[rubyfan]

Merry Christmas! Hope thing resolve and get better for you. It's a hard time of year for lots of us.

Not sure where you are located but there are serious lack of qualified technical resources in the Northeast. Consulting gigs at Fortune 500s are usually fairly easy to get too, just look in boring cities that aren't Boston or NYC. Also, agree with Remote opportunities others suggested.

Many programmers can relate to the not team oriented thing, you're not alone in that one. Consulting and remote gigs can get a foot into the door at a place that values getting shit done over team love.

Good luck, hope things turn out for you. Merry Christmas!

[kryptonic]

Thanks.

I've never been the best at getting consulting gigs. Do you have any advise beyond just browsing various boards for contract positions? I tried cold emails before without before too.

I'm actually looking for remote positions at the moment as I agree with the consensus here that would be preferable for me. However, I live outside the US so opportunities are much fewer. And even with remote jobs there is still an interview. My anxiety remains noticeably severe even over Skype, and my speech problems are also very obvious.

[rubyfan]

What's your specialty that you have experience with that others don't?

It helps to have one thing that someone needs. I started my last gig by having more JavaScript and web experience than most others in my market at the time. I landed the role because one company was making a significant investment at the time I was looking.

Think about the one or two experiences you have that might be hot in the news or in corporate sectors... Hadoop, JavaScript, Machine Learning, Cognitive Computig, Analytics, Robotic Process Automation, Microservices, Internet of Things, etc.

As far as the speech, just be up front that you are a hard worker and deliver results but that you prefer text/email as your primary means of communication. Look for interviews that have a proof you can code, those will tend to actually evaluate skills and ability over trivialities like verbal communication (this is especially trivial in remote work).

Good luck!