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Upgrading Training and Certification?
"I checked out just about every 'school' offering training and placement in the New York City area, and frankly each of them almost had me running screaming into the night. Atrocious facilities, hot, stuffy, cramped classrooms and teachers whose every other words are 'memorize this--it will be on the test.'
Most places were shocked when I said I didn't care about certifications and exams. I explained that I need not just the theory but some hands-on experience with hardware that I don't have access to at home, and knowledge sufficient to at least get me something entry-level once again.
I learn best by demonstration and instruction so CBT CD-ROMs and 'go-read-a-book' aren't viable options for me. Since I'm not currently employed, I also need some form of placement assistance as well. Frankly, I didn't think this was too much to ask for until I really started looking. I looked at Learning Tree specifically, but their policies are strictly business-to-business training, not to individuals."
If you just stick to the schools that "teach to the exams" you will get more than nibbles on that resume.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
If it were me, I'd focus on Linux right now. Ya I know big surprise coming from a /. post, but seriously -- I have seen a huge influx of Linux related admin jobs around here.
Several coworkers, and myself, have taken courses with ITI. [www.iti.com] I've been impressed by the breadth and depth of knowledge they come out of the course with. I've always been disappointed by courses that skim the surface, or that pander to the lowest common denominator in the class. Instead, ITI tends to weed out those who can't keep up, rewarding the bright folks who pay attention.
Perhaps try seeing if you can get a non-profit organization to go along with you. They provide some of the hardware, and you 'learn on the fly'?
Every incompetant dimwit and his mother has A+ certification... Which is why it doesn't mean jack anymore except maybe to get a job at Best Buy.
Repeal the DMCA!
Why not check out some local community colleges?
Many have expensive hardware that you can play with and will teach you lots of stuff that would never even be on one of those exams.
..Free Live Free...
For my money, there's no better way than learning on my own. You can buy some used hardware cheap and play with that. Buy an OS or two and play with it. Buy a book or two, study them, and apply what you learned. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you can get some instruction, but having gained some knowledge on your own will help you in class. Hell, you may even be able to get credit for it, who knows?
Perhaps you may want to try DeVry... They seem to have pretty good hands-on programs and we have had pretty good success with DeVry grads in the past.
If you can not find classes to teach the skills companies want, then teach yourself!
There are many useful books out there on every computing subject, and all you need is the self-discipline to assign yourself learning projects. While you may not have a 'certificate', you will be able to confidently add it to your resume, and walk the talk.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I understand about learning by demonstration, but you seem to have exhausted those options. So maybe learning by doing would not be ideal, but better than the instruction that is available.
I know there's a simulator for the CCNA. As for solaris, you could always get solaris x86, buy an old sun off ebay, or pick up the (relatively) cheap blade 100 to get some hands on.
The only individual training company I've heard good things about was DevelopMentor. Unfortunately they focus on software development, not administration or networking.
It has been my experience (and others that I know) that getting a job is a lot easier if you know someone at the place you want work at. If they have enough swag to put in a good word for you, that foot in the door could push your resume to the top of the stack. Cold calls are a rough way to go.
Training? Necessary.. but experience is king.
Speak truth to power.
You didn't discuss this in your article, but do you have a college education or are you self-taught? This isn't 1999 anymore, the job market is right. Really tight. Virtually every job ad I've looked at required *at least* a BS, and many even want a masters. It may not even matter how much experience you have or how good you are, someone with a BS probably has an edge over you (if you don't have one). Assuming you don't have a BS, I would start taking classes at one of the many fine universities in NYC. CUNY is a cheap public university in NYC, if price is a big concern. If you do have a BS, think about a masters or maybe take the teachers advice on going for certifications. These days, paper chasing may get you a job faster than hands-on experience.
Karma: Excellent (In Soviet Russia, karma pimps YOU)
you are an NT bitch who knows nothing and you want to take more classes so you can pretend to know more. fag . stick to xp
I've been thinking the same thing, but having been in a lowly sys-admin job for a while I have a taste for something more exotic.
I would really want to get credentialed in some high-end CAD administration like Catia, Cadence or Mentor Graphics (hopefully more mechanical engineering then electrical engineering since I have a degree in ME). It would be cool to be an admin of high end 3-D software also. The ultimate would be admining a Catia shop with its own NC-Mill and other machinist tools.
There the problem seems to be chicken and egg like on a level that is more extreme then sys-admining. I need to find a job that will support me through the multi-thousand dollar seminars. But the jobs all want me to have already taken the seminars and have the experience.
Is there any admins of more specialized exotic software that can share with me how they got there? Perhaps I need to quit this job and get a lower paying ME job to get there.
If you are looking for Solaris training, go right to Sun. Their courses are not cheap ($2500-3000 per class) but you get hands-on, books that are worth their weight in gold, and a good feel for Solaris. And the other benefit of coughing up that kind of cash is that only people "who want to be there" will be present. My previous job gave us three weeks of Solaris training (not by Sun), and three of us spent most of that time training everybody else! I wouldn't worry about Cisco training, there are lots of CCNA's out of work. And although many people will tell you "learn Linux", I think having some education and experience with a major vendor's product is more helpful (in my case Solaris and AIX). But that is just my opinion.
I took the CCNP Boot Camp at Global Knowledge a little over a year ago and was very happy. A lot of hands on work with some of the best instructors I've ever had. We covered a lot of real world scenarios that I use constantly now.
:)
I absolutely hate certification mills, and this wasn't one. Good facilities with plenty of lab equipment to go around. They also bring in snacks, which were great.
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/training/offline/partn ers/search?country=us&wslang=en
Training is about passing the cert exams. Why? That's what most people want.
People want the certs because they think its the key to a job. Or people need the certs, because their PHBs require them to get/keep/update certs.
PHBs want certs because it shows they're hiring a "qualified" workforce. HR people screen for certs because they're usually too ignorant to look for anything else, and they all have nice acronyms they can type into search engines.
If you want to actually *learn* something, most IT training isn't the place to find it. Cisco training by and large is pretty good, but it still focuses a lot on "Psst, it's on the CCNA test". I've taken MS training that's been OK, although the "learning" was something that could have been compressed into 2 days, minus the bullshit and compulsory 20 minute cig breaks every 60 minutes.
I think the best learning is the hardest kind; pounding your head against the CRT until the manpages, HOWTOs and other stuff sink in and you can actually string stuff together. It's incredibly frustrating and time consuming compared to having someone teach you, but AFAIK there's no one actually *teaching* most of what most admins do.
everyone is getting the same certs you are, you need to set yourself apart from other. even if you're not getting paid for it, you're getting experience. wasting 3 grand just to add a line on your resume saying your certified doesn't seem worth it. study on your own to get the cert and get any experience you can...
No school is going to do more than get you to pass the exams - that's all they're there to do, that's all they get paid for, and they don't have the facilities to run a real-world environment.
On the plus side, most hiring managers don't know jack shit anyway and can't see past the certification letters, so even though it seems like a waste of time, it will open doors.
The other approach is to lie the heck out of your resume just to get it past the HR screener, then be honest once you actually talk to the manager on an interview. It's a bold approach that might backfire, but it might also work if you have the balls.
They might point you right back to the place's you've already been, but you might want to check the vendor's sites for training partners. I know Cisco and Checkpoint both have complete training subsections with links to locations and partners. That's where I'd start.
I recommend purchasing a 1700 router and/or a 2900 switch from ebay. You can set up configurations, learn the CLI and play around. Flash the rom, reload the O/S. All that. The cost is less - be patient and you can get a 2900 for less than $400 like I did.
After the test you can resell it for what you got or you can keep it and use it in your home. Can't do either with a class.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
You and me both have been out of work since 2k...
Any drive up 101 in the bay area would tell you that the economy here evaporated like the water in the salt marshes out in the bay. The mass exodous of people OUT of the bay area since the crash hasn't helped things at all either, since the companies they are retreating from either closed shop, outsourced in some manner (domestic or foriegn) or they've made the coders become coder/tech writer/IT persons/janitors all rolled into one.
I hate to say it, but IT people seem like more of a perk to companies so the coders don't have to take on that roll. Unfortunatly having 20 coders arguing over the network setup usually results in a half-assed network that we IT guys end up cleaning up in the end when the company caves in and decides to make a budget for IT again.
After working for PHB's for 8 years, me and my IT buds are burnt out. Working for people you KNOW are dumber than you eventually might bring you to this conclusion..
If I know i'm smarter than this jackass who can't copy and paste something into his powerpoint presentation, then why is HE the boss, and why am I his lackey?
So my advice to you is don't worry about the job market right now in IT. Most companies are outsoucing IT to save money, so you could go down, file a ficticous business name for 40 bucks and be in business. Be your own telemarketer, call up the CFO's of companies in your area and ask them if they would like to "outsource" IT. PHB's love that buzzword "Outsource"
That was three things.
is about as good and respected in the industry as A+ certification. If you're going to get a Cisco cert, you have to get at least CCNP. In addition, check out the new security cert they're offering.
In my opinion, if you have experience with networks (NT or therwise) I'm sure you could home study for the CCNP (the RAS exam is the most difficult) cert.
I can tell you that the West Coast is FLOODED with MCSE and CCNA types... don't know about the East Coast.
Good luck.
A lot of community colleges have arrangements with Cisco to be authorized to teach thier Academy Program. The CCNA Academy alone is 4 semesters, so you can see they're aren't skipping much. And the end of the 4 semesters, you get to take the cert at like 1/3 the cost. Heck, if I remember correctly, they'll even give you a second attempt at the same price.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
ITI is useless. You leave there with about $30k in student debts and in a field where the hiring is very weak.
I've met some really bright people that came from ITI, but the majority I've met (80%) are people who feel that they're supposed to earn a wad a cash without proving themselves. It sucks that one pays so much for schooling but that doesn't give you a right to demand a massive salary or delude yourself that you're better qualified.
Go to Sheridan College or some other technical school. It's cheaper, more well-rounded, and has placement people who actually care for you to get a good job.
Listen carefully.
Buy a PC and work with that. Install as many different systems and become comfortable with that, including Solaris x86.
Don't waste money on certifications, they won't help enough to give you the edge.
They offer a good range of courses and two locations, 1 in LIC (Queens) and 1 at the Empire State Building. their site is http://www.netcominfo.com/
What you're really saying is that you want a CS graduate degree.
I recently took a class from HP (it was HP-UX for experienced sysadmins) and it was a great class. There were only 8 people in the class, the teacher was very knowledgeable, and we were using modern equipment. We were learning for the sake of learning. No one was going to use NIS? Fine, we skipped that. If you want the exam prep, it was a totally different class.
Admittedly, this was just one class from one instructor, but the facilities should be at least comparable. There's one in the New York area. And, of course, you'd be learning something HP specific. Check out their web site for more info.
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
"NT-based sysadmin"
<CTRL> <ALT> <DEL>
Are you an American who worked in Canada and then decided to move back to USA?
If you are a Canadian wanting to work in America, do you require any form of work permit?
I found that registering a business name and a business license is the _best_ form of certification.
Certification means "To confirm as genuine". People are more apt to believe someone with a business card can fix their computer woes than a stack full of resumes littered with acronyms (CNE, MCSE, CCNA, A+, WYSIWYG, ad infinitum ad nauseum)
If you know your stuff and can fix a clients problem, it doesn't matter what your certification is. All people want are results.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
If you didn't mention you were unemployed, I'd say apply to your local university and get a B.S. in Information Systems Management or something similar. From what I've seen, most IT positions these days require a B.S. in a computer related field. A degree in ISM can be your ticket into a nice job. Plus, most Universities have great job placment programs.
However since you said you were unemployed, all I can say is get some student loans and/or hit up the local Junior College for some supplemental education. You'll have better luck their than at most of these technical colleges that advertise on tv.
Ok here is the skinny from my experience and flame away. But if you do it this way you can grab a lot of certs and learn a lot along the way. Nothing is better than real world experience but a little paper behind you doesn;t hurt.
A+ - Everyone and is brother does have it. So get it anyway. One book and one week studying. Took the tests back to back. Shows you have some basic hardware knowledge. Cause hardware and software knowledge don't exactly walk hand in hand.
Net+ - Another easy one but really good in the sense of getting you up to speed on networking essentials. Subnetting, IP, the language and eqipment.
Linux + - Learn the fundementals of Linux - Pass the test. Good starting block for your RHCE.
RHCE- Do I need to explain this one? Red Hat is the industry standard Linux at the moment.
AS for the MS stuff. It is good to have the hands on experience and the classes as well. the 2000 and net stuff is not all that easy. The 4.0 was a walk in the park. Professional and server are easy exams. But AD and the other ones are a bitch because they expect you to have experience with the product. And the exams are adaptive, very hard to teach the test with these. And also whose fault is it if you but cheat sheets?
I am a fairly good Linux Admin, and a Fairly good Linux admin. I do not code. Don't want to. I just like keeping the highways a rolling. I don't care what you drive on them.
But I will say this. A good Linux admin will not be a good windows admin and vice versa. Because both will be predisposed to see all bad in the opposite product. I look at windows and linux for the respective uses of each. Do not tie yourself down with one. Stay off of OS bandwagons. Learn as much as you can about both. Or any OS you can.
I find myself time and time again sitting in the middle of the fence. My linux pals who dog Windows cause, they ***gasp*** cant admin it, and are too proud to ask someone or check MSDN. Or the Windows bunch who are stuck on reinstall when something craps out.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
you should open the school you need, since there aren't any around
Well, the best way to get a job, is to HAVE A JOB! I know, it is a catch-22 but it follows the logic of if you were any good someone would have hired you. It is an asine attitude but what can you do.
