[Editor's Note: This is the third in a series of guest posts by Hallie Goertz, one of hundreds of people who have lost jobs in the Seattle tech sector in recent months. Read previous posts here.]

At my old job, I used to joke that I should learn Flash because we always seemed to be looking for Flash programmers to help us out of binds. And we paid them a pretty penny. But I never did, and now I’m beginning to worry that my generalist career (I can manage anything!) is not very marketable in this economic climate.

I’ve had a number of interviews over the past two weeks, most with professional services-type consulting firms. The outcome has been the same for all: We love you, we want to work with you BUT budgets are closed until 2009 so we’ll be in touch when we find the right project.

I appreciate the validation and welcome the conversations as it keeps my brain from getting too rusty, but the end result -- no job, no project -- is frustrating.  Especially when I hear of colleagues with more specialized skills (namely coding) being snapped up. I haven’t had any better luck responding to specific job listings, either.

Of course, I can’t blame the hiring managers and recruiters for taking this tack. I’d be talking to candidates before there was work, too, if I were in their shoes. It is a great time to collect prospects. I just wish there was more work for all of these prospects.

I’m curious: Who is really hiring right now? What fields? What firms? Perhaps I’m just not looking in the right place.  And, as one of my friends frequently reminds me, “Hallie, you don’t need a good job market, you just need one job.”

Interestingly, one of my interviews resulted from my profile on one of those big resume posting sites I derided in my last post. Some were the result of my personal network. And the others? Well, those can be traced to social networking, specifically this blog.

Honestly, I found it surprising at first. I took this assignment largely as a therapeutic lark. But, I suppose it does make some sense as it serves as a layer of social validation. When I was hiring, I much preferred to interview someone I knew something about, rather than a complete stranger. 

But it makes me curious whether folks who are even less tech-savvy than myself are going to really struggle in this job market given our increasing reliance on technology-driven social networking. I wonder, does my dad use Craigslist or LinkedIn?

The other unexpected result of my electronic musings has been the calls and emails from journalists (check out my national news debut here). I guess recruiters aren’t the only ones who source from blogs.

Hallie Goertz can be reached at halliegoertz@hotmail.com