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Job Market for Unix Admin. Solaris 8 5

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Novice11

Technical User
Sep 10, 2001
4
US
Hello everyone !! First time here !! I currently have Linux certification from Sair Linux, also have CCNA certification from Cisco. Now what i was planning to do was Unix, Sun Solaris 8 !! I don't have that much experience, but definitely have certifications. Wanted some valuable advice from all you pros. How is the market for Unix esp. with my background or in general. Is it wise to do this or else ?? Please reply, I would really appreciate help/advice/tips...thanx
 
This is just my two cents, but if I were to have someone like you in a job interview, there would be no way that I would hire you on in a UNIX administration role. This is only going on the feeling that you have a lot of papers saying you know stuff, but no personal experience showing that you do.

It's at least been my experience that UNIX is still an area where certifications don't speak louder than experience, thank goodness. I fear that this may be changing due to Microsoft and other companies portraying a piece of paper as knowledge, but hopefully not. I am by no means saying that someone with certifications wouldn't be able to do the job, but if I got someone in that had solid experience and no certifications vs. a person with a ton of certifications and little to no experience, the former would win out every time. Just to let you know, I'm a Solaris admin, so I don't know if that view is taken with the other OS's or not, or if I share the same opinion as the masses for that matter.

In short: Study and take/obtain certifications to please the mindless upper-management that believe that means you're improving professionally and to get a raise.
Work your butt off and discover how great an operating system Solaris/UNIX is in order to have inner piece and become that scary guy in the corner that the business depends on but no one wants to talk to.

OK, maybe I went a bit far there :)

Good luck
T
 
I don't know the statius now, but I do now that when I took the Sun certifications, they were *tough*- there was no way you could pass them with just book knowledge. You needed a lot of stuff that wasn't covered in the course, and a good bit of hands-on experience. That was true for all but the very basic entry level tests.

One course for Enterprise Cerification was on kernel internals- out of a class of twenty something, only four of us even bothered to try the exam- the rest of the people were so far out of their depth that they knew there was no point.

I barely flunked it the first time I took the test- studied almost every night for two solid months before I tried that exam again and passed-. It was really, really hard.

A few months later, Sun dropped that test as a requirement of certification- apparently too few people were able to pass it- to my mind, that's a dumb reason to drop the test, but maybe it really was too tough.

Anyway, cert tests *can* be tough enough to weed out the inexperienced.
Tony Lawrence
SCO Unix/Linux Resources tony@pcunix.com
 
Dear Novice11,

I am 54 years old, have been in the "IT" industry LONG
before it was called IT (34 years). I do not have a degree.
I do not have any cerifications. I have been working with
HP-UX and Solaris for the last six years. Last November,
due to the economy, and the WTC disaster (6 blocks away),
our employer decided to close our hosting center. It is now
3 months and counting, and I have only been on FOUR inter-
views. The market is totally flooded with KNOWLEDGEABLE,
EXPERIENCED admins. Concentrate more on KNOWING the
subject, instead of how many certs you have on the wall!
Certification AND a degree do NOT ensure troubleshooting
abilities. I'm sure you can recite verbatim the boot
process, but that doesn't tell me whether you can fix a server
that "all of a sudden" isn't responding, in a timely manner,
without opening a book or calling the vendor first. My advice...
get a job first, put into practice what you have
"learned", but must of all, learn from your mistakes, and
from what others can pass on to you.
 
If you are new to Unix, these guys are right about
experience.

On the other hand, experienced Admins cost a company
lots and lots of money. If you are new, point out that you will not
charge as much as an experienced Admin. Many companies
are cheap and you have to convince them to take a chance
on you.

You have to be very confident you can help the company
meet it's goals.

 
Hello Guys!!

Just by listening to you nobody will have the courage
to even start doing anything.
All of you got the job when stuff were still easy.
Right now in the market no Hr will even consider
calling you if you don't have some king of certs..
Believe it or not..I got the job beacause I had
my mcse .

Thank you for your time!!
 
My opinion, but I have known people to take tests and pass them. What value is that in the certification? Experience is what is valuable, not a piece of paper saying that you checked off the correct answers. I have been an AIX admin for 7 years and have no certifications and my b.s. degree is in business and my m.s. degree is in education. Dedication, time, and patience are what is required to learn a particular field, whether it is education, computers, nursing, engineering, historian or any other of the 100s of fields of study. Microsoft is making money of their certs, so they will keep pushing them, but Unix has always been a hands-on OS. You could bluff your way through Windows without knowing a lot, but you would be shown for what you are in Unix if you don't have knowledge, even if you have a piece of paper saying you do.
 
Sounds like the people here are bashing people who are making the effort to learn. They are belittling them. Everyone knows that a certification is a test to show that you have BASIC knowledge. It is not intended to say you're an expert. People who take the certs know this. So why bash them? If you have years of experience then you don't need to take a cert. For the most part...people who have little or no experience take the cert to show to employers that they are coming in with some ground level know how. If anything the test makers are to blame if the tests aren't correctly quantifying the necessary knowledge.

-CK
 
It isn't bashing. The problem is that if you read the original post, they want a job in Solaris/Unix "what i was planning to do was Unix, Sun Solaris 8 ", this is followed by the sentence "I don't have that much experience, but definitely have certifications".

Learning is fine if that is the reason to get the certification, however, from those two statements, it seems that they want a job using Unix and that being certified is their credential for the job. And, nobody is going to spend the money on a certification for learning purposes only because it is too expensive. A certification may be fine once you have been in the field for awhile, but too many expect the piece of paper to be a ticket for that job proving that they "know" unix.
 
