Expert: Leigh Ishikawa - 1/18/2008

Question
Hello,

my husband's got a networking degree, he's worked at an income-tax company for 13 years as a spanish-english translator for documents and meetings; and now he's leaving the one he's been to for 13 years and looking for a new one. Any ideas as to where and what he could do? And who to ask or where to search?

Thank you so much for your help.

Answer
Sorry as this has taken some time as I have been quite busy.

I have pondered about this for some time, and I don't see an easy answer.  I thought about a potential of localization, but Spanish localization is cheap (because of high demand), and unfortunately, the demand at the corporate level is not that high.

The other possibility is for him to get back into the network area, but that's difficult to say as 13 years back, he's talking about ages where things like ArcNet still existed (but it's gone now).  Not to say that what he learned in the past can't be utilized, but a lots of things that were up in the air has now been solidified.

Like any job, you have to look at your local market and figure out what is in demand.  I would start off with picking up newspapers, or tech oriented job sites (monster, careerbuilder, or even craigslist) and see what companies are local, and what skills are in demand.  Then see if he has areas he needs.  Do keep in mind that as he is starting out again that he will probably need to work from the ground up.  That may mean joining the IT side, or working as a technical support.

But this all depends on what he wants, or often what he doesn't, want to do for living.

Sorry that I can't give you a clear answer.  If you have further questions, please do feel free to contact me again, and I will try to reply back in a more prompt manner.

:)

L