RE: [Sheflug] Jobs.

["Lewis Ashton" <nospam [at] supanet.com>]

Hi folks,

There now follows an undirected ramble about computer jobs. Ignore it please
:-)

I've got to agree with this one. In this industry its very rare for people
to actually come out with exactly the skills that are asked for in the
advert. The advert is just a pointer. If you see a job that you think you
can do then chase it. The worst that can happen is that they say "no".
Personally I find that I learn a lot from interviews if they're any good. If
I don't learn the odd new thing then maybe the job isn't for me.

I find that once you get to sit down with an interviewer, you get to talk
about what you can and can't do. I often come clean and say "I've got no
experience in xyz, but from what I know of it it'd take me this long to get
productive with it." Its mostly about a basic understanding and an
enthusiasm to learn. If that doesn't suit them then you have to question
whether the job is going to be interesting enough for you.

As for difference between commercial experience and admin experience at
home, the biggest issues are going to be things like can you work in a team,
(and with out knowing your field this gets a bit vague but...) may be
organisational and process issues like version control strategies, risk
assessments, formal product evaluation issues.

So, you can admin a small network, think about what problems you can see
pushing that out to a big network. How you reproduce it day in day out. The
quickest way to build a standard machine. How to manage many passwords in a
big team. Basically issues of scale.

So potentially sit down and talk to them and tell them what you can do and
what you think the issues are moving up to a larger environment.

What kind of position are you looking at? Development, Admin or something
else?

If you want me to ramble more, drop me a direct mail and I will.

HTH
Lewis

PS if its admin you're looking for, one of the favourite topics to open the
tech conversation is telenet v ssh. So know the reasons and know the ssh
authentication options and people tend to get a nice warm feeling about your
perspective on technology choices and understanding of the inner working of
a system. At least thats what has happened to me a lot recently.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sheflug-bounce@vuw.ac.nz [mailto:nospam [at] vuw.ac.nz]On
> Behalf Of PaulSims062527 [at] aol.com
> Sent: 13 February 2001 08:27
> To: sheflug [at] vuw.ac.nz
> Subject: Re: [Sheflug] Jobs.
>
>
>
> Define experience.....setting up & administering servers,
> workstations, user
> accounts, NIS, samba, nfs, etc, etc, sounds like experience to me - not
> industry experience, true. But the typical experince of a Linux
> enthusiast.
>
> I wouldn't hold back from applying for one of these jobs if you
> are sure your
> skills are up to scratch...Better a rejection letter than to not
> try in the
> first place. Lets' face it, without going through the application
> process and
> a possible interview you'll never find out what they REALLY want. There
> really aren't that many people on the market with 2yrs plus of Linux
> experience in the workplace.....
>
> In short....sell yourself, don't try to be the mythical being
> they advertise
> for.
>
> Just my two penn'orth,
>
> Paul.

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