I've been trying to get a new job for the last 10 months since I started the one I'm on. The pay is good, but my management has no experience managing a software product (in this case, a company web site). My company bought a vendor-customized expensive software package that's bankrupting them on maintenance and enhancements, and I'm now the poor guy who gets called when something's wrong because the management is pretty useless for production support.
They keep shooting themselves in the foot in hiring additional staff for coverage, and I don't want to invite (and likely burn) any of my colleagues to work in a mess. It's frustrating that I'm basically having to train a development manager and CIO on how to manage the product, and that I have to now set many MANY boundaries to keep them from encroaching on my work-life balance.
Other than these hero-save-the-day contributions after management blows it again, the work I've done on this job and for about the last three years prior has been exceedingly pedestrian - not by choice. I've done some self-led courses just to expand my horizons, and I share info about those on my resume. I also have a pretty sophisticated, technically challenging, independent project that I've been reluctant to share in interviews, because it's been my experience that employers frown on any independent work.
Now - on recent interviews, I've been told "not technical enough", or "not enough explanation". I actually got that response on an interview today, and had to (figuratively) sit on the guy to get any feedback at the point where he was looking to escort me out. So as a last-ditch, I show him my independent project (which is functional, and is a mobile web site) and after a short demo he says, "You should have put that on the resume!" I came home and wrote the guy a full technical summary of my project, thanking him for being frank -- but I don't know it that'll turn the tide on this opportunity.
I bought a new suit, and was excited about this interview, and blehhhhhhhhh. So for future - put my personal projects on the resume, or nah?