How do you make yourself more desirable if you have been out of work?
I am not homeless but not able to land work and have been working in a different industry for 5 years but want to get back in to what I went to school for which is Computer Engineering.
To make yourself more desirable to employers, I'd have personal projects that demonstrate your abilities.
I'm a freelance writer slash "creative". I've been that way for over five years. I also have creative projects and those have been generating revenue and opportunities for me.
It's not easy. I was homeless for several weeks about a year ago. Couldn't cover the rent. But I've done factory work for many years and I'd choose this any day.
It's going to be hard, but open source is really your best friend here.
Personally I'd suggest finding a new project that's up and running with a very committed founder, and put a lot of effort into contributions.
If you pick something like openphoto, you'll be able to make a difference, make a good track record of work done by yourself, and if openphoto takes off, then you'd be in the perfect position to get hired to work on it.
If open source is too much work, you can also publish in trade journals. For example I published an article on JSR-170 for IBM DeveloperWorks in 2006 when I was unemployed. It took about a weekend to write, and IBM paid me $600 for the piece (and boy was I desperate for the money). I had companies asking me for interviews within days due solely to that article. The oddest thing is that I continue to get interview requests from that piece (and a few from PHP Architect), even though it was written in 2006.
By the way, the reference to "SoloFX Enterprises" is fake. As I said, I was unemployed at the time, so I just made something up. You'll find several other articles from me right around the same time period.
I am not homeless but not able to land work and have been working in a different industry for 5 years but want to get back in to what I went to school for which is Computer Engineering.