Most manager's don't at certifications so much as a evaluation of skill any more. Usually if you have 6 years of experience in something and get certified in that you will look good, rather than you have been in the business 6 years, got certified in JYMBO software, but have no experience.
So what I am basically saying is, get certified in the stuff you already know, people will respect that more than, the Course to Pass Exam
Now I find myself wanting to get back into IT professionally, but my resume is getting no nibbles at all (over 800 resumes submitted in the last year or so)
As the title of this reply says, the condition of the market really depends upon your perspective as one who does the hiring or if you are looking for a job. I can't tell you how many good resumes I have rejected in the past couple of years for a number of reasons. There are so many highly qualified folks out there looking for work right now that one can afford to be quite selective when hiring. Man, some of the resumes that have ended up on my desk almost scare me from being over qualified. These are really smart and capable people and I want to surround myself with people like that, but I can only hire so many.
I decided to take some training courses to get me back up to speed not just in the W-Intel world, but give me some usable knowledge of Solaris, a CCNA and Checkpoint.
I would suggest that getting a good all around knowledge of UNIX under your belt as Windows certification (as well as many others) does not really say much to me. What is most important is that you are capable of getting work accomplished, so perhaps including in your resume projects you have worked on and some description of what they were.
Additionally I usually take applicants out to lunch or dinner and talk about the task they are interested in applying for and seeing how they interact socially. As a former dean of our medical school once told me, "Hey, if I can't enjoy a meal with someone, I certainly can't work with them". So, yeah, the interview is very important and I have rejected a couple of highly qualified applicants because they needed some social skills. One highly qualified dude (on paper) with a PhD in computational chemistry actually snapped his fingers at a waitress during lunch and demeaned her in front of the entire resturaunt and I simply will not tolerate that sort of behavior.
I learn best by demonstration and instruction so CBT CD-ROMs and 'go-read-a-book' aren't viable options for me.
From your description, it sounds like you might be interested in going back to school? It's not as bad as it sounds and I know many folks including a brother-in-law who after looking for over a year for a job as a technical writer decided he wanted to go back for a formal theory based approach to his interests last year. He was able to get a second B.S. pretty quickly and grooved on the academic thing and is now in grad school.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Workforce Investment Act of 1998
If they still have funding and you're currently unemployed, check them out. Government assisted retraining. Lots of paperwork and meetings, but if you're approved, you get up to $10k to spend on training: that's how I got my CCNP.
To start the process find your local One Stop. Go there and sign up and attend there introduction seminar. After that you should be assigned a case worker. From there do everything they ask and hopefully you'll be accepted.
Good luck!
Although there are facets of Information Technology that are subjective and difficult to measure, management and HR types are determined to try to find quantifiable ways to differentiate candidates. Hold your nose and get some certificates. Join the army as an Information Warrier. Get a meaningful Cert from an organization like SANS.
'ta
Typical touchy attitude from Westerners. The job market gets tight and right away people start looking at the foreigners.
...
Not everyone is after your job, girl, car, suburban home, etc
Grow up!
My advice would be to go with a company called TechSkills. They've got lots of offices across the US, and - as you seem to prefer - focus more on administration than software dev. I'm working on my Oracle DBA with them (one more test to go!), and they offer all sorts of cert training. The training itself is a combination of CBT, books at home, mentor-led classes (class sizes are limited to 5-7 people max) and all the hands-on you could want.
I'm not a paid employee, just a satisfied customer.
http://www.techskills.com
Well, this may be a little off-topic, but when I was hiring (current position doesn't involve it), I NEVER looked for certifications. Never, ever, ever. It almost counted against somebody if they emphasized certs too much. Of course, that was me, and it's a fact of life that a lot of companies do look at them.
More to the point, though, is that hiring in IT is practically at a standstill right now, and it's not limited to Silicon Valley. As technology progresses, people are learning to do the job with fewer people. Five years ago, you'd figure one IT guy to support about 30 seats. Now it's more like one person per 70-90 seats. And the inrush of people during the bubble years means that the supply/demand balance is incredibly out of whack. My old boss in SF was the best I've ever worked for, he has the best connections you could have out there, 15+ years of big name experience, and he's been out of work for 18 months. So right now, it doesn't matter what you have on your resume, if you're not currently working, or don't know somebody who's hiring, it's going to be incredibly hard to get a job in IT. I wouldn't spend a nickle of my own money getting certified, because right now it just isn't going to help. A lot of the ads you see posted are just there so the hiring manager can say he did a thorough search, but odds are he already knows who he wants to hire.
Seriously, I would say books are your best bet to get a better understanding of everything, although having an instructor who knows thier shit would be better than a book. The problem is spending a day in a bookstore weeding out the books that are shit...but if you're looking to avoid paying a massive amount of cash for a class, grab a good book and practice...
There are some things you will only learn by having hand on experience with an actual router in your hands. Back in the day, it seemed like all the classes and training were using the 2501 for testing. I wanted to pipe in and mention a very good software simulator of a small LAN environment.
http://www.boson.com/netsim/
Ive used this software, and it is really good. You can drag and drop different routers and connect them up through swtiches or serial cables and run through all the commands of setting up a connection. Setup RIP, IGRP static routes, etc.. It feels very much like being logged in to a cisco router.
I think we have to tackle this differently.
We need techniques for cold calling. ok you may have friends at a prospective company, but the chances are slim.
I think we need better techniques for resume application and a greater understanding of the HR screening process so that we know how it works, thus how to work with effectively.
Hint: in the long run, you'll be much better off with a good university degree.
Do some research what universities fit your needs and get started
Here are some prominent pointers
- NYU
- Columbia
For more, check out the google directory , for exampleWhile this may not be directly applicable to your situation as a sysadmin where you're not churning out a deliverable product, for me, I've been writing my own little demo programs and even articles, which helps both my own learning, demonstrates a genuine interest to employers (you're willing to take the initiative to learn on your own, outside of requirements), and allows you to have a tangible "portfolio" of work to show employers.
Perhaps you could learn on your own and do your own exploring (in conjunction with "formal" traning) write articles about various sysadmin tasks, or various tricks that would be helpful in the task. Post them on a website, and put that in your resume, for instance.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
How much money are you planning on spending? If you want really excellent training, it's going to cost a fair amount of money. Usually around $1500-$2500 ish a week. And you have to decide what you want training in. If you're interested in Solaris, Sun offers a bunch of classes in several New York facilities. Here's a link to their training site: Sun Solaris Training
The couple of classes I've had from Sun have been quite good. Some hands on on equipment that I don't own myself at clean facilities with knowlegable instructors. If you want Linux training, probably the easiest/best place to get it is from Red Hat. They also have a site in NYC, in the financial district, and they provide lunch every day (very cool). Their classes also have hands on labs, but the equipment isn't anything that you wouldn't have at your own house. They teach their classes on PCs. Red Hat's site is Red Hat Leaning Services
Going to the product manufacturer is usually the best way to get top notch training, I'm just using Sun and Red Hat as examples, they have been the ones that I was most happy with. They, product manufacturers, hire instructors who are familiar with the product and who can answer a fair amount (maybe even all) of your questions. And unlike CBT, can provide alternative explanations when the one they use just doesn't get through to you.
The big problem with going to these classes is that, while good, they can be prohibitively expensive. If this is a limiting factor for you, then someone above suggested Community College. I think that this was an excellent suggestion. They are far less expensive, but it's been my experience that the instruction is not always as good.
-Runz
Certifications are for generally for people who ALREADY have the hands on and practical knowledge/experience and just need a piece of paper to prove it.
If your needing to be taught something new then you should go to college (just take classes that are in interesting to you - not that you need to go for another 4 years or anything). Thats what it's for.
Ave Molech Setting
As a windows 2000 administrator, I have recently had a performance review. While they told me that my review is merit based, the $$ compensation reflected directly how much certification I received in the last year. There are companies (like mine) who only look at one thing, letters behind your name. For a lot of people, regardless of their qualifications, this gets them through the door while other, more qualified people still hunt because they're missing that little MCSE or CCNA. I'd like to think that there are companies out there who actually care about what you do and how you do it (and pay appropriately for it). It just seem that the "teach-to-exams" schools offer more immediate and direct results (regardless whether it benefits the individual or the market).
Perhaps the problem is in that "Over 800 resumes" in one year.
As someone who does first line review and decisions of candidates, I can say with certainly that a resume that appears to be crafted to address each need that we state in the ad is more likely to get considered. Obviously, there are limits to this, but you may want to consider more closely the idea of putting more effort into fewer resumes, rather than a blanketing of 800 or so.
*everything* is Orwellian to cats.
It's not exactly training, but it IS a job: set up your own company. It is difficult in the IT world, no doubt - but if you can analyse your local market and find the right niche, you will not only be able to bring bread on your own table but potentially also those of future employers. Setting up a company is 90% "just get out there and start doing it"-balls and 10% common sense. Good luck :)
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
My company sells practice exams (www.boson.com). Our main seller is the Cisco ones. But we also have all the other big ones (total I think 300+) We also have Linux/Solaris/Checkpoint/Java...
Also for those who are out of a job, we are looking for exam authors. Basicly anyone can start, and authours recive 40% of sales. Contact me at raphael at boson . com
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Those Kiwis are so silly. Always feeling insecure about their standing next to the Aussies.
I have just come back from the first part of a Java course at City University. The teacher emphasised that he was not grooming us for the Sun Exam, rather the concepts of OO modelling etc. The course cost £240 (about $350 USD) for ten weeks of two hours a week lessons.
per mere, per terras
As an instructor for a little-training-company-that could, TechSkills, I agree with much that's been said about the glut of CompTIA (and Microsoft, for that matter) certified individuals. However, it should be very clear that the glut is irrelevant to HR depts.
To answer the original question, I refer you to the link above. ;)
I'm currently based in Phoenix, but TechSkills has thirty-some branches around the states, and, of course, distance-learning options.
And, yes, we do more than just 'teach to the exams'.
-ELf: A+, Network+, i-Net+, Linux+, CCNA, MCIWA, MCSASi tibi te corpus pulchrum habere narrem, habeasne id contra me?
The world will always need ditch diggers, or you could join the military and shoot brown people for fun and profit.
Hammer of Truth
If you don't know how to code then you are not a good linux or any *nix admin. That's the sad and sorry truth. You may be competent, but you are definitely not good.
..Free Live Free...
"I learn best by demonstration and instruction so CBT CD-ROMs and 'go-read-a-book' aren't
viable options for me. Since I'm not currently employed, I also need some form of
placement assistance as well."
If you aren't willing to learn by playing around, then get the hell out of this field. People who just want to be shown are part of the problem with crappy IT departments. Either GET willing to 'go read a book' or stay out of the field.
Sorry to be so harsh, but learning by trying is important. If you aren't willing to do it, then good riddance.
These technical training centers will try to sell you on everything from class schedules to tasty snacks, but make sure you ask about the instructor who will be teaching the class. They'll be the most important factor, since you said you learn by demonstration.
... for ... word. The first class day will be introductions, so you won't know which you have until you've lost your opportunity to get your money back. Ask in advance!
There are instructors that use the text as an outline for conveying their knowledge, and there are other instructors who will simply sit and read it aloud word
An instructor should have some teaching experience, but they also need real world experience. Technical knowledge outside the simple lab examples will be very valuable, and it will rub off on the topics they present to the class.
High-quality technical talent is not impossible to find these days, so it is really a matter if the institution wants to hire talent, or not.
Since you mentioned Solaris, I will point out that the Sun training classes I have been to were all superb. Sun's professors all have related college degrees and years of real experience. Classrooms are top-notch, with Sun boxes on well-configured networks. The books are actually useful, although some are the size of phone books. Sun's tests are designed around the courses and vice-versa, so you can take the class, actually learn something, and then get certified.
Sun's education program does have some downsides. First and formost, the classes are expensive, ranging from 2000 to 4000 dollaris. Second, Sun's certification exams suck, and some of them appear to have be written by people with a very poor grasp of the english language; some of the questions on the Solaris 7 Exam part II were so poorly written that none of the answers made sense.
If you want to try Sun, check out http://suned.sun.com.
One more piece of advice, many people in training are there because of new project ramp-ups, and have employers who are hiring, so take resumes on paper, floppy, and CD.
I noticed on dice, that they have a lot of contracts on there lately. Take whatever comes, it does'nt matter if its a contract or a permament position at the moment. Only employers(usually HR but some managers) who don't understand the market get hung up over your position of employment.
I'm w/ the previous reply, how'd u become a linux admin and not program??
That still leaves a lot to screen, but the fact of the matter is that having a University Degree is the intellectual equivalent of being a Marine: 3-4 years of hard mental work, each semester of which builds on the previous.
Having a half dozen "certifications" isn't really that impressive. That's like having half a dozen certificates that you can jump a 4' bar. A single university degree, OTOH, means you can polejump 12'.
There. Now watch the hoardes of high schoolers mod me down as "troll" or "flamebait" because they don't like the truth.
When I was starting out I had no experience, except hacking from home, and no training. I walked into the main office of a bank and asked to see the sys admin and told him I would come in x amount of hours a week to work for free if he would show me what he knew.
This worked out very well, after about two months I was offered a "real" job assisting him admin the bank's larg array of Novell servers and Cisco routers.
