Systems Admin Interview Request

T

Terillius

Gawd
Joined
Feb 24, 2006
Messages
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I'm an A+ instructor and I have to do an analysis of current jobs and careers and what skills are required. One requirement is an informal interview so I need a systems admin or someone with input in the hiring process to respond.

I'd be happy with multiple quick responses but if someone wants to claim the project and answer in detail I'll send along some amazon or steam credit for your trouble.

1. Jobs in content area (Information Systems Technology)

2. Tasks for specific jobs (Install hardware, wipe drives, sales, help desk, etc.)

3. Skills necessary to successfully perform jobs (math, science, writing, speaking, customer service, electronics...)

4. Certifications or degrees you respect in entry-level employees
 
Weird that no one has responded. Feel free to send a PM with specific questions if you want and I'll do my best to answer. I'm more of a security admin than a sysadmin though. Not sure if that would help or not.
 
I'm a network engineer in the public sector. If you want some specific questions answered post them.
 
Terillius said:
I'm an A+ instructor and I have to do an analysis of current jobs and careers and what skills are required. One requirement is an informal interview so I need a systems admin or someone with input in the hiring process to respond.

I'd be happy with multiple quick responses but if someone wants to claim the project and answer in detail I'll send along some amazon or steam credit for your trouble.
Click to expand...

I am a system admin for a small factory(50 office PCs, ~40 production PCs). I am the only IT person at our location.

1. Jobs in content area (Information Systems Technology)
System Administrator

2. Tasks for specific jobs (Install hardware, wipe drives, sales, help desk, etc.)
Being the only IT person at my location, I pretty much inherit the "if it is electronic it is my problem" rule. I install/troubleshoot: Cisco switches/routers, desktop/laptops(XP/Vista/W7), printers, Blackberrys, servers(Server 2003/2008), helpdesk, maintenance on our servers and and SQL databases.

3. Skills necessary to successfully perform jobs (math, science, writing, speaking, customer service, electronics...)
As a system admin(and any IT position), speaking and customer service sometimes can weigh just as much as technical skill when you have to deal with the higher ups. Being able to prioritize and work under pressure is also a must. When something important breaks, you have to have a quick resolution to fix the problem at hand. Writing documentation in a clear and easy to understand form is also a great skill to possess.

4. Certifications or degrees you respect in entry-level employees
For a system admin a CCNA is a great entry level cert. MCITP in Server 2003/2008 is also good. Pretty much any MCITP at that. A degree is not required to be a System Administrator, but a lot of companies look for somebody with a bachelors in Computer Science or related fields. I myself do not have a degree(some college + graduated trade school), but have my A+/N+, CCNA, and MCITP SQL 2005 Database Administrator, and am working on my MCITP Server 2008 Administration certificate.

For entry level Help desk/IT staff, A+/N+ would be minimum and any of the MCITP Desktop/Support technician certs, and the CCENT or CCNA would look great on your resume.

I had a help desk job for 2 years, then switched between a few IT consultants for about 5 years before I got my current Sys admin position. I am still rather new to the Sys admin position(almost 2 years now), but if I didn't answer everything you were looking for, just ask!
 
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1. Jobs in content area (Information Systems Technology)
SCCM Administrator for ~4000 desktops and the servers that go with it.

2. Tasks for specific jobs (Install hardware, wipe drives, sales, help desk, etc.)
I manage, maintain, and develop the infrastructure to administer / deploy / troubleshoot everything on the user side of things. A short non detailed list of tasks would be backend development, OS deployment / migration, and software updates / deployment.

3. Skills necessary to successfully perform jobs (math, science, writing, speaking, customer service, electronics...)
Strong communication skills are always important, no matter what job you have. As stated above, the ability to handle things when they break under pressure, especially when they break for important people is important. Having good programming skills to create complex scripts is a very good bonus. People write complex code to automate tasks generally know more about the inner workings of the platform. The most important thing to me is problem solving skills found in math / programming. Someone who has a good problem solving mind will always exceed past those who don't.

4. Certifications or degrees you respect in entry-level employees
I personally do not care for certifications or degree's but you do need to have them to get past HR in some of the bigger companies. That is unless you are well networked or have experience. For entry level A+ shows that you know the basics. People harp on it, but you have to start somewhere.

But like I said before, for me, problem solving skills is the most important thing someone can have. There are many who get all these certs before they even have a job and then when they get the job they can only do what they learned from the tests. In the interviews I have helped with I always ask questions that have no trivial answer and ask them to explain their though process on how they would go about solving the issue. I don't care if their answer is right or not. If they going in the right direction with their thinking they will solve the problem. This is not to say I don't expect them to know the OS very well. Thats a given.

edit: One more thing I want to add. Its more on the communication side of things. Noone likes a kiss ass, don't do it. Keep the BS to small talk but when it comes to business put things in their level of understanding and keep it blunt / to the point.
 
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I'm an IT Manager at a small-ish international company (less than 150 employees, 4 branch offices). Also manage datacenter operations, as we do SAAS development and hosting. Feel free to PM me questions, would prefer not to answer in thread :)
 
One man IT shops are rare. Where they exist you are expected to do every task from Level 1 duties to purchasing, change management, patch management, server management, network management etc.

Although budgets for one man IT shops is usually very small so network management might consists of simply hooking up an unmanaged 4 port switch in an office. It's all relative.
 
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