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Making the Jump From Sysadmin to Network Administrator?
termdex asks: "I've been looking to move from systems administration to network administration for the last couple years but for some set of reasons networking seems to be an impregnable area of work.
My experience has been like the often clichèd 'chicken and egg' scenario. Most employers aren't interested in candiates that lack serious network admin experience (ie: 80/20 network/other), but it would seem difficult to get that level of experience if you're currently a sysadmin. What advice can Slashdot readers offer as what works best in making lateral career moves? What experiences can you relate that shows difficulty or success?"
I thought they were one and the same job - I suppose if you take the definitions literally I see what you mean.
:o)
I do both then. Do I get paid double now?
Fudge your resume. Don't lie outright, just play with titles, percentages, and add on a couple of skills. Ok, so maybe that is outright lying. ITs a matter of degree.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
There's a place called New Horizons in Connecticut near me that puts people in paid internships for NetAdmins and SysAdmins. I'm sure there are other places like that throughout the world.
set up kickin' network at home, play with it. document what you have done. invite netowrk guy over...
"can you put in a good word for me?"
Net+ is a lightweight course of study, and is reasonable to get quickly.
I would aim for Cisco CCNA. If you understand OSI and TCP/IP well enough to mentally calculate subnets, be able to describe how sequence numbers are synched, and know the mechanics of ARP and RIP... You are half-way to certification already. Now add Cisco-specific stuff. I would recommend the Sybex CCNA study guide. Simple, and complete. This will lend additional credibility to a resume re-write, where you put a network "spin" on all of your existing experience.
Next, you might look at Cisco's CCNP - the network planner cert. Depends on how much you get out of certification, and how it's valued by your employers.
Your management at work, if your company is not really dysfunctional, should be able to help. With a good manager at work, you should be able to outline your longterm career interests, and get some support and direction to make this kind of move. This is what weekly one-on-ones are for - supposing a good manager!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Well, in my job experience (small to midsize companies) those two jobs are effectively the same. You wear whatever hat is necessary to get what needs to be done, done.
So, if you want my advice I would say to get a job at a smaller company where you can easily wear multiple hats, grow your experience, experiment with technologies that *you* think can help your company instead of being stuck with dead-end technologies that some PHB mandated from on high. After designing and implementing a few successful projects you should be able to get a job anywhere.
If you're stuck in a larger-sized business, a good company will support your efforts in migrating to a different department. It's usually a win-win situation. You get to do what you want, the company gets to keep someone that they already trust and who knows much more about the company's specific operations than a new hire. If your boss won't help you switch departments, then a good HR person usually will.
You're stuck because you're in a big company where they actually have different people for network and admin jobs - that's your problem. Go work for a small company, where everybody wears at least 5 hats. If you really want to, you can go back to the corporate arena after a few years with any of those 5 job titles on your resume. I bet you won't want to, though.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sounds like you deserve a couple of things to happen:
- take a 3 week vacation so people start to understand what value there is to your work when it's missing
- your manager to be visited by some other company's manager who's impressed by how smoothly the IT infrastructure hums along because of what you have setup and how you maintain it.
Maybe in the latter case the other company's manager won't tell your manager just how excellent you are, but rather just make you an offer.Back on topic, though, I think that setting up LANs for schools or non-profit organizations as a volunteer would get you some experience that could come in handy in any bid for a network admin position. Getting familiar with all the fundamentals of home-made low-cost routers (*NIX box with multiple network cards), firewalls, and proxies is important, even if the elementary school doesn't have nice expensive Cisco routers running the latest version of IOS.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This is interesting. Even in the largest of companies, I have never seen a real distinction between system administrators and network administrators. I supppose that you would be lower on the totem pole though. In any case, my suggestion to you is, scrounge a few older PC's that are greater than 100 mhz (should be easy nowadays) scrounge/buy a router/firewall. I will make an assumption that you are using a windows based network. Yes, I am going to advocate this, steal win2k advanced server, exchange, etc. Install w2kAS, buy a book on it, read the book (I recommend mastering windows 2000 server, I think its a sybex book). Install Active Directory, get IIS working to serve webpages, leave your ftp on anonymous login by mistake and have it taken over as a DIVX server (cleaning up the mess will remind you to never do it again). If you can scrounge up a 300mhz+ machine, put 512MB of ram in it, and put exchange on (youre looking for functionality, not speed). create a small lan out of the scrounged PC's put whatever OS's on that you want, and configure them all to talk to each other. Buy a domain - you can get them for $10. Take one of the machines, throw two nics in it, *nix, and make it a firewall. I think you see the point- simulate the environment you want to learn about, its no longer prohibitively expensive to do so. MS would probably encourage this activity. One caveat- you will be best off if you can find a decent ISP - one that will provide you with a static IP and wont block ports. That may be impossible or very expensive. A solution to that would be a second router, in between the "play" lan and the cable/DSL modem. Attach a machine on this second router to simulate a machine out on the internet. If you are looking to get experience on cisco stuff, well... then... youre going to have to spend a significant amount of money no matter what. after you have done all this, fudge your resume.
