FSF looking for Sys Admin

Christopher Schmidt crschmidt at crschmidt.net
Thu Dec 16 10:34:01 EST 2004


On Thu, Dec 16, 2004 at 10:10:43AM -0500, Jon maddog Hall wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> brian at datasquire.net said:
> > This makes me REALLY wish I was a coder.  I'm recently unemployed and  fit
> > (or could reasonably fake) all the requirements except: 3+ years experience
> > with at least two programming languages. (and of course the programming
> > skills requirements...) 
> 
> crschmidt at crschmidt.net said:
> > More to the point, I'm lacking the undergraduate college degree they're
> > looking for, and probably have a bit less experience as a sysadmin than  I'd
> > be expected to. Unfortunate, since it looks like something that would be
> > really cool other than that.
> 
> People looking for employees often list more qualifications than they are
> willing to accept.  If the ad has been running a while, it means that they
> have not found the person they want, and they are still looking.

Something I'm well aware of; I learned some good lessons from my parents, and
this is definitely one of them. I got the job I'm at now for precisely this
reason: the qualifications were a bit more than what I had experience with,
but I applied anyway, since the job description fit me almost perfectly
otherwise.

I ended up working here, despite being at the tail end of a 3 week 
interview process, and not having all the skills they were looking for, since
I was pretty much the ideal candidate other than knowing Macromedia Flash.

I told them that I was self-taught with almost everything I knew, looking
to learn more, and that's the basic reason I got hired: they didn't want 
someone who knew everything, they wanted someone who could learn everything.

> My first job out of college was programming in IBM assembler on an MVS system.
> While in college I had never touched an IBM system, or studied IBM assembler.
> I picked up everything I had to know by reading a book an studying on my own
> AFTER I had taken the job.  I was up front with the employer, and told them
> that I had learned PDP-8 assembler by self-study, and based on this, they
> hired me.
> 
> You show up and apply for the job.  They point out that you have something
> lacking.  You tell them that you are a quick study, that they could hire you
> for six months and if you don't work out then you leave and everyone is
> better off.  In the meantime:
> 
> 	o Brian, you would take courses in programming.  You may already know
> 	  one language: bash and shell scripting.  If you know that, Perl is
> 	  not too far behind.
> 
> 	o Christopher, you tell them you will go back at night and finish your
> 	  degree.  Yes, you can do it.  I got my Masters at night while working
> 	  full time.  You might even get them to pay for it after a short
> 	  "trial period".
>
> If you don't apply for the job, you will never get it.  If you do apply and
> they turn you down, at least you will know you tried, and they missed out on
> getting a really good sys admin.

Good point. At this point, I'm not really sure I want to leave where I do 
work; I like the environment, and I like the people, and I like being close to
home, and I like the work I do. But there's something to be said for a pay
raise, and working for ideals, something I can't do here nearly as much as I
would be able to there. Working at an advertising firm is just not quite the
same.

-- 
Christopher Schmidt
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