Hi, I have many years in both industry and consulting (20 years +). I took a short career break due to a family illness - and I have now ended up unemployable! Either I am too qualified for the roles or been out of consulting for too long. I am realisitc about my salary expectations.Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

rosiem - sorry to hear about your plight.More times than not when I've encountered this issue, the real problem has been that the level of roles someone with your experience would be applying for come with the requirement that the candidate have a demonstrable track record of being able to sell significant volumes of consulting work. A demonstrable track record is quite different from you being a strong salesperson. If you don't have experience of selling in the consulting industry but rather in other industries - or your consulting sales record achievements date back some years rather than being in the very recent past - then this raises concerns about whether you'll be a risky hire compared with other candidates with a more credible / relevant recent sales track record.This may or may not be an issue you're bumping up against rosiem; but as it's the most common one I thought it worth flagging.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

well..that may apply to contractors as well, I was told by an agency recently. You get "unemployable" if you are a contractor too long, too entrepreneurial to squeeze yourself into a system again, and guess what, you would have to get up in the morning and use the tube again, how would you feel about that...not falling from you bed straight into your home office..sorry, I am just being sarcastic. don't get yourself down...and keep trying!