I'm an IT professional with more than 20 years of experience, including most of my career at a Fortune 500 company. I was recently laid off after a major acquisition eliminated duplicate roles, and I'm now looking for a remote position. My previous salary was around $100,000. What strategies, job boards, networking approaches, or career moves would you recommend for finding my next role?
4 Answers
The market is extremely competitive right now, and remote roles paying six figures attract applicants from everywhere. Don’t assume your experience or salary target is unreasonable, but be prepared for a longer search and tailor your résumé for each role. Networking through professional associations, regional technology conferences, former coworkers, and hiring managers can be more effective than relying entirely on online applications. Professional networking sites still have value, even though many job posts are low quality.
Working with a reputable recruiter could help, especially one who specializes in infrastructure or systems roles. Recruiters often have direct relationships with hiring managers, so you may avoid competing with hundreds of applicants through a general job portal. Also, include your specific technical skills and location when asking for advice—“IT professional” is broad, while experience with areas like Active Directory, networking, cloud, security, or GRC gives people something concrete to work with.
Starting a small consulting or managed-services business is another possibility if you have a way to find clients. Businesses will often pay well for help with outages, security reviews, migrations, and systems maintenance. Just remember that finding clients and collecting payment can take time, so it may be better as a side path while you look for steady income. Taking temporary work outside IT to keep your finances stable is also a reasonable move and is better than leaving a long unexplained gap on your résumé.
The main challenge with consulting is sales. Technical ability alone doesn’t guarantee customers, so line up potential clients and a realistic financial runway before depending on it full time.
Long tenure at one company can sometimes work against you if your salary has risen near the top of that employer’s range, particularly after an acquisition creates duplicate positions. That doesn’t make your experience less valuable, but it may help to emphasize current tools, measurable accomplishments, leadership, and business impact rather than only years of service. You might also consider contract work, a temporary role, or a nearby technical specialty while continuing to search for the right position.
Frequent job changes aren’t practical or desirable for everyone, especially people with families or limited local opportunities. Stability can be a strength, so frame your long tenure as evidence of reliability, ownership, and the ability to support systems over the long term.
A long job search doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing everything wrong. Some people spend months interviewing before an offer comes through, so keep applying while expanding your network and considering contract or hybrid options.