am caught in the middle in two areas: management vs. individual contributor, and pre-sales vs. post-sales vs. development.
Two questions:
1. Would a good career coach be any good for focusing on one targeted job type? Alternatively, should I continue to pursue any job that matches my skill set?
2. How can I best capitalize on being a mature IT professional with experience along the product cycle: building, selling, and supporting software products?
Thanks to all!