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