Re: Where would you look for your first job?

[chrestomanci]

...but somehow it seems that job board posts assume "Perl" to be equal to "Senior Developer", which definitely I am not.

I think you under estimate your skills. Those of us who have been on the recruiting side of the table know that there are an incredible number of candidates out there who claim to know perl, but in fact hardly know anything. Most turn out to have hacked CGI scripts though random cut and paste until they got the results they wanted with only a dim knowledge of how the code works.

You on the other hand look much better qualified. You are here asking sensible questions, and you have a number of modules to your name on CPAN. That puts you in the top half at least of all perl programmers.

The other thing you have going for you is domain specific knowledge of telecoms. For the the right role in that industry, you will be an ideal candidate.

Where would you look for part-time or contract jobs?

Unless you have specific personal reasons to look for a short term contract, I would advise you against becoming a contractor, and suggest you take a long term position, at least for your first job.

A contractor is expected to have all the skills and knowledge they need for their job and hit the ground running, as they are usually hired to fill a short term need. An employer will not want to invest any time training a contractor as they could be gone at any time.

For a permanent employee a recruiter is much more able to look at the whole person, and ask not just what they can do now, but what else they could be doing in a years time given some training. From what you have written about yourself on your home node, I see a lot of potential. You want the recruiter to see and consider that, and they can only do so if you tell them that you plan to stay with the company for a few years.