[consulting] What Causes Feast or Famine?

[netsperience]

  Fred,

It depends to a degree on geography, and what kind of work you want to do.

In NYC I have constant work as a Drupal consultant placed through 
staffing and production companies (and recruiters). I get 5-10 emails 
and phone calls per day. Most of them I pass on to friends who also get 
work. It's a system that works.

I also get direct referrals from friends and former clients, designers 
and content writers and other kinds of partners, inquiries through my 
web site, people I know socially, and through belonging to 
organizations, religious and otherwise. I can usually bill these 
projects at a higher rate, or a much lower rate, depending on the 
client's ability to pay and my desire to do the work.

Working through staffing companies I may not get the top rate, since 
they need to get a cut, but I have access to many more positions and my 
payment is never in question.

I am capable of working on any and all parts of a Drupal site, from 
back-end custom modules and database config, other kinds of custom 
coding, front-end UI with jQuery and DHTML, theming, as well as LAMP 
server settings, and SEO optimization. Every project presents something 
I have never done before - and I know enough to learn how to do it.

I also volunteer regularly for causes I believe in.

How do I maintain my reputation?

I have been working with Drupal since v 4 and that's a few years more 
than many other people. I have a portfolio on my website, although my 
site is more of a personal blog, not really a company type site. I also 
have information about me and my skills, and testimonials, on my web 
site. My web site has many obvious Drupal features, such as aggregated 
feeds, including the latest modules and the latest from Dries Buytaert's 
web site; also tags etc. My web site does well in SERP and has a PR3, 
not bad for a personal site. I also have a meebo me IM widget on my site 
so people can message me right there (they do).

On LinkedIn I have a profile with many keywords so I come up in search 
results. I also have many recommendations on LinkedIn which improve my 
status. I enjoy answering questions, at one point I was the "king" of 
best answers in web development, now I am in 3rd place with over 50 best 
answers in web dev. I also have my latest résumé on my LI profile (using 
box.net). I also update my status on LinkedIn regularly (once or twice a 
week), particularly when I am looking for work, also when I am 
contracted and for how long. I make sure to add my roles to my 
employment history on LinkedIn (I recommend asking your employer/client 
first).

I also post a current résumé on Career Builder and Dice.

I do not maintain any projects on drupal.org, I just haven't created 
anything worthy of wide reuse, and that has disqualified me from some 
roles, but I think the agencies that require a Drupal dev to have a 
module on d.o. encourage a lot of redundant and marginally useful 
modules. I have contributed documentation pages on d.o., and I am very 
active in the issues queues for contrib modules, about advanced 
techniques such as Drush.

I am quite active on the #drupal channel on Twitter, I answer quite a 
few questions there, I'm no so active on IRC but occasionally I will ask 
or answer a question there.

I try to go to DUG meetings and drupalcamps, playdays, and networking. I 
also network through other groups and I always bring my business card. I 
planned to go to my first DrupalCon in Chicago, but could not go for 
personal reasons.

My signature here is abbreviated from the one I use on my emails, which 
includes my IM and Skype accounts, also an image of my business card and 
a Drupal Association member badge.

I started out by getting projects through Craigslist, but now the work 
comes to me, so much that I am able to help my friends get work.

Well, this works for me, I have constant work that is interesting and 
pays well, and I get to meet a lot of interesting people. I am 
contracted with Oxygen Media/NBC Universal for the next 3-6 months. I 
picked the role because I had a very good meeting with the manager, and 
I really wanted to work with him. I had 3 or 4 other offers I turned 
down or delayed until after this role.

Finally it's very important to do good work, meet deadlines, and 
otherwise act professionally. That may be obvious, but one bad move can 
haunt you for a very, very long time.

Randall Goya http://netsperience.org

Drupal: http://drupal.org/user/58977
Twitter: http://twitter.com/decibelplaces
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Decibel-Places/100000187748486
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rgoya