I am not saying this will work for everyone, but it did for me.
Only 800 resumes in a year? You should upgrade to the new Resume Spammer 3.0 software. It's multi language features allow you to send resume to every job opening in every country. Seriously though, are these quality resumes your sending out that include a cover letter tailored to the particular position you're applying for? I also like to tweak my resume a bit to emphasize the particular skills they're looking for.
With the certs necessary for certain "partner" agreements, there was no choice at the time. My employer (at the time) paid for it, around $10k counting my wages. Considering I already had 12+ years experience making PCs talk to each other, it was still worth it for the resouces. Each of us had plenty of lab space as well as a reasonably good workstation.
YMMV, but this was on the north side of Grand Rapids, MI, and I might have gotten lucky with the instructors' savvy and lectern-side manners. One of them was a seasoned ex-IBM field tech - I learned the most from him.
Still, one could just go there and *learn for the tests*, but it takes little more effort to pursue knowledge beyond *rote*.
db
Cig:
ôô
(over 800 resumes submitted in the last year or so)
This is basically Resume Spam, and you shouldn't expect to get decent responses from these kinds of tactics.
IF IT guys whine all day about spam overrunning their system, then HR guys whine all day about getting overrun with resumes that are clearly being shotgunned. To be fair, it takes time and money to set up interviews with people (especially in an area that many managers consider the staff to be commodities). Why should I waste my time with someone who might not even still be in the job market. Put a little effort into hitting the streets and generating some leads. No matter what anyone claims (Monster.com), job hunting doesn't work by pressing buttons on some control panel.
I know it sounds trivial and off topic but I'm serious. Check your resume.
Unless you're horribly unqualified or applying for jobs that're totally out of your league, you should have got at least a few responses off 800 resumes - assuming they're great resumes.
I went through 6 months of searching, ending a little over a year ago. About the only thing that really changed from the beginning, where I was getting no responses, to the end, where I was getting [relatively] regular ones, was the resume. Sure, I worked on my skillsets but self-taught Perl wasn't what made the difference.
The point is, I started by writing great resumes that focused on everything I, as a tech, thought was valuable. Unfortunately, what's valuable to a tech and what gets you employed as a tech are two totally different things.
You put down that you have JSP, the HR department that're told to look for a web programmer with Java&JSP will discount you because you don't have "Java" - the other techs will never see the resume to realise the mistake. You put down a list of dry technical skills (because it's a tech position, after all) and the "manager" of the department who has a business degree and no IT experience won't hire you because they're looking for a team player. You try listing every technical skill and spill on to a third page - it gets thrown in the trash by someone who's received 300 resumes and doesn't want the hassle of reading to the last page where you mention the valuable stuff or they skip straight to the middle and miss the things you carefully put at the front.
Those O'Reilly books that have been tempting you will be one of the best investments you've ever made once you're working. Until then, a really good resume book is probably more valuable.
I honestly believe that, stupid as it may be, a perfect resume will get a significantly less skilled person a job much faster in the current flooded market than a significantly more skilled person with an "adequate" resume.
Like I said at the start, unless you're applying way out of your league, with 800 refusals, your resume is almost certainly good but not the perfect example that you need in the current market.
Best Buy does not even require an A+. They say they require it for tech supervisers but they don't really. I would venture to say that about one in 10 of their techs are certified. They hire salesman that will sell your a $30.00 defragmentation and whatnot. Don't EVER take your computer to best buy... they hire the most incompetent people (but look at what they pay..). FYI: I worked their over 2 years... (not happy about it at all).
A year back I finished my high-schools and got into Network Security Certification track first took ccna then cisco secure pix firewall specialist, cisco secure vpn specialist, cisco secure ids specialist-------And soon after I finished the cs ids I send 14 resumes in which I got a respond from 3 companies, I decide on with $3500 as a Intrusion Detection in charge. [heh-
The only exam which I really wasn't contented with is the CCNA, I felt as if I had already done the exam
summary: Certification does matter these days bt choosing the right one is the choice to be made
---
sig.(rypto*
#3 pencils and quadrille pads.
Having recently gotten my RHCE I can tell you that if you only know how to code, then you wont be getting certified any time soon.
Agreed.
No one's going to pay you big bucks for just babysitting shit anymore...
CCIEs are worth something; CCNP by itself ain't worth shit.
You made some good points. I just finished reading a mailing list where one guy in Silicon Valley applied for an IT job along with 5,000 other people.
:)
I'd suggest the guy that posted the article forget about school, certs, and all the rest of the stuff that companies claim they want as a smoke screen to exclude local workers. If he's really crazy enough to want a job in a disappearing profession like American IT, he should move to India. Then he can either come back as an H-1B or L-1 or stay in India and get one of the outsourced jobs.
The part I don't understand is that when the manufacturing jobs went overseas, we were told that it was a good thing because our workforce could be redeployed into the exploding field of Information Technology. Now that IT jobs are following the manufacturing jobs, what are the displaced resident workers supposed to do? Is it Burger Technology for all of us? Can we make a living providing fast food for each other?
American companies are claiming they have to outsource their IT work to remain competitive. With only burger-flippers left in America, who will buy their products? Are there enough marketroids, PHBs, and CEOs to keep the economy alive, or is there some new field that all the IT workers can move to?
And I am not dissing burger-flippers - I do enjoy the forbidden quarter-pounder and fries on occasion. They just don't get paid very much.
They are called universities, or in your
country perhaps college.
At any rate, see if you can find one in your neighbourhood.
I faced a similar problem of hitting a wall of advancement and went back to school. I'm attending a real state university where I'm upgrading my Computer Information Systems associate degree to a Computer Science bachelor degree (with both math and business administration as minors).
Real universities will have fully stocked computer labs. Many are Microsoft or Cisco affiliated training partners so if you want to get the enterprise software (Exchange, IIS, MOM) or have a lab full of nice Catalyst routers to play with they are the place to go.
Most human resources people will perk up at an accredited university on a resume than someplace like Learning Tree or Global Knowledge.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
I have to say I disagree. Knowing how to write code really doesn't have anything to do with Administration in the pure sense. But then again, my idea of coding is programming, not shell scripting. You can be fine admin without any programming experience at all. Your talking about two seperate animals really.
"Red Hat IS the industry standard in Linux at the moment"
Yeah, and its courses are plainly mapped to LPI's track (which is great, congrats redhat and thx very much).
So its better to have a general certification than a specialized one, especially in the realm of Linux where, if you really dont know anything but Red Hat administration, then you dont know too much.
So get an LPI certification, it will be worth it and if you run into a SuSe, Debian or Mandrake shop you can still show through paper you are knowledgable.
NO SIG
Here's my big gripe about Certificate Programs.
Just about every MSCE/RHCE/A+/CCNA/whatnot course I have seen is comprised of several all-day courses. Usually they come in a format like 'Monday-Friday, 8:30am - 4:30pm' or '5 saturdays, 8:30am - 5:30pm'.
I've done this back in college and as recently as 2 months ago, and everyone I have spoken to agrees.
YOU ARE NOT A ROBOT. This is not learning, it's cramming. It is impossible to learn that way. Your brain cannot retain that many new facts for a long period of time.
If you spend 8 hours a day in a classroom, you will forget the vast majority of the knowledge in a few weeks. Sure, you may pass your CCNA, but you won't be able to apply your knowledge afterwards, so what's the point?
If you do take these classes, take it for review, if you can afford it. (The RHCE courses cost about $3000, not including the $700 test).
The only real way to learn computers is a gradual, hands-on approach. Give yourself some time to retain the knowledge.
Go ahead, take the test, get the certificate. $700 isn't much money, relatively speaking, and will probably pay for itself quickly.
Read books, practice, take breaks. It's the only way to learn.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I realize this will probably get me flamed, but lets be serious. All you've said so far is why you can't do something. Are you telling me practicing on your own, taking an exam, picking up uber cheap hardware from a comp shop, buying a beatup 2600 router off ebay, are all beyond you? Make something happen man...don't complain on slashdot and expect other people to save you. Ask for advice thats fine, but endlessly whine about how hard it is...get real there are people starving all over the world.
If I know i'm smarter than this jackass who can't copy and paste something into his powerpoint presentation, then why is HE the boss, and why am I his lackey?
because the ppt is only a means of communicating something he can do better. Or at least, an inability to learn ppt doesn't suggest he can't do his job.
worse then burger king.
:::goes back to sleep:::
we're all destined to become managers.
the SUNY system (State University of New York) as a New york native. I'm on the other side of the state from you, but I've been to "technical schools", certification schools, and the SUNY system. Yeah, a degree takes a lot longer and it's a lot more work - but I've found that the state colleges and universities are quite thorough and in-depth, at least in my area (Lewiston-Queenston border/Niagara Falls) The "technical" and certification schools were basically ripoff cram courses for exams, with no real in-depth knowledge.
The state system has world-class equipment too, (again, at least in my area) often used to support other academic areas in the school system.
Just a thought, anyway. Hope you consider it.
C|N>K
I don't consider myself a coder.
1. I do HTML (dont consider this coding)
2. I can do Perl, and PHP, a little of both, can hack up stuff if needed(don't consider this coding)
3. I can do shell scripting(THIS IS NOT CODING in my book)
I can compile, make, you name it. Change various lines to do what it needs to do. But I dont consider that coding. I hold higher standards for coders.
Let it be said I don't code WHOLE programs from scratch. I do kludges when necessary to make things talk to each other.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I don't accept the general statement that certifications are worth squat. I owe most of my massice salary increases to my certifications (I average one major one/year which is NOT difficult to do) and I have received about a 25 - 35% pay increase every year over the past eight years. I started as a PC tech making $20,000 and I am now a Security Consultant making $140,000. Not bad for no college degree. The key isn't just certifications of course but building on them. The certs get you in the door. Your skills will keep you there.
All the certifications are not worth the paper they are printed on if you can back up what your suppose to know. If you know NT admin and dont have the certs then it might be worth while to get them. If you dont have the skills and think having the cert will get you a job then skip it.
I went through way to many people when I was hiring. Most had certs and no real training to back it up. Hmm, I dont know how many MCSE's that had never loaded a machine from the ground up nor had any real world experience with PC's except playing some RPG game.
why don't you out of job programmer types make some killer video games?
god....i know coders...and they couldn't fix a computer to save their life...they couldn't setup an enterprise ANYTHING to save the planet.
if you are talking about a little scripting..then you just insulted all the real coders.
you just took your pistol out, shot yourself in the left foot...looked down took aim at the right foot, and shot that one too.
For sun stuff there is also the option I took ..
.. $300 for the testing center and a nice piece of paper sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard from SUN.
..
.. this will weed out invalid answers quite often.
.. Solaris 2.51 - 8 don't have a built in LDAP support .. and solaris loves to have different name services available .. like setting a NIS domain name even if you are on local files only.
.. there isn't anything about printing on the test.
.. going back to the syntax above, Solaris / Sun teaches ksh or csh .. not bash.
.. in VI there are 3 ways to do most anything and they want it one way.
.. no vim or others .. so if you for example try to move around with the arrow keys while in insert mode it will screw up.
Get official Sun manuals
Take 1 week to study first book
Take 2 days to study cram session book
Take Solaris Admin 1
Read second official book - 1 week
Read brief section in cram book
Take Solaris Admin 2
Result
Other recommendation for this test
Test is NOT adaptive
Study basic commmand syntax
Don't skip on the admin 1 chapters dealing with older technology like NIS / NIS+
DO skip the chapter on LPR
Knowing how to use command line for backing up to tape (not just tar) and using Solaris fdisk (format command) is needed
About 1/2 of it is specific commands and options
The tests themselves are not to bad, standard question answer steps.
Each runs about 65 questions each.
Solaris Admin 1 pass grade is 67%
Solaris Admin 2 pass grade is 70%
Things that threw me off a little were vi syntax and per directory ACLs
Also they want the answers using true unix VI
I passed both tests within a 2 weeks of each other, as required by my employer.
p.s.
the sorry sad truth is your post got a big fat 1.
That is pretty much my tale as well.
I stopped working full time in Dec 2000 and haven't looked back. Now I work approx 2-3 days/ week and charge $75/hour to do the same things I was doing for about one third that while I was working full time. The companies are happy because even though the service is pricey, it is less costly for them than having someone on full time. Hint: Look for the smaller shops...the ones that can't really justify having somebody there full time. They're your best prospects.
You're using her as bait, Master!
The cert schools will not teach you anything other than memory hooks so you can memorize and just get the piece of paper. I know you said self study is not the way so instead try joining up with the local user group's in town (hit up the linux one, microsoft one and maybe even a ccna study group.. Check your local computer rag). You'll probably learn more and make better business connections there than you ever would at one of those scam classroom cert classes.
Most the schools are worth a dam, the instructors are others out of work and can't find work. There are good school but hard to find. Usually little places that understand hands-on is the key and classes need to be longer than a week. In many way college/university extention courses are better because they run for a few weeks. That give you time to play with the info and come back and ask questions. Also helps to meet others and make some contacts.
The best training is to buy some hardware and setup a lab at home. Having a few machines, and basic network gear you can learn a lot. Then go and do some volenteer work. Lots of charities and other organizations need help with web sites and other computer tasks. You get some hands-on work for your resume and may meet some other with jobs.
My former employer was a Microsoft MSCTEC and they were required to have X amount of students in each class obtain their MCSE, otherwise they'd loose their MSCTEC certification.
