College Student Needs Help From a Sys Admin

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stidrvr

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Feb 21, 2009
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Hey everyone. I has an assignment for my IT Career Exploration class that involves interviewing someone in my projected job field. Problem is I don't know anyone in that field. I thought I would try here and see if anyone would be interested.

I only have to ask the person 6-10 questions. I figured I could just PM them to whomever was interested. Thanks A Lot!!
 
Just post them up. I'm just fine posting my answer publicly
 
OP, search this forum. There have been other students that have done the same thing here before. Asked questions and people chipped in to answer them.

His assignment was a little different in that he could take answers from multiple people. Not sure if you have to get all the answers from the same person. If you ask publicly, you're going to get lots of different answers to the same questions. I guess you can just pick whichever one you like the best.
 
Thanks everyone for the interest. I guess I didn't think to look to see if this question has been asked before. Realistically, I could have made up my own answers to these questions, its just a moral thing I guess. Anyway, enough rambling onto the questions.

1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
8. How do you stay current with technology?
9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
10. Describe a typical day.
 
I have answered inline

1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
I worked for 2 separate college IT departments for 2 years my last 2 years in school

2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Finally figuring out what the problems was and having things flow smoothly

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
None. I'm a sys admin with a BS in Computer Science which at my school means programming

3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
None haven't done any yet starting to look into cisco certs though

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
I'm going to add one. Willingness to learn. IT is always changing and the willingness to learn just really helps. I still work for a college and as I hire student interns and assistants I usually end up hiring the ones that know nothing but want to learn. The next thing is experience. I actually don't have anyone with a computer related degree working for me right now and I'm the only one in my department with a degree in computer anything

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
Yep. I'm crazy salaried at 40 hours usually work 50-60

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
As a job no. Everything else I would have enjoyed as a job is a hobby of mine and I would like to keep it that way.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
Where I'm at no.

8. How do you stay current with technology?
I read a lot of tech blogs and sites like Hardforum and Anandtech(Really like their server reviews)

9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
Yes. but its pretty rare

10. Describe a typical day.
I come in check the calendar and my email put out any fires that may be apparent there usually a meeting or 2 check on all my servers (Around 20) Investigate the technologies are I'm going to implement when the current ones are end of life. Trouble shoot anything that may arise though out the day. My day has no structure and everyday is differrnent just kinda depends what has broken (and for those of you that work in higher ed somebody has always broken something) and the status of my current projects
 
1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
I have seven years of experience in similar roles.

2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Two things, getting to help people everyday is hugely rewarding as I get to see my work make a difference in both productivity and the bottom lines of many companies. Secondly I have a passion for technology, as the field is always changing learning new stuff always keeps me engaged.

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
My current role is a Senior Network Consultant, I work with large companies to build strategies for upgrades to their existing equipment or break fix on emergency calls. I would love to be more on the security side, a CISSP is a certifications that I am very interested in getting my hands on in the future.

3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
CompTIA certifications for anything above a Junior position are not worth it. They are very expensive exams and I have of them that I no longer even list on my resume.

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
Really depends on what area of IT you go into. My position is a large mix of technical writing, engineering, break fix, and pre-sales. Having a strong University/education background has hugely assisted in my ability to write 25 page audits. To get in the door initially education is the best bet coupled with the right certifications (MCITP, CCNA). At my experience level having up to date certifications combined with relevant experience is very useful.

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
I ran my last 52 weeks of time sheets, I work on average of 51 hours a week. To answer the question I love what I do and I am paid very well to do it. To work in the Information Technology field you need to have the expectation that you will be working odd hours. This becomes even more common as you become more senior due to you probably being the only person specialized on a specific area as an example.

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
I passed my LSAT and was very ready to become a lawyer. As my hobby was technology at the last minute I changed my career path as it is difficult to make that sort of decision when you are only 20 years of age. In the future I do see moving towards the Law profession if/when my passion for technology begins to fade.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
As I work at a consulting firm my next step up is to take an equity position in the company as I continue to show my value and profitability to the organization. As IT in many organizations is lumped in the Finance/Accounting department moving up beyond being an IT Director/Manager can be difficult.

8. How do you stay current with technology?
I run a full Hyper-V lab environment at my home and with my Technet/MSDN subscriptions I work with all of the newest latest/greatest stuff. Certification wise I negotiate with my employer that they pay for my training and certification exams up front but obviously I put in a lot of effort on my own time. This year I was asked to upgrade my Microsoft certs (I usually just do networking) I wrote 17 Microsoft exams to attain 5 MCITP's.

9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
I travel extensively due to the clients that I am involved with. Between 40-60% of my time I am out of my home geographical area split between Northern remote areas and Latin America for Oil and Gas/Mining firms. I just got back from Bogota Columbia on Saturday after working with a intermediate sized mining company on a SAN migration/virtualization issue.

