Long story short, the key to being bad and nationwide is to do something useful. Create something new, that definitely came from you, that other people value. Rails, Adhearsion, or even just a blog. This simple step is much more important than most people realize. It has to trace back to you personally, or it’s useless for your career. As programmers, we are in the position of working for people who do not have the ability to determine whether or not we are good at our jobs. Even other programmers sometimes have trouble figuring out who is or isn’t a good programmer. For potential managers and/or potential clients, the hiring and firing processes are both essentially random, unless you have some obvious distinguishing feature. That makes marketing yourself essential

– http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2007/10/im-bad-im-nationwide-job-security-vs.html