If you're trying to move from a "pure" OS position directly into an "IP routing and switching only" type of job, you'll probably find it difficult. Especially in today's job market.
:-)
I run a corporate Network support group that handles LAN/WAN technology, and my staff of 8 is mostly people who have started out as sysadmins and developed their networking skills along the way. The value this background brings is that their general OS and application knowlege allows them to troubleshoot beyond typical "Layer 2/3" problems. It also provides a more open interaction with our sys admins, who do not have routing and switching expertise. We do have several router geeks who focus on our IP routing and LAN/WAN switching infrastructure, but it's the folks with the mix of general OS and specific networking skills that keeps our DBA, progammer, and system administration customers happy.
If you're trying to get into a ISP or Telco NOC, you'll probably have a tough time, without demonstrable routing and telecom experience. OTOH, if you can find a corporate IT shop that supports a variety of technologies (WAN/LAN, Security/Firewalls, Internet, Data Center, etc), you can exploit you sysadmin knowlege in a networking environment. Make sure your resume highlights your relevant networking experience.
Some of my best overall Network Engineers came to me as Unix or Windows admins with a general understanding of networking, and a strong desire to learn more. We're not shy about providing training, and after 6-12 months we end up with very effective engineers who play nice with others.
Good Luck!
...is because you goof off on Slashdot all day!
You're probably sitting at your desk doing that right now instead of, oh, I don't know, working!
Oops, I gotta go... the boss is coming.
If a garbage man knows how to drive a truck, that doesn't make him the equivalent of a professional chauffeur. He may be able to do that job, IF he is exceptionally talented, but that doesn't make it the same task.
Get a part-time job as network admin for your local non-profit group. They might be able to advise you on how to get a tax break for your labors, if they can't outright pay you.
Battered spouse shelters, HfH locals, unaffiliated museums, etc. can always use help with technical matters. Find one that is looking to create a network presence.
1st) They never read Curriculums, they just have an overall look, so you dont care what you put there... let'say 80 netadmin/20 shell/perl programming experience, it should be fine (unless you cant handle it, but you can always get ill for a week and get someone you know help you... not too often though i do it (just to get extra vacation, 3days every three month - more or less)
...shame on me it's about window$, but they like it... remember Microsoft is the BEST. BUT you prefer UNIX. Why? You dont know there's so many tools that can come handy... you dont remember right now but there's a unix rosetta stone (try google) that provides you all the command you need... you dont remember but you have a lot of docs under the hand (probably, lie again), over 100 ebooks about sysadmins (try "oreilly bookshelf site:.ru" on google)....
2nd) if they dont read it you might as well lie on what you know. Put everything you know on your CV, they dont read it, but they'll be impressed (3 pages is fine). From M$ Office to OpenOffice, passing by nmap... and of course for evrything you put on your CV, add a quantity as much as you know about like:
- 1 theorical knowledge
- 2 Practical Experience between (PE) 3&9month
- 3 PE over 9 month
- 4 PE over 1 year.
- 5 PE over 2 years.
For me it might looks like:
- Debugging et error diagnosis:
Turbo Debugger (5), Nu-Mega Soft-Ice (5), SmartCheck (3), IDA (5), monitoring tools (filesystem/registry) (4), Norton Utilities (4).
3rd) never leave over 3 or 4 month unemployed in your job experience, lie, lie, lie, you had money to take some vacation (1 or 2 month) but you wanted to get a new job before running out of $$$ (you'll run out of money in six month if they ask, but you try to be careful, of course...). Remember, you are NOT searching a job, you try to find a place where you'll feel comfortable...
4th) Spamming! spamming not only works for internet stuff.. no, you can spam the companies that, in your aera, search new employees... You dont care being thrown out of 10 "potential" places interviews (after all you're searching something fine for you....). So... send over 100 or 200 emails in interresting jobs (for you) in your area... (look http://www.searchlores.org/ for more infos on how to search)... you wont care about get replies, you wont care about getting interviews, and you wont care about discussing salary stuff... (since you never accept a job for tomorrow but ALWAYS give yourself 2 (TWO) week to think about it....)
5th) keep in mind that 80% of the time the guy coming to interview you feels as bad (he probably never interviewed someone...) than/like you. He doesnt even know how to interview someone. If he tricks you into something you cant answer, just say he's wrong, very wrong... and invent a way to do things otherwise (if you cant you'd better say him he have a quite nice solution, but you're using the "xyz" (imagination please) application to do just THAT at home...)
6th) trying to search a job IS FUN.
7th) even if the guy in front of you doesnt agree, refer to rule 4.
never take things seriously, or things might take you seriously...
sICE
-- search the web
Just keep on sucking till you do suck seed.
One trick I've done, and seen done, is to request some machines to use as a testbed. Older sort of machines so they're cheaper. Basically to run patches on to confirm things work, or to try out certain software packages (like interoperability questions). This is something sysadmins should do usually, but don't.