10. Describe a typical day.
My schedule changes depending on the needs of the businesses that we support. This week I am primarily working on our organizations internal infrastructure as we are completing a SAN migration, VMware to Hyper-V. The week after I am in Tumbler Ridge BC working with a coal mining company on a firewall migration project.
 
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1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
My current job I had 5 years experience when hired.

2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Everything. Mostly the project management stuff I get to do.

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
None

3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
I wouldn't have wasted my time on CompTIA certs.

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
Knowing someone ( :D ) > Experience > Certs > School

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
Yes. In the past 7 months I've put in an extra 166 hours. (I'm salaried btw)

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
No. But if computers didn't work out I would have been an electrician.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
Currently no.

8. How do you stay current with technology?
Implement new services and learn the associated hardware/software needed to do it. Read tech whitepapers and continuing to get higher level certs.

9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
No.

10. Describe a typical day.
No day is typical.
 
1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
For my current position: 4 years. I have been a "Sys Admin" for 2.5
2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Being able to learn constantly and figuring out solutions for complex problems.
3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
None.
3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
None - all mine have helped me in someway.
4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
A mixture of both: Getting an entry level job + attending college is the best route if possible.
5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
Yes.
6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
Engineering, it's always been an interest of mine.
7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
In my current position, no.
8. How do you stay current with technology?
I read blogs, continue to get IT certifications, and read whitepapers.
9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
No.
10. Describe a typical day.
Get to work at 8AM, check my email, and then work on any project that it going on, getting quotes from vendors, helping end users, etc. No day is typical and always different.
 
1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
About 8 years of IT exclusive experience. Note: This was a career change into IT, this was also not a entry level position.


2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Helping people with IT related issues and finding new ways to solve old problems.

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
CCNA and MCTIP (I'm working on both currently.)

3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
None

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
Experience, people who memorize facts tend to make horrible Admins/Network Engineers, understanding the problem and knowing the correct process to resolve an issue and effectively communicate with others are key requirements.

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
Yes, but I will say that it has limitations. My previous job I was working 60+ hour work weeks while being poorly compensated. Here I currently work high 40s and occasional 50+ but it doesn't bother me as I am paid well and not overworked continuously.
Odd hours are often the norm in IT.

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
I'm fairly happy where I am currently.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
Yes

8. How do you stay current with technology?
I visit websites like this one, go to conferences, read whitepapers and am always working towards a new certification.

9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
Yes, but I haven't had to travel yet. My previous job was 25% travel. Here it is 5% or less.

10. Describe a typical day.
There are no typical days. But if there was such a thing it would be something similar to: Go into work, start hammering down the random requests from earlier in the morning. Call Venders for incoming assets, assist anyone that asks. Review the logs and console for problems on the network. Repair a workstation or two. Go to meetings for various projects. Spend an hour or two working on long term projects. Example: we're rolling out a new set of Group Policy and AV controls.
 
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I'm no longer a sys admin as of a few months ago, but thought I'd answer anyway as I was one for 3 years or so:

1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?
About 3 years in that specific role, but have close to 6 years working with servers (got a job for 3 summers in a row while in college). I also work with sys admin related stuff as a hobby, and other jobs that I've had over the years. I was hired around 2009.

2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Setting up a server or something else, and seeing the end result, or fixing something successfully, and seeing the end result. Also, responding to a very critical situation and managing to get it under control fast enough in order to minimize impact on users.

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
I took a 3 year college comp sci diploma. I honestly would have been ready before that and the company actually wanted to hire me full time when I worked as a student, but just wanted to have at least that under my belt so I stayed in college. MS certs and Cisco are not a bad idea to get, I just never really bothered. They do help though, if you are applying for a high competition job.

3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
Nothing that I can really think of. I figure any extra schooling will usually do more good, than bad. Just don't overdo it if you don't have to. Faster you can get in the real world, the faster you can start making money, just be smart about it and think of the future, and not just that one position that you're going for. In my case I could have got in without college, but what if the company closes down? That's why I finished college.

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
Personally I say experience. Though some employers will say schooling, so really you kinda need both, and it depends on the specific company you apply for.

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
I did not mind my job, and if I had to I'd put in extra hours. Going home while a server was down was not a good feeling, I wanted to do what it takes to get it up and running again. Also over time pays well. :)

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
Trades: construction, plumbing, electrical etc... IT is cut throat business and there's lot of people who want to get into it, and not enough jobs, due to outsourcing, cloud computing etc. but there is a huge demand for trade related jobs. There's houses and buildings going up left and right at a rate faster than major contractors can keep up at. But it's also more physical work. IT related work you get to sit in an air conditioned space most of the time, which is nice.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
Really depends on the company you work for, but normally yes. Especially bigger companies that may actually have dedicated roles such as a DBA and so on. There is also the possibility of moving into management if that's what you want to do. A good manager is someone who actually did the job, so if you can gain experience first, then become manager you will be a better manager than someone who's never done the job.

