My company recently had an opening for a Junior IT Admin. I posted to Craigslist, and newsgroups and on our local site as well as some local free boards. I had a few resumes come in, and ultimately interviewed 5 people. I feel compelled, after this experience, to put out some advice to those IT new grads who are trying to figure out how to get their foot in the door to that ideal job. And ours IS an ideal job – if you are serious about wanting to expand your knowledge and skills.
IT positions in large corporations or the government tend to be siloed – I’ve met admins who did nothing more than image/install Windows desktops and do front-line support for desktop users and that was ALL they did. For YEARS. They never actually got to touch Active Directory, or Exchange or a backup server. Small companies don’t have that luxury – an IT Admin must be able fix or install anything in the corporate network. We have Windows-based internal network, some rogue macs and iphones, and a BES and blackberries, synched with Exchange. We manage our own websites at a Tier 1 Data Center. We use VMWare (ESXi) all over the place, and have several flavours of Linux running in the house. People do gaming nights after hours in the board room - There is an Xbox and a Playstation in there and a huge screen/projector for that very purpose. We have firewalls and VPNs and remote and local users. And an IT administrator gets to touch ALL of it at some point. It’s an AWESOME place to learn and get to actually work with a bunch of different technologies in a real-world environment.
So how do you get someone like ME to hire YOU if you are fresh out of college, and don’t have much work experience?
First and foremost, you have to show me, by what you do on your own time, that you LOVE technology. That you are constantly trying to learn and keep pace. You have to eat, sleep, live and breathe this stuff. I want to hire the kind of person who loves solving computer problems, installing new software, and diagnosing networking issues so much that their attitude is one of, “Wow, and they PAY me too! How cool!”
I’m looking for people who have several computers on their home network, or even just a couple, but they aren’t souped up for gaming – they are souped up so you can run 3 different Linux virtuals, an XP virtual, and a virtual with the new Windows 7 (because Vista sucks so bad you uninstalled it after a trial run.). You know what RAID means, and can articulate the difference between the different types of RAID and why you’d use one type over another. You know the difference between a SAN and a NAS, and have built a simple NAS at home for your parent’s movies/photos. You know the difference between VMWare Server and ESXi, and You know the basics of firewalling and can explain what a DMZ is, and what a NAT rule is. You’ve set up and configured your own web site/blog and know what commands to use to tell if Apache is still running on a web server, and how to see how much disk is left. You know what a “Rogue DHCP Server is” and how one might have snuck its way onto our network. You read/follow technology blogs and podcasts, and are constantly downloading/installing new things (in a virtual, of course, so that you don’t screw up your primary system). You have used/enhanced your scripting skills outside of school – whether it’s bash or python or perl or WSH. You are hooked into and attend User Group meetings about technologies that you are interested in like Microsoft Tech Nights or Linux User Groups, or VMWare User Groups for example.
In essence, you show INITIATIVE to explore, play with and learn about technology on your own. I’m looking for someone who is passionate about the technology, and wants a Career in IT, not a hobby that pays the bills while they figure out what they really want to do.
Attention to detail is critical in an IT Admin role. One small mistake can take down a corporate site, kill the network, wipe out a user’s data, or expose the entire company to a hacker. When things are crashing all around, you have to be able to keep your head, work quickly, but methodically, and pay attention to every keystroke. If you send me a resume or a cover letter filled with spelling and grammar mistakes, that’s a big Red Flag. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has access to a spell-checker. USE it before you send a single piece of correspondence. Whatever you do, don’t lapse into “text speak”. Use FULL words and capitalize pronouns. (I cannot believe I even have to SAY that, but yes, sadly, I did get a cover letter that started with, “i saw ur job posting”…)
A great Admin is a highly creative problem solver. In a perfect world, we would have the money to buy the latest and greatest hardware and software, and it’s good to know what the Ferrari version IS for reference sake. In reality, we often have to “make do” or figure out a less expensive alternative. I’m looking for my Admins to participate in that part of the problem solving process. The more connected they are to the tech world, the more likely they will be to have heard of a new tool, a piece of hardware, a software kit, that might be just the thing we need to solve a critical issue.
Of course an IT Admin role is a SUPPORT role – you are constantly dealing with users, and some of them aren’t the nicest people in the world – especially when they just deleted that critical file that they forgot to check into source code control – so diplomacy skills and a positive attitude are essential.
The other thing you have to be is TENACIOUS. The job of an IT admin is one of constantly having to solve problems. It’s like Gopher Heads. You whack one down, and another pops up. It’s great for the ADD/short-attention-span types because most problems CAN be solved in a matter of hours if not a few days. But a GOOD Admin has the kind of attitude that says, “No computer is going to get the better of me.” He/She won’t rest until they’ve nailed that sucker. A GREAT Admin will then document the solution and/or implement procedures so that it either won’t happen again, or we’ll catch it and solve it faster.
At the end of the day, what I’m looking for is the kind of passion and enthusiasm for technology that exhibits itself in what you do on your own time, outside of school or work. I can train you in the things you don’t know. I can’t train you to be self-motivated. If you are serious about a career in IT and still haven’t found a job, put down the game controller or the TV remote, and get on your computer. Make it your passion and you WILL land a job.
(Oh, and I DO look at your GPA if you are fresh out of college. This stuff isn’t rocket science, but it IS hard work. Anything less than a 3.0 tells me you didn’t put enough effort into the program, and that gives me pause for concern.)
Well said! Kind of makes me want to apply for a job with you.
I really could hear “Pomp and Ceremony” playing in the background (like in the “I Am Canadian” beer commercial).
No kidding, folks. Being a video game expert doesn’t qualify you for an IT job, but if you know how to research game cheats you *might* be resourceful enough to work in a system admin role – you just need to apply your resourcefulness to something in the real world to prove it. It can be just as much fun.
Scott Wright