[johnward]

>"LinkedIn is pretty much useless for my level of contracting. I get tons of inquiries and the second I mention my rate they either laugh or think that I'm being difficult."

I've found this to be the norm for me also. I have highly specialized skills and I know I'm top 5 in the world in my skills with this specific software. I know this because I know basically everyone that does this type of work. When these recruiting firms contacted me they always wanted like $60 an hour rate when the company I used to work for would charge up to $300 an hour for my time. I would always start at like $120/hour, which I feel is actually kind of low for an enterprise software consulting, and they would either try to get me to $60 or ghost me. I finally took a job as a full-time employee doing gov consulting work at a pretty good salary for me.