One gimmic they'd do is that they'd have a drawing for a free vacation for students that pass all their required tests within 1 month of the final class. This helped motivate a large amount of the students. Prior to that, mainly those without a job would bother to take the tests (those whose employer were sending them to training didn't bother).
I hate to say it, but IT people seem like more of a perk to companies so the coders don't have to take on that roll. Unfortunatly having 20 coders arguing over the network setup usually results in a half-assed network that we IT guys end up cleaning up in the end when the company caves in and decides to make a budget for IT again. Since when are "coders" not IT people?
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Get the certs if you can. Why? There are *so many* people that are out of work, *anything* like that could give you the edge that you need.
People that have no certs but "have experience" are a dime a dozen.
Go the extra mile to stand out.
** Posted as an AC so that folks don't accuse me of brown-nosing in hopes of getting a discount to another class... ;-)
.NET and some one and two day seminars), and can say that they rock. There may be other training companies that are good (for example, I would guess that sysinternals.com's classes are great as well), but of those I've experienced, DevelopMentor is just on an entirely different level. The instructors know their stuff, are enthusiastic about it, and know how to communicate. The Guerilla class I took involved lots of hands-on (imagine a large stadium-seating room containing 100+ fast boxes with 18" LCD's ;-), and even a small programming contest at one point. (Yes, that class was particularly large. You'd think this wouldn't be good, but it enabled them to justify having most of the full-time staff of the company there, and you could get face time with just about *anyone* at meals, breaks and during the labs.) Their Guerilla classes, far from being a "teach to the test" bootcamp effort, are for those who understand coding, really enjoy it, and want to learn a new coding environment NOW ... who value being surrounded by other like-minded, smart folks as they learn, without being slowed down by the lowest-common-denominator types. I think part of the effectiveness is their positioning -- they position their classes as challenging, and as a result, tend to attract higher-end students who already have a clue and want more of one, and to scare away "corporate vacationers" and folks who don't know if they have an aptitude for coding.
.NET class on a geek high that lasted weeks, having been challenged more as a developer in that week than in any other week I could remember in the better part of a decade. It was practically orgasmic from time to time. Yes, it really was that good.
I've got to add here that I've taken a couple classes taught by DevelopMentor folks (Guerilla
Not a Win32/.NET platform person? They also have java classes. (I think they teach them on Windows, though...)
I left the Guerilla
sorry, i know this isnt exactly the same problem. but i have no idea where to go. ive heard mixed feelings about college, but i havent heard anything from anyone thats in the same position i am. i will be graduating for high school in june this year. and as of now i hold three certifications. A+, windows 2000 server, and windows 2000 professional. i will have an MCSA status by the end of the year. im applying for a scholarship to continue on with my certifications. however after that i dont know what to do. im not sure if i should get some college experience or just move into the workfield. any feedback would be greatly appreciated. thanks
Your local community college... while the classes they offer probably won't correlate directly to a certification, they can get you some good time in on the hardware.
What every you do, do NOT go to ITT TECH! Those schools are horrible. You get no hands on training and they don't even teach you what you need to know to pass certs. All that for 30,000 Dollars
If he's really crazy enough to want a job in a
disappearing profession like American IT, he should move to India. Then he can
either come back as an H-1B or L-1 or stay in India and get one of the
outsourced jobs.
Lol I was :) I guess it really depends on how much
thinkin the same thing awhile back
you love your work.. I mean shit, i'm starting to think it's not such a 1/2
baked idea now.
Yeah but judging from the amount of company closures over the last 2 years I think it's safe to say the bosses were idiots.
I'm a trainer. I teach Comptia (A+, N+, Server+) and Microsoft (the MCSE/MCSA ones) exams.
I'm not *really* a trainer. I'm a guy who has a whole bunch of certifications. I have about six years of experience as a consultant-type, but I'm doing training now. Training means not have to look for work every x months, and I like that.
Here's the deal: Nearly as I can tell, there are about three different types of training out there. There is "diploma mill" training, the MCSE in 2-weeks or your money back bullshit. Maybe that works for smoeone who is already an MCSE. It doesn't help the guy who hasn't touched a PC in three years.
There's also "softball" training. Teach straight out of a book, do gentle lessons, and hope students are smart enough to pick up the slack with their own motivation. For some people, a step in the right direction is good enough. Mostly, though, training of this sort isn't going to lead to long-term retention of information, and it's of dubious use for certification exams. I started out teaching this way.
The last way to teach is never-ending lab exercises. This requires students motivated and interested in the material (i.e. do the reading beforehand) and a LOT of time. You'll retain more knowledge of a complex process if you've actually carried it out. The important thing an instructor can add here is overarching understanding of the process. Following a recipie online is great for getting the job done, but a good teacher can explain WHY things are the way they are, and deeper understanding should hopefully transfer to general success on these exams, even if you miss a point here or there. Of course, if you're OK with the "big picture", you can probably get just as far in the lab you have set up at home. I don't always have time to do the labs I want during class, but I always make time before and/or after for extra lab work, on top of normal classroom time. It helps my students a lot.
Of course, every training place will tell you their stuff is hands on. That certainly isn't the case. Ask to sit in on a class or two. If you're paying $2000 for a class, they shouldn't have any problem with that. Judge for yourself.
Finally, places that trumpet unusually high pass-rates are probably doing something slightly unethical to get them. I've heard stories. I'm sure others have, too.
Whatever the subject, if you're paying for a class, what you're paying for is a knowledgable instructor and adequate facilities. Those are things you can't judge without some first-hand experience.
Other things: Seems to me that the most respected IT certs all have a hands-on component. Master CNE, RHCE, most Cisco exams. Something to keep in mind when you become the 1,000,000th person to pass 70-210.
A great generalist IT guy is an awesome resource to have, but I always tell my students that it's a hard row to hoe. I always suggest to my students that becoming an expert in a subject besides Windows Support or hardware repair, will probably get them more attention within the field than bog-standard A+/N+/MCSE certs.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I have to say that no matter what program you are a part of or where you go to school, the most important thing is how much you try and get into it yourself.
I'm a CS major at an Ivy League college, and there are people here who waltz through the courses without learning anything. Just cause there are good instructors and equipment doesn't mean you learn a lot if you don't try.
Hell, Bill Gates went here and dropped out, and as much has we all hate him, he's done pretty well for himself.
-Typhon
Okay, a few coders are safe to leave running servers, but as a general rule we're not terribly good at it. Horribly out of date, insecure, systems that are unlikely to survive a reboot (and no, they weren't on UPSes) were the result last time someone left my colleagues running their own systems. It wasn't pretty.
Now, admittadely, we're an academic research group, so we can barely afford the programmers, let alone an IT guy, but as a general rule I would strongly suggest that it's a very good idea to have enough IT guys to handle your servers, leaving the programmers to do what they do best (caffeinne -> code).
Because there is a difference between development and laying down a network...
With networks, there is a clear way of doing things. RFC's, topologies, protocols, they all have a straight set of rules of how to set things up and where to look when things go wrong. Setting up networks is more of a repatitive task that does not involve a lot of creativity. IT problems can be catalogged in a vantive database till eventually all IT problems can be cataloged and indexed.
On the other hand, development "read coders" have to be more lateral in their thinking. They cannot simply look at the debugger and have it tell them "This is what you should have written!" because debuggers only point out mistakes, and there's no way for it to know your intentions. It's a very creative process that involves keen concentration in the very least to get it accomplished.
Most coders I know want nothing to do with the PHB's having problems with their PPT presentations, which makes me wonder if you're just not a coder, but a troll biting for me.
Well, either way, that's the difference between IT and Development. Sure there's many different type of "coders" from device driver to web application people, but they need their concentration all the same.
At this rate, and if the company is paying for the lunches, you will have free meals for a lifetime... hahaha
Cover your eyes and click this link!
I did an MCSE course a while back. It was divided into 2 parts. The first guy we had was straight out of the book, he just read us the text. It was so fucking boring. And he kept saying how much we were learning! We didn't learn jack shit!
The guy who took us for the 2nd part was awesome. This guy really knew his shit. Instead of just telling us, he set up scenarios, and all kinds of stuff to really test the best in the class. Also showed us advanced tweaking in the registry, etc... stuff that wasn't on the exam, but still totally necessary if you're going to make even a half decent job of it. And he made us work, and it was worth it.
I know some of you shit on anything with an MCSE, but, I decided to go back to this same training centre. I waited months until this guy was on schedule to do a CCNA course. Again, he was awesome. As he was the company's chief sysadmin, he also had access to all the best hardware there. He let us loose on Catalyst, radius, etc... Yes, he was preparing us for the exam. But, he didn't just read out of the book. Nothing replaces that kind of learning solving problems. This guy even took lunch times out to help us with certain problems we were having.
So, my point? A good instructor makes all the difference in the world. Find one! Talk to people, check out comments people put on newsgroups about certain companies. Work to find the best, and you will be thankful for it.
I agree 90% with this.
Outsourcing is the way to go. Esp. with the slow
economy. You can charge more.
Plus you are working for you.
But I would setup an S-Corp.
This will give you some protection liability wise
Also provides an option to retain earnings for the future and only get taxed on what you pay
yourself.
Its $90 in the state of Indiana. I am not
certain in your state.
You file two IRS forms the SS4 and then 2553
to get S treatment.
You file an 1120S every year. And add or subtract
the earnings or losses from your usual 1040.
This also has some kick with PHBs they like
working with Corporations. It really doesn't
matter that you are the only employee.
Not to be cold, but your disdain for 'go-read-a-book' is incompatible with staying employed in the IT field. The technology moves too fast, and has too much depth for anyone to stand still... and if you require someone else to spoon feed you the knowledge, you will both (1) never have enough money to afford the kind of continual training and (2) never have enough time to attend it! Unfortunately (though not a bad thing as I see it), being in the IT field is like ridinig a bull... you have to really want to stay on... those that don't have the fortitude get tossed. That means book time and personal dedication. Get the discount card from Barnes and Nobles, order a grande no-whip mocha and put your nose in a book... thats what it takes. True skills aren't taught, they are learned... think about it. Good luck!
next($sig) unless($sig =~
NYLXS
The Gnu/Linux 1 class, the Unix 1, class, the Perl 1 class, and others have all been superb. You are being taught by instructors who know what they teach, in an active, hands on environment. It is backed by an active mailing list, a learn list, an announcements list, Inservices that present various free software services and applications that are free to attend, business demos, and more. Richard Stallman has dropped in on classes, inservices, and other events from time to time, and David Sugar (Bayonne telephony Project)and others have held inservices and dropped in on meetings and classes as well.
The philosophy behind NYLXS (which is in the process of becomming a non-profit entity) is that open source is useful and productive, should be promoted by everyone, and can only grow larger. The funds raised from classes will go to promoting free/open source software.
If you look at the mass push behind free/open source software in other countries, in companies and schools across America, and in various agencies, their eyes are either slowly being opened, or are being jammed wide open at the benefits for running free/open source software. It can no longer be denied that gnu/linux has a huge momentum behind it, and must be a part of everyone's toolbox from now on.
NYLXS teaches the nitty-gritty of what you need to know to get the job done. You can take individual classes, or take an entire program and get discounts. At the end of several classes, you will have a working server, which can be setup to do anything you want, apache, mail, file/print, etc. You will also have the knowledge you need to go forward as a sys admin, or whatever other computer related job you choose, or for just your own knowledge.
They have Gnu/Linux 1/2, Unix 1/2, Perl 1/2, C, Gimp, Open Office, and other classes as well. Every class is taught by someone who uses the software daily as their main operating system/application, and they may be using it as the main software in their profession, or they may be using it as an aid to pick up where other software falls flat on its face.
NYLXS also has a free software chamber of commerce, where they provide solutions for businesses using free/open source software, and which also gives the students who go through the training an opportunity to obtain employment, allows the students to make important business contacts, etc.
NYLXS will be present and have a booth at LinuxWorld in NYC. NYLXS membership was instrumental at the events that occured on July 17, 2002 at the Commerce Committee hearing for drm/other controls, which had the direct effect of stalling the legislation, and opening up the process to what was previously a good 'ol boys process of enacting legislation behind closed doors.
Any sys admin, or anyone maintaining computers in a large user environment who does not know how to use and administer Gnu/Linux systems will be at a handicap when trying to sell themselves. I am aware of the environments of many companies, and for the larger (more than 10-15 seats) companies, they are virtually all experimenting with gnu/linux servers at least at a minimal level. They are just getting their feet wet at some of these companies, but as they become more familiar, and as they realize the benefits, they will become more and more involved with gnu/linux.
If you only know ms products, and are having trouble finding work, you must realize why. If you only know free software, you will also have trouble finding work. But sys admins and other techies that know both, and are comfortable with both, will have an easier time under any possible scenario.
Check out NYLXS, especially the pages under the Free Software Institute, and see what they offer. Their prices are very good, you get a working computer as part of the classes (which is used in the classes), you get access to numerous distributions, and you get a first rate education that is not taught to any test.
Complete one of the sequences, and then study the questions that are on the LPI exam, and you shouldn't have any problem passing the LPI exam when you are done with an NYLXS sequence.
I hate to say it, but if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
I had a huge problem finding work last year until I did a 'George Costanza' (just turn up after the interview like you got the job). After a week I had found that all the other guys I was working with - it was a crappy NT4 rollout - had lied on their CV's and didn't know jack! Bah! I almost ended up running the thing, plus I was being paid less than some of the... offtopic, sorry.
