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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?"
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