I am in the midst of a years long struggle to find appropriate work that actually uses my skills. I am in an administrative tech job and I absolutely hate it. I want to get back to writing code, queries, doing deploys, actually working on code but my "time between jobs" makes me too risky for employers. I don't fully understand my struggle but part of it is also discovering my neurodiversity struggles.
Are there any reputable services out there that will help evaluate my skills and use this information for job placement purposes.
Have you done something like this before? Was it worth it or a waste of time?
I'm not willing to do 100 different coding tests but if some recruiter or agency could give me a test and help me understand my value or what I could meaningfully put my research and education efforts to I'd be willing to put a hell of a lot more effort in.
* "help evaluate my skills and use this information for job placement purposes"
* "some recruiter or agency could give me a test and help me understand my value"
* "I'd be willing to put a hell of a lot more effort in"
Nobody cares about whatever unique snowflake combination of random skills you happen to have from previous jobs (and you shouldn't either). Employers care only about their own needs, which they more or less clearly communicate in their job ads, and they look for people who are minimally qualified for those roles.
You need to look at what the market wants, and provide that. Understanding your value, and putting effort in is on you, nobody can do that for you.
1. You may need around 1-2 months of preparation, depending on how much time you are able to put (e.g., if your current administrative tech job doesn't demand too much from you, use your working hours to prepare for the tech interview)
2. What do you need to prepare? Based solely in the description you provided, it seems that you were doing some kind of backend engineering job, right? (Writing queries, code, dealing with deployments). If you have more than 5 years of experience (total) in the IT industry, I would call myself "Senior software engineer" and apply for such jobs. In this case, chances are you'll likely will have to deal with the so-called "design systems interview" (there are many good books out there like [1]. Read a few examples and get used to the way they are solved). If you need to prepare for coding tests, then google "cracking the coding interview". Don't go crazy, just learn the way these exercises are done.
3. Fake it till you make it. Watch a few YouTube videos about demoing tech interviews. Imitate the way people explain things and the like. One needs to gain some extra confidence in oneself when doing interviews.
4. Iterate, but don't go crazy. Find a company, investigate it a little bit (e.g., read their website, blog, social media, linkedin employees). Tailor your CV to what they are asking for in their job ads and apply. I cannot say anything about referrals because I never had one.
5. Relax. You have a job. It would be harder if you were jobless and trying to find a job (like many engineers are right now)
[1]: https://github.com/G33kzD3n/Catalogue/blob/master/System%20D...