So anyway, a few people I know who have found it hard to get work have simply lied about the last few months and put in a job overseas somwhere where no one is going to check up on you. I mean, who is going to call Europe and get the run around if you say you worked on a contract in Uzbekistan for 6 months for a UK oil company?
Anyway, just a sloution. Personally, I'm off IT. I can't stand most of the people I end up working with (see 'Office Space') and I'm over sitting in front of a non-LCD screen all day.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
You are speaking the truth there. I work(ed) for an outsource IT company and even they found it hard to keep work as clients were cutting IT budgets like nothing else (40% in the place I worked).
I've given up, I'm off to work in the Alps for the winter and get some quality snowboarding time.
And you think the your boss is bad. Ain't got nothing on most of the PA's to Bank execs.
PA - "I'm a VIP. Fix my blah blah blah."
Me - "I'm sorry. That's how the software was written."
PA - "...I'm a VIP, just fix it."
Me - "I can't. It's designed to do that."
PA - Pauses for a bit - "You must be able to do something.
Me - "No, I can't do anything. Now if you'll excuse me I have other calls to attend to."
PA - "I'm a VIP. Don't you walk away on me!"
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
If you can, sit in a couple of their classes for half a day (most will let you do that at least once) and try to see more than one instructor. If they suck, move on.
I really don't think any one franchise or another is necessarily superior. just go with your feelings about the instructors.
to those who think you don't need training, from my own experience training myself and attending classes, I get the same skills, but I usually save 3-5 weeks if I can attend a class with a knowledgeable instructor. (That is, of course if you study the right stuff. I knew a guy who did it all on his own, and the only thing he knew how to install was a novell 3.x server with every workstation a 'diskless' workstation!)
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I took the Global Knowledge "Introduction to Cisco Router Configuration" (ICRC) on my employer's dime and it was all about configuring routers for a real working environment. That was about 6 years ago and I think it has changed a bit since then, but it was a good class for learning how to configure all the popular WAN/LAN interfaces and basic router setup. The "Advance Cisco Router Configuration" class was good also with lots of training and practice setting up ACLs, VPNs, etc. Each was only a week but the instructor was excellent and every 2 people shared a router/laptop. This class did help a lot with the TCP/IP and subnet part of the CCNA test, helped me unlearn the M$ way I was taught. Not sure how the quality of their training is now, but at the time the emphasis on all the Global Knowledge classes I took was on real, usable training, it wasn't a cert training mill.
"Maybe this world is another planet's Hell" Aldous Huxley
fuck you, seriously fuck you. Blah blah blah, coding is the best. Building a network is a talent, not a repetitive task.
I opened up my school two years ago to combat exactly the type of experience that he's talking about. I was a technical trainer for a few years, and kept getting fired from all of the centers (you can't call them schools) I worked at, because I always added things to the curriculum, extended classes longer than they were supposed to, badmouthed the terrible equipment that was used at these centers, etc.
At my school, I still teach courses, and I have my instructors teach in the same way that I do. For example, in my MCSE classes, we teach the students how to install several different flavors of *nix and 3 different versions of netware, then teach them how make them all play nice with each other. Our MS SQL classes teach MySQL and Oracle. Every student gets a server to play with, etc. Our courses are all taught in hands-on labs, where the instructors' lecture is immediately applied to the machine in front of the student. Our philosophy is to teach you how to do your job and to be prepared for any eventuality. The exams are an afterthought to the knowledge of how to make things run.
I realize that my school is in the minority. The majority of my local competitors are churn and burn certification factories. The difference is that I am a teacher and a geek, while the owners of other schools are either glorified sales people or businessmen with no understanding of the technology education process. I believe you when you say that the majority of schools you've seen are like that.
My advice is to attend a school where they use multiple resources in class, not just the vendor approved curriculum. Only take courses from instructors with broad experience. If possible, attend a school where geeks, trainers and technologists are in decision-making positions. New york should have at least ONE education-oriented technical school that's not an churn and burn. And above all, READ THE ENROLLMENT CONTRACT! That's where they'll screw you.
Good luck with finding an ethical and qualified technical training school. Lord knows I try to make mine as perfect (i.e. education and student friendly, not existing for the sole purpose of profit and churning) as possible.
Governments are not necessary.
I cant believe people are still doing certifications.
.NET.
.NET and then everyone can vote on the most popular product and then those can be the subjects for the next year. So if just say Vignette Story Server becomes popular then they can teach that as a subject. That would be a much better degree.
I think they are just a money spinner for the vendor.
Has anyone ever seen the sun java programming certification. What a load of crap. Its the sort garbage that you would forget the second you walked out of the exam.
I did a SAP - ABAP certification and that was also a load of crap. Very obscure questions that dont prove anything. Your better off taking a course in German. oh wow look at me.. I know where the comma goes! whoopeee
It still baffles me as to why people would want to invest their career into a product.
I think its the fault of the Recruiters. I think that they are the scum of the IT industry. In my opinion they screwed the industry by employing the wrong people. Never mind if you are a good programmer who can write scaleable, robust, reuseable code or an engineer who knows good solutions and patterns... lets just employ the idiot who has an MCSE and 2yrs in ASP + 6 months
But the recruiters would know better.. they are qualified backpacker salesmen
Is IT the only industry that employs people based on experience in products and not on skill/knowledge ?
I question why they dont scrap computer science degrees and create a new degree called "Computer Products" and then you can do subjects like Sun Java and then MS
Unfortunately based on my resume.. I dont know too much.. I havent worked on any technology for more than 6 months.. so I've had to become a team leader instead.
Maybe if I do a certification in MS Project then I can become a much better project manager - or doesnt it work like that ?
Oracle 9i for private individuals is free
buy a 50$ DBA book and sit down and learn that shit
As with online job resumes... here's a tip i picked up. Don't bother.. You go online only to find the listing. However most times you will see an email too. Better to submit your resume directly ALONG WITH A COVER LETTER!!!
A cover letter is very important and make sure you triple check it for grammar spelling and all those other stupid nonsense u may normally say.
Landing the interview is all about the presentation. Make sure you present yourself in your cover letter. If you think you know oracle after doing it on your own make sure your resume reflects this. Look on the net on how to write a technical resume as oppose to your say business resume
The NY market is far from flat
I have yet to meet anyone I know personally who couldn't get a job in the IT market in NY.
I don't place a lot on Certs. I just don't
An applicant with a CNE. MCSE, CCNA, A+, Solaris, CLP kinda scares me. Why have you been spending so much money to prove your salt?
I also DO NOT hold and MCSE against people. So you went for a cert, and got it good for you. I personally have a CNA, CNE, CLP and Solaris. Each time they were gotten to "show" I had chops in the respective fields.
This
.
I hate to break it to you, but all of the IT/engineering jobs are currently being moved offshore...
I'd say try a career in something that has a future:
.
Are there any decent schools out there who have good facilities, good instructors and do more than 'teach-to-the-exams?
Umm, no. And it doesn't matter. Employers won't care if you actually know your ass from your elbow. All that matters is that you've got certification in A, B, and, most importantly, C. If you think you're going to get anywhere on ability, you're sadly mistaken, especially in the Tristate area. There are plenty of certified, educated, experienced out of work bodies screaming for income to pay their next outrageous mortgage payment.
Just go to any Chubb, plunk down a wad of money, get your nearly worthless (except for getting a job) certification, and get a job. Once you're on the job, just keep your certs current for when you get laid-off next quarter, and use your brains if you have 'em.
All the programmers where I work can't even set up windows without help from the help desk. Anytime they need help in coding for our internal crm app they are always talking to our database admins who can't code either.
I've tried to get our programmers run apps from the console instead of terminal server, but they just don't listen. And after much pain and misery I adopted a policy of always asking our VP before doing anything for our programmers. Otherwise I would get in trouble.
I didn't see anyone mention any of the sans training or any of the GIAC certs. I attended the sans conference in SF last December. I was very impressed with the level of depth in the training and the level of knowledge all the instructors have.
I have taken the following classes from the listed vendors and rate them accordingly (1-10).
Supporting Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 - Executrain (7)
Decent facilities and equipment, knowledgeable instructors, but nothing really special and very accelerated. Expect to know the material before you arrive.
Netware 5 Advanced Administration - Executrain (7)
Same as above.
Hands-On Internetworking with TCP/IP - Global Knowledge (10)
Facilities were in a local hotel - nice, convenient, good equipment. Extremely knowledgeable instructor. A+
Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices - Princeton Somethingorother (6)
Good equipment, but sandwiched us into the training room at CompUSA which was like a glorified closet. Hot as hell with all the equipment. Instructor so-so knowledgeable.
Windows 2000 Advanced Server - New Horizons (7)
Good facilities and equipment, knowledgeable instructors. Maybe it was the material that turned me off.
Designing Secure MS Networks - New Horizons (7)
Same as above. Almost fell asleep on last day.
CISSP Bootcamp - Intense School (10)
Better study a lot before attempting one of these. Very fast paced. Extremely knowledgeable instructor. Might not have passed exam without this class.
Applied Hacking and Countermeasures - Intense School (8)
Fun. Good instructors (military), great lab. Lots of fun. Wardriving field trip on last day. Don't expect to make money after taking this class though. Strictly a go-if-it's-paid-for thing.
All in all I would recommend making a decision about what field you would like to work in and focus on that track. I will probably never use Netware anywhere but my current 9-5, so that's out. Read the local ads and see what they are hiring or consider relocating.
My $.02
With that said, some are far better then others are....
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
i have been to india, hell i work for an outsourcing company who has offices in both the US and india.
.....
lemme tell you guys something -- you DO NOT wanna move to india, bad water, bad food, bad pay. not to mention (depending on the part you go to) pakistan always right over your shoulder. NOT a pretty picture.
i have on the other hand been thinking about moving to europe, a small non EU country
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
I attend Baker College in Flint Michigan. It's a dead city, but the college does have a decent Associates / Bachelors degree. I am currently obtaining the Bachelors of Applied Science in Open Systems Technology. I have learned a tremendous amount while I have been here for 4 years. They not only teach you the classes (MCSE, Solaris, Cisco etc...) but they also take the time to teach the theory and give you antiquate practice on the equipment with labs. There website is at http://www.baker.edu
It does however have the same problems as any other College. Every once in a while you get a horrible teacher, or take classes that have almost nothing to do with your degree. This is expected from any place of higher education. It teaches humility.
code ?
/bin/sh and the like are NOT code. they are scripting langauges.
or scripting ?
perl,
C is code
assembler is code
BINARY is code
despite what you think you do not need to know code to be a good admin, and you rarely need to know scripting.
a good admin will not try to reinvent the wheel. he will use someone else's. and possibly (time and skill permitting) improve on it, or modify it as neccasary.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
I learn best by demonstration and instruction so CBT CD-ROMs and 'go-read-a-book' aren't viable options for me.
If by 'best' you mean 'only' then that sentance might make sense. Otherwise, go read a damn book.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...and specialize in something like PeopleSoft.
You get what you pay for of course, and PeopleSoft don't come cheap.
Idiot. I am an infosec officer for a Fortune 5 company and I deal with our Open Systems people all the time. Many of them (and myself) are supremely competent in the following OS (we have >1800 servers made up of the following):
RedHat Advanced Server
WinNT
Win2k
Solaris 2.6,7,8
HPUX 10.20, 11.0
SuSE on S/390
AIX 4.3
So shut up, pissant.
I think it's silly to think that no one is hiring. People get promoted, die, move on, and all of that sort of thing. But it's hard to have something on your resume that people respect. For myself, there were only a couple certs that gave immediate cred - CCIE, and one of the SANS certs. CCIE because the wannabe-to-actual ratio was high; and the SANS certs because you can go and view the paper that got them the certification. SANS papers can give you a real insight into what people are used to working with.
I went through a turning point in my career some time in 1998. I was a Novell CNE, and it became obvious to me that I needed to get an MCSE to stay competitive in the systems administration/integration job market. And so I set out to do so.
I knew enough about Novell to see the stupid games commercial software vendors play with each other at the expense of the customer and the sanity of consultants hired to make sense of the mess. Starting on the MCSE training track was sufficient to raise my level of disgust to the point that I began questioning my career. My impression was that the industry was soulless, that hard work was not rewarded, and that the only way to make money in the business was to take advantage of customers and profit by their ignorance.
Just as I was thinking of opening a restaurant, the nagging love that I'd always had for working with computers took hold, so I set myself to the task of reinventing myself.
I'd started playing with Linux just a few months before, and was hopelessly inept, but found that it had rekindled my love for working with computers. Up to this point, however, I'd never considered it more than a hobby. I remembered, however, that my original decision to pursue IT was not a matter of economics, but because I really loved it. I got into computers because of the joy of programming on my C64. Long before computers were cool; long before I even knew I could make money working with them, I loved them. I realized that my hobby with Linux was in keeping with my beginnings in computers, but that I'd been restricting the time I spent with it so that I could keep up with the latest interopability problems with Groupwise and Exchange.
I already knew I couln't go to another training class; that I couldn't pick up another trade rag; that I couldn't spend the rest of my career begging support reps to tell me the secrets of making shit work that are known only in internal documents, protected by inane marketing concerns. So despite how stupid a move it seemed at the time, I had no choice but to spend my downtime studying Linux. I started my career following my interests, and I knew I had to keep doing so.
