Hi Just wanted to throw a couple of thoughts in here. I've been doing the unix sysadmin thing for a while, and while I'm clearly not the best, I'm also not the worst either. I've just broken into Linux and, of course, am struggling with it. Anyway, here at the U, I've advertised for help and usually the people come from the Computer Science dept. I've hired people with good grades some with not so good grades. In all cases, as they start to see what "sysadminning" entails, they're history. This is a total of 4 people over the last 2 years. Probably I'm not the best judge of people, but I ought to be able to hang onto someone. On the other hand, during interviews with these people, you ask them very basic questions such as "What do you do about a disk crash?" and you just get this blank stare. They are absolutely clueless about this kind of thing. All in all, that's fine. Willing to learn is all that's really required, but given the above... Then there's what I call resume inflation. You look at what they have for skills and they'll have 97 different languages and operating systems listed and done 14 different things. As it happens, I know a little about a few things here and there, and when you question them in a little depth, it becomes painfully obvious that they are once again clueless. In a market where this kind of BS is prevalent, everyone has to lie just to get their foot in a door (at least, that's my take on it). If you feel that your certifications are worthless, perhaps this is why. Personally, I'd like to find someone who's been doing this stuff for a while to plug the holes in my knowledge and teach me a thing or 2, but I don't seem to be that lucky. Hang in there. I'm sure you'll find something. You might even find something here at the U as they tend to hire the inexperienced. The pay may not be that great, but it'd be a start. Good Luck!!! Ed Hoeffner 1-271 BSBE 312 Church St. SE Mpls, MN 55455 hoeffner at dcmir.med.umn.edu 612-625-2115 612-625-2163 fax