AND ask for a low end cisco box (2611 and a 2924 or so) to make sure your company's filtering/ACLs won't effect the software. Then toy around with the switch & router a little bit. Nice practical know how for something you should probably have anyways.
Note that this is for wireless installs and support (of which I have zero experience), since I already have a little experience with leased lines and routers. But the same thing could apply to anyone for any skill. Seek out smaller shops that may not be able to afford a full-time senior-level admin, and see if you can barter your experience.
Method of processing duck feet
If they don't they are not sysadmins. What they may lack is experience with particular vendors' equipment, however that is usually nonessential, and is remedied by reading a book. If a company does not understand this, a decent sysadmin wouldn't want to work for it. Where would shitty one-trick-pony sysadmins should work, I have no idea, my advice to them is to kill themselves so others won't suffer from their stupidity and incompetence.
I understand that US is in recession, and people are desperate, but this just isn't worth it -- when quality is lost, it's extremely difficult to get it back, so unless someone is comfortable with encouraging the start of another Dark Ages at no benefit for himself whatsoever, he should not try to chase narrowminded job definitions written by HR drones and PHBs but look for a job where no one will doubt his qualification.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I basically did the reverse. I used to by a WAN admin (managing an Internet backbone). 8 months ago I made the jump to SysAdmin (same company, but now managing customer-facing servers). You'll probably have better luck if you're staying within the same company then trying to get a Network Admin job at another company.
Having certs in your current field is always a good thing. It shows that you want to improve yourself and your willingness to learn. You might also want to look into getting a cert like Cisco's CCNA (which is a joke to get nowadays). It will show that you have basic knowledge of networking (CCNA covers stuff like subnetting and different network topologies and cabling and protocols, and of course, routers and switches).
If you have the extra cash, buy yourself some routers (ebay) and set up a home network (using something like OSPF or BGP; not just static routing).
Before jumping ship to my Sysadmin job, I had no real practical work experience in the *nix world. But I have alot of personal experience; running a home network, with mail server, DNS server, web server, etc... on multiple linux servers. This definately worked in my favour.
And as with any type of interview, there's more than just your knowledge; there's work ethics, willingess to learn, wanting to grow, etc... All these play into account, especially if applying for a job within the same company.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
doesn't matter if you can do the work or not, lying on a resume is not a good start to a new job...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
/me raises his hand.
..
Last year of school I passed was Year 8.
My previous job was IT R&D Project Manager for one of the largest universities on the globe.
I wonder how many of us are there out there
Robert Anton Wilson
For years since grade 6 or so, Ive tried to program Commodore 64, learn C and cluster Linux. I even made sure I know the nearby areas like I got my MCSE and CCNA and learned basic XSLT, while building a simple Opengl 1.4 game.
But I just cant seem to land work. I came to Canada recently and its been maybe 4 months I've been granted work papers. But neither IT job agencies work, nor newspapers/workopolis. They all say I have to 'bug' them. How? How can I just call someone at work and say hi I'm bugging you so I can make inroads into your company possibly replacing you. Damn straight I have bad social skills but arent geeks supposed to? Are HR managers that ill trained in that work whereby they hire a sucky technician one he knows or has been bothered on the phone by alot, but not make a quick check in the real market to get a better bang for his buck??
This I dont understand. "Lifes like that". Shouldnt be. What if I were the CEO of a small firm needing maybe 2 sysadmins? I'd definitely aim for the wider market and filter out the 'good' ones. After all I'd be working so hard to make the company succeed right? Why doesnt it work that way?
You might think I just dont have the needed skills. Heres a hint: I only have 2 years of a 4-year college. But my OS experience includes QNX and Plan9. I can do fancy stuff with vbscript + ADSI and have benchmarked 8 different relational databases. I can program in QT3.0, Perl, ANSI C Visual Basic, Assembly. Do I have to produce massive breakthrough OpenSource apps to enter the market? I really dont know people in this new country and the last one was a third-world country not worth going back to.
Does anyone have a simple answer to this beside "hey live with it"??? I dont think people in other fields of work go through this much jobsearch wrangling. I understand the market is crapshoot now, but what about the very lousy Sysadmins Ive met who managed pServers and didnt know what a WINS server is? People who land J2EE contracts.. and THEN start learning the damn thing. People who setup a website in IIS + Windows because "Microsoft is the biggest company" and say "Linux is just like DOS".
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
I figure if you are a Sysadmin and you can't get a job as a Network Admin, you must be a Windows Sysadmin. Learn Unix and the jump is easy.
One possibility that comes to mind is that you are at a place that is too big for you to immediately "move up" and take the reigns of network administration. You might need to move to a smaller organization where you can apply your current skills in sysadmin 20%, and then devote the other 80% to expanding your skills to networking and management (of systems and networks).
It's sort of like the navy -- to go up in the ranks, you sometimes have to move to a smaller ship!