Then, the bottom fell out of the IT industry. In 2001, the company I was with was absorbed by another one, and in the process about 90% of the original staff was eventually hemorrhaged. I saw the writing on the wall before it really got bad, and managed to round up enough solo Linux work to get out while they were still in the mood to beg me to stay. I refused. I did solo Linux consulting for a while, then landed a hot job with a very successful network outfit. I now work exclusively in Linux, writing network automation scripting and performing enterprise security audits. I've remained employed throughout the recession thus far, and my income has steadily increased.
Do what you love. The rest will follow. Life's too short to deal with bullshit.
I have been a very happy Techskills student here in Dallas. All of the mentors are excellent,and you get to CHOOSE the textbooks that YOU THINK are best for you. I can't thank them enough for letting me do that. Great snack bar, too :)
.NET floods the market, employers want it...therefore that's where I am headed for my next cert (if you hate .NET, save it, I've read it all here before :P ).
.NET cert. I have also been told that anything UNIX or Linux is good to have, so I am considering the Linux server admin cert...right now anything MS or Cisco is just too damned expensive :/.
I realized I wanted to be a webmaster, and I first tried the community college approach. I quickly realized the scheduling, time, and money
situation wasn't for me, plus I thought the degree wasn't centralized enough (English 101 again?! Director 8 instead of Flash?!)
I am a few weeks away from taking the CIW Site Designer exam. However, from looking at the biggest job search sites, I have realized that employers don't just want webmasters, they want full-blown programmers (there but for the grace of God go I). Not only that, It seems to me that repair/network/sys admins are in more demand these days. People ask me all the time to fix their comps, and they just give me blank stares when I tell them I am just a coder.
In walks the job market and all of its quirks.
HOWEVER, I am going to make sure I have a strong grasp of Javascript, Java and Visual Basic. I will learn these on my own for FREE, and then do a
The most important thing I can tell you is to KNOW what employers REALLY want before you dive in, and you will save a lot of money and time, whether you are attending a college or a cert school.
Chalupa
fishbowl1968@hotmail.com
P.S. I have a buddy that has survived the IT layoffs. His biggest cert is the A+. Quit baggin' on the A+...I would imagine it is a good cert to have.
If I know i'm smarter than this jackass who can't copy and paste something into his powerpoint presentation, then why is HE the boss, and why am I his lackey?
Because HE is the one that knows how to run a company and you don't.
Clearly most classes are directed at passing a certain test; and this is what you do not want.
You have no friends apparently that have the prerequisite skills you are looking for. Well then, time to get creative, as 95% percent of the available options do not work for you...
1) Find mentors. This can be in any business you work in. Find the guy(s) that manage your network and ASK. Even McDonald's must have a Mcfry/network guy.
2) Find your local groups. In Atlanta, I find ALE (http://www.ale.org) a great group with a huge diversity. And more than happy to help. They even helped me clean my garage and do my taxes!
3) Hack. You probably already own a computer. In fact, you probably already own 2 (or could get another 1 for less than $200). That and a couple of NICs and a cable, and you have a network. Have fun.
Necessity is the mother of all invention, but desire is in the front seat, driving this mother around. (me)
4) I HAVE LOST THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS POST, I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT THE QUESTION WAS. JUST FSCKING EMAIL ME AND I'LL TELL YOU HOW TO PROFIT FROM i.t. AND NOT EVEN MENTION THE SOVIET UNION.
zack@theDASHlinksDOTnetDOT(OPTIONAL)
--Dont'post drunk --
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
I live in Seattle. Now, I don't know if NYC's job market is different that Seattle, but I know that Seattle's job market is very bad. I have an A+, MCP, CCNA, and AA degree in IT / Networking. I have sent hundreds of resumes and applications to any tech position in Seattle. Let me tell you, I got no replies. Check out my article (link below) that was printed in my school newspaper... i wasted about 3 years of my life... http://www.handsometechs.com/hardwaregod/articles/ ITDisappointment.htm
To the un-named reader who posited the scenario, I'd say: Start your own company, and be your own boss.
Last month the guys over at linuxlookup had an article on Linux certs that is worth the read.
& name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=17& page=1
http://www.linuxlookup.com/modules.php?op=modload
My old boss always told clients he was a certified this, and certified that. He also claimed to work at AT&T/Ameritech/Michigan Bell.
Little did they know, he went to college for a semester or two and then sold computers at Sears, and then sold telephones at the phone company. He also wasn't certified for jack shit.
But, he could land some big fucking jobs. Small school districts, Townships, 50-200 person companies in town.
Sure, he fucked them over royally. He'd sign them up for 40hr/week "service contracts", then overbook ONE tech for 2 or 3 accounts. Pay a tech $12 an hour, have him cover some accounts at $50/hr, and you can see why he stayed in business. Overcharged them on everything, parts, labor, sold them things they'd never use, sold $20,000 servers where a low end box would do...
Moral of the story: Work on your sales techniques. Get some clients, then hire some VERY qualified techs (who's NOT looking a for a job these days, anyway?) and pay them peanuts. They'll work for peanuts, and if they complain, hire some other beggar. Besides, you can't afford to pay people $75,000 a year, because the economy sucks, right?
IT industry tanked in 1990 aswell.
I've met 2 older programmers who left at that time, one guy became a fire place seller, another never worked again and retired (he was working on the European space program prior to that).
It sucks, but the IT market is deader than dead. I'm doing little projects here and there to keep up to speed and pay the bills myself.
If you can and you're dedicated to getting back in, these little-jobs for friends of friends may be the way to do it, ask around, but don't expect big money (or in some cases any money).
Speaking of which, read my sig, try the site, if it breaks in your browser email me. (It was a small money project, but WTF).
Are there any decent schools out there who have good facilities, good instructors and do more than 'teach-to-the-exams?"
Yes... they're called universities.
Seriously, vendor certifications will always say that you can run their products, but being a CCNA will only teach you Cisco products, being an MCSE will only teach you Microsoft products.
If you ever want a full understanding from people who actually know what you're talking about, you want to go to the nearest university. The bigger the better, and they all are making an effort to get "non-traditional students" (those who aren't the in typical 18-22 year old age range) into their classes.
Yeah, the idea of student loans might not be what you had in mind, and this isn't a quick-hit solution... but being able to say you graduated with a degree in IT from a respectable school is worth a whole lot more than anything a vendor can ever confer.
I don't have the time or resources for this experiment at the moment, but here's what I'd like to see:
Purpose: To see if certifications help to get a foot in the door.
Method: We take a generic resume, and submit it to several companies looking for a specific job or jobs (network admin, sysadmin, general hardware repair, whatnot). However, some resumes will only list one type of certification, some will list several certifications, others will list none.
Test of Success: If we get an interview set up, then we consider that resume (and the certification or combination of certifications) successful.
Well, I laid it out for you, why doesn't someone try this test, put the results on a webpage, and submit it to slashdot?
Do not tie yourself down with one. Stay off of OS bandwagons. Learn as much as you can about both. Or any OS you can.
The previous comment is the best statement posted, as far as I'm concerned.
Consider the number of operating systems which exist. Now then, I don't want to go getting into a pissing contest of 'who-has-done-what'. However, I'm going to list off the number of operating systems and machines which I've used and adminstered over my life time, in order to make a point. That point is, a person is smarter than a computer, and a single person is capable of adminstering, engineering, and programming for many more operating systems that he or she ever expected, during the course of a job. Anyhow, off the top of my head, I've used and administered the following:
Atari
Commodore64
AppleWorks
DOS
Win 3.1
Win 95/98
Win NT/2000
Win ME/XP
Novell ZenWorks
MacOS
MacOSX
NextSTEP
BeOS
OS360
AS400
DB2
Linux, RedHat
Linux, Debian
Linux, Corell
Minux
Irix
Solaris
JavaOS
VAX/VMS
Cisco IOS
Genius Plus
LightWorks
Now then, consider that I'm only 25 years old. Figure how many OS's that somebody has used who is 40 or 60 and is in the industry. Hell, somebody who's 60, and has been in the idustry that long, probably has experience with ENIAC machines. Anybody with ENIAC experience is a computing Guru of the first order, as far as I'm concerned.
Put things in perspective. For instance... some people think, 'Wouldn't it be cool to have an AIX or Cray supercomputer?' How does a person get to that stage in life? It's not from taking certification exams and getting degrees in computer science... It's from saying, 'Hey, this AI stuff is cool, I want to learn more about it' or 'Hey, this VR stuff is slick...'
Anyhow, real world jobs typically require a person to use a dozen different computers, dozens of programming languages, and a zillion skills, in order to accomplish some non-computer related objective... such as selling a product to a customer, conducting scientific research, or entertaining the general public.
Anyhow, there are common features that are relevent to *every single* operating system that I've mentioned: These features are things like file systems, data structures, and user interfaces.
Do yourself a favor: Don't enroll in classes, universities, or certification programs.
Rather, go buy yourself a copy of the following book:
Knuth, Donald. The Art of Programming
After you've read Knuth's series, chances are, you won't need to take any other computer class, and you'll be able to go onto other classes, such as biology, chemistry, economics, physics, history, philosophy, social studies, art, music, language, and so forth.
Thats all. Sorry for ranting.
PS. MCSE #1459644 (blah. an internship at a financial institution required me to get it...)
PPS. My most recent employers don't even know that I have an MCSE cert, and they gave me access to a million dollar nMRI scanner, VMS/VAX machine, and a couple of Solaris EasyVision workstations.
PPPS. Havn't taken a computer science class since 7th grade. The point is: Learn the commonalities between all file systems, user interfaces, and data structures, and you won't ever have to worry about a computer certification again.
Do a quick corresponence course and get the same title as someone with a four year degree.
i used to be a member of the "learn at home" crowd, and have $20k of hardware at home to show for it. clearly you could spend $700 on a used sparc box, and $700 on a used nokia/checkpoint box, and go from there.
but i just finished my first semester in cs grad school at columbia (in ny), after being out of school for a decade, and without having an undergrad cs degree- and i can't speak highly enough about it.
there's a lot of coding, so it's not as appropriate for someone who's more on the admin side, but when you code something you really have to understand what's going on under the surface, and it makes later admin learning come much more easily.
that said, on the admin side, i've also sent people to sun's various admin classes, and they've always had great things to say about them.
Find the local user groups associated with your topic(s). Usually the meetings feature a talk on some aspect of the topic; some (such as trilug.org) frequently have in-depth classes, cheap or free.
Truth be told, typically the managers that seriously require certifications are people that aren't very technical themselves. They assume that people who have passed the test can save the day when things go wrong. They don't understand that, just as you said, the instructors of these classes lead you in the direction of getting a passing grade, and focus very little on understanding the ins and outs of the systems. It's in the best interest of the instructors to get you to pass the test, so that's what they do...
IMHO, these certifications don't really account for too much legitimate knowledge. After working for 3 or so years, my company hired another tech guy with his MCSE. I have no certifications, and they guy would constantly ask me questions about NT because I'd spent my time in the trenches, and knew the systems.
My advice to you is to try your best to get a job. If you have to, go ahead and get a certification, but understand what you're getting. It's worth may lie in your employability, and not in your skills... Once you have your job, bask in an environment where you legitimately gain new and useful skills and knowledge.
Yes, it's true. You're dreaming. You are in a fictional bubble world where jobs exist in the computer industry (particularly NYC, of all places to expect such a thing to be the case!), minimal computer knowledge (a single OS - Windows, at that), minimal applicable networking knowledge, an unrealistic expectation of educational facilities and organizations, and a truely truely perverse view of what you think you're worth to the economy.
First off: where have you been? The economy has been in increased recession for the last two years, nearly. I know of people in large metropolitan areas who have 4 year CS degrees at prestigious schools, plus 2+ years of high level administration experience making 22.5k USD a year, with no benefits.
Meanwhile, here you are, a -Windows- administrator (do not even think of calling that a sysadmin - sysadmin is a UNIX has always been UNIX-specific), just expecting for someone to bight your resume? I've got news for you: if you haven't figured out yet after sending out even 400 applications that you're under-qualified for the kinds of jobs you're applying for, you need a serious reality adjustment.
If anything, the type of job you've applied for is the type that companies are cutting back on the most, relying on a skeleton crew until the recession ends.
If you really want to work with computers, -try- and get a tech support job. I wish you luck. You'll need it.
I know of quite a few people who are stellar programmers, experienced UNIX sysadmins and windows administrators - your all-around qualified individuals for pretty damned near anything you could put them to - who are working tech-support level jobs right now because there's just nothing else in the field available. Given your (apparent) mindset, you'd be bantha fodder against people like this, even with 4 more years of schooling.
Now, I too find I learn in the same fashion that you do - it only makes sense, because most humans do. It's the way we've been designed, evolved - whatever. The point being, what you're asking for is direct hands-on tutlage or an apprenticeship. If it's apprenticeship you want, seek out a company and ask to pay them to work under strict supervision of their dominant sysadmin. That's probably your best chance.
Here is my honest and most sincere advice for you: forget about computers. There are many, many more qualified people, many, many more -skilled- people. It's a recession, for crying out loud - one that doesn't promise to let up for a while, either, as any Econ 101 student would be able to tell you. Use your head and go to school for something that's got a fairly high failsafe level with a diverse career choice after graduation - like a business or telecommunications major. You've already demonstrated your lack of head for computers by asking one too many stupid questions.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Steps to take:
1.Learn(by force)and master C++.
2.Learn to dress & speak. Cut your pony tail off,fag.
3.Setup Monster.com acct.
4.Show up to interview.
5.Begin Monday.