8. How do you stay current with technology?
Forums, playing around with stuff at home, and by using/testing/implementing products at work. Often you will be asked to set something up in a very short deadline and you've never played with it before (Ex: Websense, ESX server etc) so you will learn on the job... and fast!

9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
My server position did not have any traveling, though depending on the company, sometimes there is, such as if you support multiple sites. As a server tech you mostly stay in the office, and only go to the server room if there's something physical to do such as insert a CD, or rack up an actual server etc

10. Describe a typical day.
When I got to work, first thing I'd do is check my email, and tickets. Most of my day was spent going through tickets and doing the work required. Mostly it was money work such as account creation/edit/delete, adding shared folders, troubleshooting misc issues (usually ends up being ID10T errors) etc. Every now and then we'd have to setup something new, so we'd have a project and work on that. That's where things get more interesting. But day to day was mostly tickets, and other misc work. In my current position we were not allowed to make ANY changes, not even updates or maintenance, but anywhere else, you'd also have a day set aside, maybe once a week, to do updates and what not. Lot of impacting work is often done off hours so there is some opportunity for overtime.


One thing about being a sysadmin is the job can be really awesome, be boring, or be a total nightmare. It really depends on the environment, the people you work with, or work for, etc... But guess that goes for most jobs. I think it's a great career to persue, and if you land a good job, you could be there for a life time and the more experience you have at that particular job, the more valuable you will become there.
 
I just wanted to give thanks to everyone that responded. It was very interesting to see the different answer from everyone. Thanks Again!!!
 
stidrvr said:
Thanks everyone for the interest. I guess I didn't think to look to see if this question has been asked before. Realistically, I could have made up my own answers to these questions, its just a moral thing I guess. Anyway, enough rambling onto the questions.

1. How much experience did you have when you were hired?

Well I did work for Academic Computing; which was the computer service at the University and I did work for another company doing the overnight backups. After that my first real job was a low paying internship with a city as the first full time IT person they hired. My Second job I had lunch with a friend I said one number for my salary and he said another number and since we were less than $2000 apart we split the difference.
Since then it has been working at various jobs and I have been at my current job since 1998.

2. What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Uptime. Other than patch Tuesday I pride myself on our equipment being up and running.

3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
After college I got my Novell Certification for Netware 3/4.


3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
I was so close to leaving college after I had done enough for my AS but I am glad I stayed to get my BS instead.

4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
More experience. I learned more from working and doing than from classes.

5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
My boss is pretty decent and if I have to put in extra hours so something is fixed so everyone else can work the next day she gets me a case of craft beer and some comp time.

6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
No. I originally went to college for chemistry but that was to much math for me and I have always been into computers since we first got our Vic 20.

7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
At my current job none. I am a one man IT show.
8. How do you stay current with technology?
Forums. Technet subscription. Works pays for classes.
9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
Normally no.

10. Describe a typical day.
Get to work. Check a few security update websites to see if anything came out that effects me (damn flash and java mostly). Check the event logs of the servers. After that there is no typical day. I do everything from helping the end users with word and excel to writing reports in frx to different data export from our CRM.
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1. How much experience did you have when you were hired? I was hired right out of college (July 2011) but have worked in telecom/IT since high school, since 2002 or so.
2. What is the most satisfying part of your job? working with new technologies and being able to help people
3a. What extra schooling/certifications would you have done before getting hired?
MS certifications and maybe some programming knowledge
3b. What extra schooling/certifications wouldn't you have done?
n/a
4. What is more important, more schooling or more experience?
I think both are very important, but leaning towards experience.
5. Do you like your job enough that putting in extra hours does not bother you?
It comes with the territory. Systems do not plan to go down between the hours of 8 and 5.
Every Sunday I have about 20-30 minutes of remote work (ERP system database backup).
6. Is there another field you wished you would have pursued? If so, which one and why?
Nope. I have always been fascinated with how things work, and since I work in IT for a manufacturing company, I get to see the best of both worlds.
7. Is there an opportunity for advancement?
I think so.
8. How do you stay current with technology?
Forums, research on my own, networking with peers
9. Is there any traveling involved in you current position? (besides the commute to work)
We have one branch office which is actually 5 minutes away from my house, but I do not have to go there often.
10. Describe a typical day.
The majority of my work is responding to helpdesk requests. I could be on the shop floor or in the offices. I spend a lot of time on hold with vendors for support LOL
The company as a whole is growing pretty steadily so I average one-two new users to set up and train each week.
I also set up new computers as the old ones reach the end of the lifecycle.
Like others said, there is really no typical day. Today I have some cabling that needs to be run by maintenance and terminated by me for remote access into a piece of machinery.
 
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