>>I recently became a contracter, telecommuting from home.
>
>Congratulations!
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>>It was _hell_ finding work, even though I'm an experienced C++ and VFP programmer and technical writer. I sent out 42 resumes to local (Central California area) businesses. I got about five calls, none of which amounted to anything.
>
>Ok, this is _not_ a confidence-building approach.


Well here's a confidence-building approach. I turned 24 this month. I have been programming professionally for 20 months. I worked at my first job out of college for a bout a year until I finished everything they could imagine they wanted. When my workload there started dwindling, I sent out resumes for full-time and contract positions.

I got 1 interview for every three resumes I sent out and was offered the job at every interview I went to. I now maintain 3 contracts (one is my former fulltime employer) with more coming when I finish these, and have more work then I can handle. I tripled my income over my fulltime position, and now I make my own hours, don't have a boss and choose my projects. I currently do 85% of my programming in VFP, but my efforts are quickly moving to WWC and internet programming.

>
>>When I finally did get work, it was from contacts I already knew. But it only takes a couple. If you do a great job (which goes without question for you and me, of course:), one client will tell her friends and associates about you. You do good work for them, they tell more, and so on exponentially.

I not only get calls by word of mouth, but I am still getting the same revamped offers I turned down 8 months ago.

>I don't have any local contacts, but I know a lot of people from the net. And >who knows what will happen the next 5 years.
>

>>VFP is a good skill to have, I think. No, there's not as much call for it as VB. But there's less competition, too.

Which works out well for a skilled VFP programmer. I find that VFP rates are consistently higher then VB rates here.

>That's true. One thing I'm learning from the UT is where VFP is better than >VB. So if I needed to, I'd have a good chance of being able to justify it to >a client who wasn't sure.
>

>>If you're going to dive into the contracting world, be prepared for a dry spell.

The key here is, don't dive... ease. I dove and it worked out well, but from what I hear, that's not always the case.


One more thing Michelle-
The single most important thing for you to become a successful ($$$) developer is your ability and willingness to learn. This means studying ALL the time. When I got out of school, I was relieved that the studying was over, but it turns out that I didn't really know what studying was. I don't read the newspaper anymore, I read manuals and tutorials. Mastering VFP is great and its a good goal, but don't let it be your only learning goal. Learn HTML like the back of your hand. Learn SQL till you can spew queries as fast as you can talk. But Visual Studio and play with VB and J++. If you can afford it, set up an NT server at home that you can use as an SQL and webserver. IN just an hour or two a day of extracurricular learning, you can go miles.

When you have the confidence that you know programming (not just VFP) then you can walk into a room and reek of skill, if you want. 5 years is all the time in the world, but don't let it go to waste.