Step 1 took me 2 years and rest was beaten into me by my older brother who is an accountant. I have six years of experience and make about 75k/yr. I'm 25yrs old and have been working on my BS in Computer Science for 5 years now(sdsu). I am just happy to never need a certification in my life. Those commercials on the radio drive me nuts.
Now if I can only get my credit rating out of the f'ing sewer.
Extra certification won't help the fact that you haven't worked in 2 years. If you haven't worked in 2 years, you could have a 175 IQ and be able to optimize code in your sleep and your resume will get circular-filed as soon as it hits the HR desk.
I went through this same song and dance, sending my resume out countless times with no response, until I just gave up and signed on with a temp agency. A couple weeks of shit work got me a job at a help desk, and a month and a half of that (plus vigorous updated-resume submissions) got me a job as a junior architect at Macromedia. The cure for a stale resume is work, not training.
Well, the only thing I can think of is prostitution. That, and start finding a way to get rid of as many Asian IT workers as possible - but that's not really feasable.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
You'll have to excuse the AC posting, but I don't want to be discussing this with my boss on Monday morning. I'm an instructor for Global Knowledge. I teach Cisco and UNIX/LINUX courses. Unfortunately, I don't think that you can simple find a school with good instructors, one with a focus other then exams, or one with great facilities. Each branch of a school is independent and unique, and more importantly, good instructors aren't a product of a specific school. One instructor at a school may be great, the next horrible. Tomorrow the great instructor may take a new job at another school, and the whole game changes. If you want to take, as an example, an ICND (for CCNA certification) course, get recommendations from friends for a specific instructor. When you register for the course, first find out when that instructor is scheduled to teach, and choose the best timing for you from that list. Worry less about the school and the equipment. The instructor makes a class good, everything else is very much second order.
i have been to india, hell i work for an outsourcing company who has offices in both the US and india.
Wow, actually someone from inside the outsourcing industry. Mind if I ask a few questions??
Do you think foriegn outsourcing of development tasks is a good or bad thing for the American economy?
My opinion on foriegn outsourcing is , I can understand a companies obligation to it's shareholders to stay in business, but I also feel if you HQ yourself here, you need to hire people from here.
If you are not getting responses then maybe there is something wrong with your resume.
Is it too long? Spelling? Grammar? Is the layout pleasing to the eye? Before you try improving your resume with certs, fix the easy stuff first.
(Editing is faster than education.)
Switzerland 0wnz j00... :-)
Tip: Don't move to Geneva, there's fuck all jobs around here. Been looking for the last 8 months or so. Every single job has about 200 qualified people applying. Zurich is more lively, on the other hand, from what I've heard. I'm thinking of moving there if I find a job in the area.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Certifications are not enough to make you magically get a job, but they do help. Experience and your attitude are, of course, the two most important factors BY FAR, however certification are a good added bonus. If I had two otherwise equal seeming candidates but one had relivant certifications and one had none, I'd take the certified guy. Why? Same reason I'd prefer someone with a university degree (regardless of field) over someone without. It shows the willingness to go some extra distance.
Also certification can help you get entry level positions. When you are talking entry level well, yuo are of course talking little experience (that's what entry means). Certifications can help show that you do know something about the field (even if it is all book learning) and that you are motivated to learn about it.
Again, we aren't talking magic silve bullet that will make the job offers pile up, but they can help give you an extra edge that may get you a job over someone else, or at least in to the interview room.
For instance, I write about 95% of my code these days in Python. I'm really good at Python. Yeah, I know, a good programmer can learn any language quickly, and knowledge of a language doesn't make you a good programmer. But it makes a big difference for productivity. It also means that you can get more attention in those jobs that require your specific skill. My experience in other languages is very important to me, but there's another kind of experience that you can only achieve with expertise.
The jack of all trades is sometimes called for. But the jack of all trades must rely on networking -- because there's a lot of them out there. Sure, some are better than others, but you're still just an IT handyman. You'll need to distinguish yourself with something other than your resume.
The specialist may have only a small pool of jobs they are right for. But they are very right for those jobs. You can be good, you can attain real expertise in your field, people outside of your workplace might even know who you are. If you aren't good at networking through personal connections, then specialization is the only way you'll become networked.
Of course, you're betting on the technology, and if you bet long enough you'll always lose. Becoming a Tcl expert a while ago would have probably worked well, but now it's tanked. The mainframe specialists are all having hard times now. Eventually you'll become out of date, so you have to know when to jump ship for another specialty.
If a real BS is simply out of range for you or the like, or if a standard university like a state school will not work in your schedule, look at the University of Phoenix. They are a real, accredited institution that is specifically tailored to people already in the workforce getting a degree, and they are respected.
In NYC a local Linux group, NYLXS, provides the best value for money training that I have found. www.nylxs.com
Short version: Get the fuck out of my industry, k? thx. Bye.
Long version: If you havent figured it out by now, you probably never will -- Windows people are a dime a dozen. Sure, you can be good at what you do, but guess what..theres a million other spuds out there just like you. No amount of certifications is going to change that. Trying to get a job doing Windows crap is like going to the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you're still a retard. You'de be smart to reconsider your career objectives. Considering your hit-to-miss ratio, The IT industry may not be for you, thats all.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
whatever you do...do your research on the schools you are looking at, not by talking with the representatives but acutally talking with students that go there and get their opinions. I am currently enrolled at ITT Tech and i will say that it has been too much money and not enough on their part..
Last year alone, IBM recieved over 230,000 job applications. Guess how many of those people they hired?
Go on, guess.
100,000?
50,000?
10,000?
Super Colon Blow?
Zero. Infact, its worse than zero. Out of 230,000 job applications, IBM accepted 0. Infact, they cut more than 3000 jobs during the last fiscal year.
Source: Forbes Magazine, last month. Have fun.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
It's a very debatable point about whether certs mean diddlysquat in today's market. I tend to think they help a bit for entry level and mid level jobs, but you have to be able to demonstrate that you have more than that...experience, potential, initiative.
I've been pursuing the Master CIW Administrator cert. Not particularly well known, but it tests on a lot of core networking and server techologies without bogging you down on proprietary stuff.
Enroll in a cert only if the knowledge is interesting, not because you think the cert will influence people. Certs don't impress, but knowledge does.
I tend to recommend against taking classes like that. If you are in a big city, it's possible to find study groups or special interest groups about special topics. In houston we have Hal-PC which has study groups on these certifications. For free!
Unless the cost of the hardware is way out of your league (i.e. more than 1000), it's probably a good idea to do the configuration and learning on your own system than at some school. You'll learn more from the ground up.
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Try your local community college. The courses are cheap, and the chances are the teacher won't teach to the exam.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Are the RHCE and RHCT certs as "hot" as some say they are? I would like to work with linux as a career when I get out of college, and was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on these two certs as an option...
I went to ITI about 3 years ago. It's strong on methodology and has pretty good breadth in terms of curriculum (HTML/Client side scripting, VB 6 (3 years ago), Java, and Oracle. Each section was a 2 or 3 month project, and that was cool too: you work in teams for 3 months at a time. It prepares you for what you might be doing, and you get to do different things: project management, coding, testing, documentation, although you still have to do a certain amount of actual coding every time.
The problems were that it's expensive, a huge amount of the cash goes to marketing (BTW, they didn't design the website themselves, they contracted it out or at least they had when I was there), and consequently there wasn't enough money to hire and hold the best teachers or to provide the best software (some of the software decisions seemed to be more about $$ than quality). It also seems they spend too much money on the campuses: it's seems like they're trying to prove to you that they're successful but what they're really doing is spending your tuition on swanky downtown offices.
I was also disappointed with the lack of follow through in the projects: we brought them up to a certain point in the SDLC, them just left them there: no deployment, no real testing process, no evolve or transition phases....
They do have a pretty good track record in terms of placement. I got a good job, but it was as much from networking as the schooling. I do feel that it prepared me for the job market, but another problem was that the marking was way too easy: unless you were stupid or you smoked up before every exam, you'd get A/A+ on everything. But you get what give: if you worked really hard (and there were the resources there to learn from including a good supply of books, labs, CBTs, and supplementary materials and projects in the curriculum reading), then you could really learn something. Perhaps they should concentrate more on the quality of the grads (some of the people who graduated didn't have a clue about technology/programming/IT when they left) than the placement rate/graduation rate. Even if someone gives you $30k, you're still allowed to fail the f&*ckers.
Beat your resume to death. It should be completely error-free. No spelling errors. No capitalization errors. No formatting errors. Examine it with a critical eye for presentation. Be truthful, but any skill that you genuinely have is in there. Get the buzzwords in. If your resume shows that you're older than 40 or 45, then consider removing those references.
Give your resume to many recruiters. It won't necessarily get you a job, but at least you'll have some else with some vested interest in getting you employed.
You need some claim to fame besides general NT administration. NT administrators are more plentiful than stray cats and dogs. (No we need a spay and release program?) If you do NT, then you need something else. Scripting. Programming. Networks. Linux. Databases. Citrix. Something.
Get a day job. 2001 and 2002 saw a great winnowing of the IT ranks, particularly in the Windows infrastructure area. You may need to face that it is going to be a long time before you're back in IT.
Get a degree. Even a two-year degree.
For experience, try volunteering. Find a non-profit that needs IT done. Work for them for free. Don't try to milk it for employment, just spend, say, 8 hours a week fixing their computer problems. There are many benefits, not the least of which is that you can legitimately claim it as experience on your resume.
Join user groups.
Build stuff at home. Buy surplus equipment. Install stuff. Buy a router simulator. Don't tell people in an interview that you have a network at home. Talk about it in terms of a "lab environment", or a "small network". If they want details, then tell them it's a home lab.
Good luck.
While working as a caddy in a golf course, I met my current employer. We talked, he had a good impression, and asked me to go in for a more detailed discussion (not really an "interview").
After we talk more, and I liked his style, so I said "Why don't I come in and learn and get used to this company while you're thinking about hiring me? This would help you make a better decision too."
"How much pay are you looking for?"
"I'm not concerned with that now, but I want to convince you that you should hire me."
"Be here 9am Monday." I did work for free for a few weeks, but was hired. If I didn't do that, I would probably still be waiting tables and handing out golf clubs.
I'm not saying you should not care about pay. I'm thinking that you're a smart guy who's willing to make the extra effort, and you have the experience. It is hard to separate yourself from the 10 other guys looking for the same job as you; this way you're almost "hiring yourself" for the job, as they will see that you're a worthy candidate.
As far as specific skills needed, you will even find out more by being IN the company instead of looking from the outside. Then you can pick it up with the help of others in the company, or do whatever method you think is best as suggested by /.er's here. The key is to be HONEST and not try to give them the impression that you know more than you do, or you'd be screwed quickly.
Good luck. It's a tough market so try to be creative to separate yourself from the others.
I worked for a major research facility and after 7 years there, became unemployed (for reasons that are a long story not relevant here.) I soon realized that I had to find a way to change my own perspective. I did several things:
1) I looked for a group of similarly situated people. Here in Silicon (Silly Con?) Valley, there is a no cost organization for unemployed professional and technical people called Promatch. Promatch is a chapter of Experience Unlimited, and costs you nothing but a few hours eac week. Look for Experience Unlimited in your area. The Promatch URL: www.promatch.org.
2) I went back to school on a one class per term basis. In particular, I went to a community college. In this area, one of the best is DeAnza College in Cupertino. Can you imagine a router lab featuring 24 live Cisco routers(something like 8 different models) I couldn't until I saw them, and what really blew me away was that they were all donated. These were not old, out of date junk, but new and pretty much the stuff you see in the "Real World."
And again, I met a lot more people I would not have met any other way. As I said before, having a contact inside a company can be priceless.
3) I am 60, and as an engineer, I know that I probably will not land another full time job, so I decided to get a business license and try doing some consulting. I am currently working on 3 projects.
The first project is a biofeedbeck device. We now have one patent applied for, and another patent we are investigating. Both patents will have my name on them. Eventually this could become a viable company (and an income.)
The second project is a electrical power monitor for small businesses. This power monitor would be on a company's LAN and appear as an internal web site, where it would provide a running plot of power consumption over the past 24 hour and give an estimate their power bill. If they have "time of use" billing, this energy usage plot could be worth BIG BUCKS.
My third project involves a chemical vapor deposition system, to coat teflon tubing (inside and outside) with an anti-coagulant layer a few molecules thick. My job will be designing and building some high power (kilowatt level) RF equipment in a high volume manufacturing environment.
I also have a part-time job working one morning per week on a mountaint top just south of San Francisco, maintaining a 60 kilowatt UHF television transmitter. This is my only steady income.
You need to get into circulation to make new contacts. BTW, drop that shotgun resume. Every resume you write should be customized for the specific job you want, with a custom cover letter. This is where your contacts will come in handy, because most jobs are not advertised. I think you can do better hunting with a rifle instead of using a shotgun.
An analog gray hair frantically clinging to the trailing edge of technology.
I took Object Oriented Software Technology in Calgary, AB (Canada) and it placed me where I was hired and continue to work. Problem is, it was about 14k(us) and I am not really using a thing I learned, so basically I bought a job. Kind of a joke but I AM working and the experience I have gained will let me basically walk into any shop I choose. Now was it worth it? I dunno, I pay more for my student loans than I do rent, but eventually they will be paid-off and my salary will increase. I have had 4 promotions in under 2 years.... I would say the fact that I used 14k to get my foot into a door was well worth it.
