Hi Everyone,

Allow me to begin by making an honest statement here because I don't know what else to do.

I'm a Linux Systems Administrator from Mumbai, India with around 4 years of experience. I recently took a break from my career due to personal family reasons.

While I used this time to not only attend to the said personal reasons but also contemplate my next career movie of transitioning into DevOps / Site Reliability Engineering.

With that in mind, I proceeded to learn new skills such as Docker (a vast topic in itself), will be starting shortly with AWS (another big topic) and familiarizing myself with concepts related to the above roles. I usually go one at a time to avoid burnout and so the next step is a development language like Python (targeting a working knowledge of it down the year)

I also created 2 projects, visible here and here so that I could showcase what I learnt and satisfactorily answer an oft-asked question posed by recruiters "How did you utilize your break?"

Now, I do my due diligence on each of the companies before, during and after the interviews by starting off with a customized cover letter, researching thoroughly about the company, answering their questions frankly (including any about my break) and asking them few across their product|service, the role, culture and in general, maintaining a positive decorum throughout the process.

For 8 months, despite passing multiple rounds of interviews, I've been either rejected by lines saying "We need a more experienced candidate aligning with the company needs" or by "You're excellent but not quite the right fit as of now" OR I don't get even an interview OR the worst case - I don't hear back at all.

A quick question I've here is if everyone wants a more seasoned candidate, where should someone moderately experienced as me go? Can't help but dread to think as to what must happen with freshers.

I've also been told that I should learn "technology X,Y or Z" because it's in demand now but I wonder as to what all and how much can an individual grasp by online courses or preparing answers to interview questions by just reading documentation as compared to getting practical exposure on the same.

They stem from the fact with an analogy I'd like to make here

We can take as much driving lessons in a simulated environment as required but until we drive a car in real-world traffic at different times, how do we tackle scenarios like dealing with a car going bust in the middle of the road with 10-15 people raging on you OR when do we take it servicing OR what do we do if our car is in an accident

I could go on with more such examples but I hope my gist is clear.

Isn't a genuine interest in an organization's principles, the potential to contribute in solving actual problems as part of their team and the curiosity to constantly learn and improve (mind-set than skill-set?) that should count?

I should also mention each rejection is adversely affecting me and I sometimes feel very demoralized to the point of thinking "What exactly am I doing wrong?"

Could someone please be so kind as to give me any suggestions, recommendations, advice (on anything you may have to share after reading so far) or even possibly refer me to potential hiring recruiters?

Now I landed most of my interviews for most positions via their company websites but I've also tried many other helpful services that cater to the idea of a career abroad such as

• Angelist
• Jobbatical
• Talent.io
• Hired
• Honeypot but except Angelist, I've not had much luck on the rest.

Please Note: I'm available to join immediately and willing to relocate for the right opportunity anywhere across the European Union.

My complete CV/resume can be found here, you can also reach me directly via email or LinkedIn

Any help will be much appreciated! Many, many, many thanks in advance!