I know much of HN is younger folk. If you find yourself without "traditional" employment, I'd suggest busying yourself creating lasting value for yourself rather than just doing passive search for a job.
The typical send-letters-and-wait-by-the-phone game is for suckers. For one, it doesn't really let you differentiate from the other 20% of your age group who don't have jobs. (Your resume theoretically lets you, but no one really cares what is written on it.) For another, everything that doesn't result in at least an interview is just wasted time. If you spend 6 months writing and then get a job interview, you've now got an interview and six months you will never get back which did not add to your personal capital at all.
Instead, built something you can keep. If you're a techy, write software. (Heck, build an entire business. You've got more than enough time.) If you're not a techy, you have my sympathies, but at least get yourself a blog going and start writing like it is going out of style. Set yourself up as the expert on your little patch of whatever and own the daylights out of it. Then, use it to network. Even if you can't get a job directly related to your niche, you can use the blog as an example of writing skill, communication skill, ability to carry tasks to completion, etc etc.
[Edited to add: It kills me that a sizable fraction of the best writing I've done in my life was a) on subjects I didn't really care about and b) will never be seen by anyone again, because I graduated from college many years before I heard of Dropbox. Most intellectually engaged students produce vast, vast quantities of great writing on subjects of perhaps less-than-great importance because they're told to... and then stop writing after college. Don't be most people -- most people's competitive situation sucks, because they have to compete with most people.]
I agree completely with the spirit of what you write, but I wonder about something:
> If you're not a techy, you have my sympathies, but at least get yourself a blog going and start writing like it is going out of style
That's really night and day from the techy option of hacking on stuff. I got my first job because while I was unemployed, I spent my time learning my way around Linux and Perl (this was in 1997) until I had enough experience to be employable at the relatively low rate I was more than happy to accept (and which subsequently went up pretty quickly when I proved myself).
My wife, on the other hand, has a doctorate in biochemistry. While she might get a little mileage out of writing a blog were she unemployed, the advantages would probably be minor compared to the disadvantage of being out of touch with a laboratory and not able to read expensive scientific publications.
Point being, I think that sometimes we forget just how easy it is to get involved with stuff in the tech world. With an internet connection, a $500 laptop, free tools and mostly free documentation, you can do world-class work, and communicate with pretty much anyone you want to about most anything. How many other fields are like that? Hopefully, the world will head in that direction, because it really is a wonderful thing.
> the disadvantage of being out of touch with a laboratory and not able to read expensive scientific publications.
Not everyone can have a lab of their own, but is access to publications really that expensive? Here in Sweden, I just had to register for a course at the local university (which was free), and then get a computer account to have access to all the publications everyone else at the university have access to.
Registering for a single course in Canada will likely cost ~$800 for a single term. That's a lot to pay for access to publications. The other option is subscribe to publications directly, but that can cost much much more than 800.
I think liamk's experience is more typical. I think most countries charge money to attend the university in some way, and/or have a fair amount of bureaucracy associated with signing up.
I think the secret to success is sort of fourfold:
1) Shipping -- more important than anything else, hands down. And don't just ship products, create assets which can get bigger in the future.
2) Learning -- not just about your industry (that should be a given), but about everything that's important for understanding the world and how it works. And not from the Internet, from mentors and books.
3) Writing -- post stuff on your blog that helps other people and makes you look smart. Maybe even write a book or two depending on whether your interests are conducive to that.
4) Networking -- Know at least 500 people in each of the major US cities where your business operates. Know at least 6 superconnectors in each city who you can ask for help if you need it. Know at least 2,000 people total.
The typical send-letters-and-wait-by-the-phone game is for suckers
True story: my first industry job I got by literally walking in the door of an ISP with no appointment and no CV and just asking if they needed a Unix guy. Wait there, they said. Met the hiring manager that afternoon (my "interview" was a in-depth discussion about the kind of workloads SMP was good for, conducted sitting on a DEC Alpha box), started working for him the next day.
This was at the start of the summer, at the time I still fully intended to be a Mechanical Engineer after graduation. Kinda got a bit sidetracked and here I am still in the industry 13 years later...
The typical send-letters-and-wait-by-the-phone game is for suckers. For one, it doesn't really let you differentiate from the other 20% of your age group who don't have jobs. (Your resume theoretically lets you, but no one really cares what is written on it.) For another, everything that doesn't result in at least an interview is just wasted time. If you spend 6 months writing and then get a job interview, you've now got an interview and six months you will never get back which did not add to your personal capital at all.
Instead, built something you can keep. If you're a techy, write software. (Heck, build an entire business. You've got more than enough time.) If you're not a techy, you have my sympathies, but at least get yourself a blog going and start writing like it is going out of style. Set yourself up as the expert on your little patch of whatever and own the daylights out of it. Then, use it to network. Even if you can't get a job directly related to your niche, you can use the blog as an example of writing skill, communication skill, ability to carry tasks to completion, etc etc.
[Edited to add: It kills me that a sizable fraction of the best writing I've done in my life was a) on subjects I didn't really care about and b) will never be seen by anyone again, because I graduated from college many years before I heard of Dropbox. Most intellectually engaged students produce vast, vast quantities of great writing on subjects of perhaps less-than-great importance because they're told to... and then stop writing after college. Don't be most people -- most people's competitive situation sucks, because they have to compete with most people.]