I myself looked into ITI, but it seemed to orient towards analysis and that just doesnt (err didnt at the time) interest me. That and the fact that one of their offices filed for Chapter 11, sort of scared me away.
Thanks to one and all for your suggestions, and I'll certainly take a few to heart.
:)
At 41 (without a degree) and having been out of the IT workplace for 2+ years, I don't have the time or money to go the full college route, and I neither need nor want to take English, Philosophy, basket weaving or anything else right now. I need to quickly bolster my skills in areas that are directly relevant to the end of the market I wish to re-enter, namely systems or network administration.
I worked as a contractor since '94 (home users, SoHo, etc), got NT in '97 and worked 3 years in the PHB-world (and loved every minute of it). When I moved to the US from Canada in 2000 it took 9 months to get work status here, and by then the dotcoms were falling one-a-minute and nobody was hiring. Then 9/11 came up and I've not even gotten more than 2 nibbles after that. Huge resume gaps are just not in demand any more, alas.
I finally found a great looking tech school for Cisco (TCY Technologies in Manhattan). Lots of eBay'ed routers--one dedicated per student--small classes, motivated and intelligent teachers and fellow students that could just as well be my co-workers or bosses (I mean that in a good way). In other words, not Lowest Common Denominator "what's a subnet" career-changers or UI voucher recipients. I'll take the advice of many posters here and take my Solaris training directly from Sun rather than through a school.
I've decided to take A+ and Net+ on my own, and try for the following certs: CCNA, CCNP, CSS-1 and Solaris Admin I & II. I also want to fill in the gaps of my Winblows knowledge with 70-210, 215 and maybe 216, but I still haven't found a decent M$ school for these yet.
I also took to heart what many have said about there being something with my resume that's raising flags, and if anybody's any good with resumes and is willing to assist, I'd gladly take comments and suggestions.
I really enjoy SA/network admin work, I don't mind staying till 2AM to check on a critical process, work weekends to ensure backups are complete or go under desks and pull Cat5. Heck, I don't even mind dealing with (l)users day to day. I'm good at what I do and I want to do more of it. I have no interest in coding whatsoever (more power to ya, and less competition from me!).
Cheers, PJ Dougherty
I'm probably too late into this discussion to make a difference, but I'd like to draw your attention to two programs at Columbia University.
The Executive IT Management Program (aka EITM) is designed for people who have a significant amount of technical experience, and that are looking to bolster their managerial skills. It's a one-year program, and it's relatively cheap (about $10k in total). All classes are at night. I don't have any personal experience with this program, but I know the person who runs it, and he is an extraordinarily talented professor.
The Computer Technology and Applications Program (aka the CTA Program) is probably not advanced enough for you. However, persons in the New York area who are looking to learn about computer technologies from more of a beginner's perspective should check this out. It's a four semester program, so it takes about a year and three months to complete. The total cost is about $12,500.
My brother is a CTA grad. He stuided C, C++ and Java. And, just one year after graduating, he's now making $85k as a Software Engineer at a finance-related high tech company in New York. Prior to the CTA Program, his only "technical" experience was as a Technical Writer. Now, keep in mind that my brother is very smart and very dedicated, and most people are not going to do as well as he is. But the program is excellent, but it does teach the skills and open some doors.
I also did the CTA program, but I was in a softer program that emphasized application design and project management. I would not recommend this track.
The database track is excellent, however, and it gives you significant hands-on experience with Oracle.
There is also a Networking track. I don't know that much about this track, but my understanding is that it is less well regarded than the programming and database tracks.
If anyone wants more information about this program, you can email me at: mossmania (NO SPAM PLEASE) at yahoo dot com.
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
For instance, I got my CCNA in 1999, I now work for a library and take care of 7 branches of computers and networks as a systems admin. My CCNA has now expired, and I know if I renew it, the most I will get is "Oh, thats nice" from the boss. Should I still look into keeping it updated, or does it stand as proof enough that I have received it, and do know what i'm doing. (and no i didn't take a "pump our the certs" course, i tought myself the CCNA and really learned the info not just memorized) The only reason I would really want to renew is so that I could take some of the security certs from cissco that look intersing... any thoughts?
Here a Sig There a Sig Everywhere a Sig Sig...
I've recently been to New Horizons in Cincinnati and I didn't have much experience or training and have completed my MCSE. They have an all-inclusive program and a test pass guarantee. During my program I got hand's on instruction classroom machines and could break and fix things as class went and ask the instructor question if there was something that I didn't understand. It's been a great experience. Their number is 513-554-0111 and the person I talked to was at extension 2136.
Very few people get jobs by having "800 resumes sent out" and waiting for the calls to roll in.
Talk to a career counselor or read
What Color Is Your Parachute and learn how to actually find a job.
I read this with some disdainful level of interest, mainly because I'd just been terminated from Diablo2 in the midst of a whirlwinding, slashing, capricious caper through the mean little NPC's with my brawny barbarian. Hmmm, says I, he want's a little training so he can put a smiley face on his resume next to a CCNA cert, eh? Well, one shouldn't complain so readily about the "train-to-the-exams" attitude of these schools and boot camps. After all, says I, these companies simply practice the old adage.."Give the People What they Want." And unfortunatly what so many want are IT jobs paying $70,000 and up with out taking the time and effort to actually be competent! Sad but true, har har. Before ye makes me walk the plank you land-lubbin' Slash dotter's here me...Certifications are good for those of ye who've spent the countless hours doing the real grunt work, working with idiot users who think the CD bay is a nice drink holder and a keyboard should work fine even after wiping the peanut butter and jelly from the keys, but too many nincompoops are walking away from the gas station and fast food joints and screaming for certifications. I say we start a new. Make 'em work a help desk for a minimum of a year for the Molly Goodhead Institute for the Criminally insane and holders of IQ's under 80. If they survive, then we move em to bench techs...and so on. We'll weed out the technically challenged in a very short period of time, breath new value into certifications, and the world will be a better place, with cherry blossoms and shapely lasses fogging the glasses of the future Bill Gates (and his eager alter-ego's) of the world....Oh, sorry...was I dreaming again? What I meant to say is, if you find what you are looking for, share the wealth of information. If it's a boot camp, go to the folks at Hands On Technology Transfer. They are notorious for NOT teaching to the exam. Har har...
Ben Ice Editor - The Cert Times Slightly off center, more than slightly nuts, and certainly not politically correct
in a bad economy, when demand goes down, the supply is weeded out for the crap, and only the quality people have a job.
the above fact is the reason why i have a job, Bowie, and you don't.
When my alma matter was approached by Cisco and asked to become a training partner they told them to try the local college instead. Plugging together black boxes does not have academic merit.
These schools are in it for the money and if you dare to refuse the first job opportunity they offer (because you don't want to spend 6 months at minimum wage answering phones) then they stop working for you. They also have a list of companies you're not allowed to approach yourself because they're too busy selling your classmates to them. Avoid these SOBs like the plague and learn what I did, the IT biz will kill you inside 30 seconds if you don't stab someone else in the back first. Grab your own then let the rest die.
hmm, ..I hate to say this but i mean this literally.. If you specialize your basically selling out. Specializing in something in a compuiter related field, will get you a job, then when you get older and that's all you know... Well i'll just say that my best friends father is going through this now. He's only in his 50's. He knows more than what his resume gives him credit for. Employeers just don't look at those things. His credentials are in programming. Unix mostly, and NT4. But he's not a sys admin, nor does he know all of the details of networking, and securing... More so of the hardcore Database end... So I talked him into going into going into business for himself until the market gets better, ..then he may like what he does.
You know, I have been in the computer world for about 10 years, and I have no certs. I took the Jr. College route, and their computer science course was in the first year of this courses existance at this school. We covered Office 97. I was so pissed off. Training on office in a college. I was amaized, not that it was over office; but that we did not even touch Access.
I took two years at this school before time was costing me too much and school was interferring. Work it was. So i finally quit working fast food, moved to the Dallas area looking for something. Preferably computer related.
The job thing did not happen. Now I own my own business. Networking, cisco, DB programming, website authoring, NT4, 2000, unix, linux copier fax printer repair, building servers for web, ftp, ssh, smtp pop3, and a lot more.. and the field is changing. Screw what others think. Learn all you can about what ever you can.
I do. Use what you know!
Skimp
PS- I'm not saying that school is bad, if you can afford it do it! I'm gonna go back.
May your butt stay clean, And your nose-hairs short.
..Free Live Free...
My opinion on foriegn outsourcing is , I can understand a companies obligation to it's shareholders to stay in business, but I also feel if you HQ yourself here, you need to hire people from here.
I'm with you. How about the flip side too - if a company moves its workforce offshore, the HQ and all the executives should be required to relocate as well. They really should be supervising their workers. :)
personally i think it should be done by the best person for the job (ie the best damn coder). weather he is from south africa , germany or the US i dont give to damn's.
HOWEVER , i dont think money should be factored into the equation. it should be done by the people who have the best capacity to do it.
but another thing - the HB1 visa program NEEDS to go away, FAR FAR away. i know way to many americans who are unemployed. we do need to work at creating/keeping more jobs here. and american companies are too goddamn focused on $$$ to worry about that.
the way i see it is simple - these companies are more focused on "cutting" costs than they are at keeping jobs.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
only 200 ? hell of alot better than the 4000 we get around here .....
.sig
thanks for the advice.
and i like the
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
lemme tell you guys something -- you DO NOT wanna move to india, bad water, bad food, bad pay. not to mention (depending on the part you go to) pakistan always right over your shoulder. NOT a pretty picture.
Thanks for the warning, but we'd only want to move to the Microsoft MyIndia Outsourcing Campus, which I'm sure is much better than the regular open source Indian model. :)
I should have included that I see what you're saying and appreciate the input - just got carried away with the joke. Sorry.
If you cannot script in the shell (and possibly perl or expect/tcl), if you do not know how a compiler and make works, you are possibly a competent network/hardware jockey, but you are not a good *nix admin and will never be one.
thats your opinion bud. not a fact, and in my opinion your wrong.
and i dont give a good goddamn if some java jockey thinks java is code or not. because it is called a SCRIPTING language for a reason.
Finally,if you read the want ads for *nix administrators there are vanishingly few descriptions that want someone without scripting knowledge, for excellent reason.
and if you would read my goddamn post you would have known that i clearly stated *you do not need to know code to be a good admin, and you rarely need to know scripting. * and in case you forget what rare means --
" seldom occurring or found : UNCOMMON "
and if you are a half shit admin you should not have to fuck with the production boxes very often. hence scripting is an "UNCOMMON" occurence.
set it up - let it run. if it breaks fix it. if not DONT REINVENT THE WHEEL.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
yeah microsoft campus water is dilluted. this tricks you into thinking its better , but instead of making you just a little sick..... it slowly makes you dumber.
;-)
your welcome for the input ~!~
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
..Free Live Free...
oops, you're a big fat bozo aren't you?
People who know one thing think they know it all. Just because you have root doesn't mean you deserve it. this comment by itself is true.
about you.
by this comment "If you are a good/excellent admin you don't worry about messing up a production machine through coding or application specific blunders."
you show that you have NO FSCKING idea what a production enviroment is really like. were not talking your personal webserver you dipshit. were talking systems that require *as in your job depends on it* five nines. period. end of discusion. if you wanna test development code/ideas on a production system you need help, and a luser account. because you sure as hell are not a real admin.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
..Free Live Free...
I can understand this.
All admins have this experience when working in
a shop full of programmers.
One way to solve things is to make it very transparent for the programmers to perform
routine transactions.
cgi interfaces are something everybody likes and
usually can be adapted easily.
..Free Live Free...
Funny thing is, I know american coders who after 2 years of unemployment would LOVE to be paid $5@hr (i'm guessing thats what an equivelent indian would cost)
They just love what they do, if money were the issue they would get jobs flipping burgers. Hehe, I got turned down by McDonalds, they told me they didn't think I would stick around too long. Oh well.
*is not a coder*
but i do love what i do, and i am starting to learn code. so i can see where they are coming from. i am grossly underpaid now, but there is *NO* market for linux network/system admins where i am. let alone in a *windows free* enviroment.
PITA part is i have a job offer in houston (im in upstate NY as it is) and am really contemplating moving. but i am nervous cause i dont wanna move and then get dumped in 6 months.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
like i said ... you test development code on a development box. call it a petri dish, sandbox or whatever its all the same -- its a testing box.
i agree with what you just said. but i do not agree with your POV on the code/scripting thing. not like it matters too me, im good at my job and i never have problems with any of the stuff i do. (i even admin off to the side part time as well.) so i guess its whatever works best for the situation your in.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
I would ask what the severance package is, make sure they put it in writing, and maybe try and squeeze the relocating costs out of them.
Maybe not though, they might not give you anything if you do that. Think of it this way, you just gotta work 3 months to qualify for unemployment again, so in the very least you could use it to qualify for unemployment again (man what a redundant sentance that was)
I'd do it in a heartbeat if I wasn't married and paying a mortgage.
ah the advantage of being single and 21 .....
but really thats a good idea about the severance package, i'll have to check on that. they already offered relocation costs. so thats a bonus.
TA
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Definitely, volunteering is a method that works. Did a Linux-based system for a school, and there's no better teacher than necessity (as in, "Sure, I can do that!" Hmm...how am I gonna do that?), not to mention something that you can point to as a verifiable demonstration of your skills.
"It remains to be seen if the human brain is powerful enough to solve the problems it has created." Dr. Richard Wallace
Acronyms can be _pronounced_.
That's what sets them apart from abbreviations.