Hi,
take it easy guys, you are not the god of Unix if you have some experience, no one can have all the experiences both of us know that, experience is the big part of the admin but the certification is the base line of your knowledge.
any one who's triyng to get any certificate without braindump of course is going to replace the old experience employees after he get your experience.
and you the experience you should push those people to get certifications so you will be a better managers with powerful employee.
tony
sysadmin
 
I'm new here but I'm not shy. I have about 3 years IT experience BUT it's all over the board: web design (PHP, Perl CGI, XHTML, etc) some OS admin (win 2K and linux) and a lot od database admin (SQL Server, MySQL, Access) a 2 year degree, and CIW cert, corporate training (everything from Perl to MS Office to Crystal Reports) so I have little in depth experience.

I dont think certification replaces experience. Period. BUT when you are new to the field and trying to break in and get a job (any job!) you do what you can. I look at my cert and the Linux+ I am working on as a leg up - not compared to anyone with experience, but compared to the other new persons trying to break in for the same low level job I'm trying for who does NOT have a cert.

Does that make sense?

George K

...the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise.
 
fact of life :

if it is a big company and you can not get a direct line to the IT manager you will probably have to deal with HR !

HR normally do not have a clue about IT beyond their own basic skills - they rely on a job spec which is usually drafted by IT and tidied up by HR

target your FLEXIBLE cv using the same keywords as the advertised job spec; tell them what they want to hear ...

what is the purpose of cv ? TO GET AN INTERVIEW - nothing else - keep it short and sweet to wet the appetite - you can expand at the interview; would you like to wade through 100 10-page cvs ? my cv is one A4 page long with another annex listing hardware, software etc - it can be scanned (HR speed-reading) in less than 60 seconds

get past HR to the interview, talk to the IT guys and then it is on personality whether they want to work with YOU ! convince them that you are there to make their life easier and will be himble enough to listen and learn

seriously consider low-paid jobs to get relevant prerequisite experience for better jobs (another HR hurdle)

you need to convince a prospective employer that you are FLEXIBLE FLEXIBLE FLEXIBLE - i work as an independent consultant (RDBMS data troubleshooting) and I am never out of lucrative work; 2 main reasons - experience and client-recognised FLEXIBILITY

good luck ...
Best of Irish Luck, David.
djwilkes@hotmail.com
 
I am a Technical Analyst bei Microsoft and i keep seeing that the customers are trying a mixture of both platform due to the development of IT world and Unix is coming up with GUI.

I think i agreed with advocates and the other guys that are trying to get into IT and paving their ways to Unix. This guys with Unix experience sound to me like they want to keep their world and feel intruded with this cert people.

All forget Unix is an open system and i think everyone should try it out and if it is your world stay in or get going. There is no harm in trying new things as i love people who can give a try this are new wind in the Unix world and i do not believe is filled up untill i join the crew.

So fellow new starter, do not give up. [afro]
 
take the cert if you want to take the cert. but don't expect it to get you higher up the world of unix admin.
Novice11 states "I don't have that much experience, but definitely have certifications." this gives out the impression of someone who hasn't actually decided what they are going to stick at.
certs do help if you are applying for a job with no experience, compared to someone with no experience and no certs, but that is almost about it.
there are places that will employ you with only certs, but they are usually Microsoft Based, not with Unix ... the reason (as far as i can tell) behind this is that people generally don't choose wildly to suddenly move to unix without some foundation in it, and if they have a foundation then you are not going to become head of the food chain instantly, unlike windows (which is the most common client) which most people have used and are almost willing to accept someone on certs.
that isn't meant to be a slanderous accusation, i have friends that have done both. the MS guy got a job before he even finished the course, the Unix guy is currently between jobs ...

did that make any sense or am i rambling?
 
The question is: How do you get experience? When you get into a company, are you REALLY going to be the one to deal with Solaris? Most companies nowadays are hiring internally. THere are little to no opportunities to be a junior admin. I'd like to see the answer to this question as well. Where do you get experience? Buy Sun equipment and study it at home and then count it as experience? I know one CCIE who did not take a class but studied on his own for two years using equipment he bought on Ebay. Yet, I don't know if he has a job just because he got his CCIE.
 
Like most people, I agree that hands-on experience will win out over a newbie with cert in hand. However, I also agree that in order to get your foot in the door, then you should become certified.

In my experience of job hunting, I have dealt with lead-ITs who required a certification before hiring you. I was fortunate that my resume shows that I'm a person who is reliable, dedicated, and quick to learn. Once I got on a job, I would quickly get my training up to par, and get certified. This was the case when I had previously worked for an established international IT service provider, CTG. They required that I earn a certification within three months. Because I was hired as a desktop technician, I earned my MCP on exam 70-210. That was good enough to keep me working. Unfortunately, CTG lost the contract, and I returned to the state university that I work at now.

Like Novice11, I too am very interested in earning my certs in Solaris 8. Recently, I was informed of a job opening that is up. After talking to the operators who work there, it sounds like I'm more than capable of doing the work. What really interests me about the job is that they deal mostly with Sun systems, SGI visualization equipment, and quite a few Cisco networking hardware. Should I get over there, I'll turn my cert attention to Server+, and Solaris 8. Because I'll have the knowledge gained from my studies, and my hands on experience with all the equipment, I'll be qualified for a promotion.

In closing, I too am disappointed to see negative feedback from numerous people who are really discouraging of people who have a sincere interest in their work. I believe that if a person is willing to invest the money and time to get certified, then they are doing it for a reason. I highly encourage anybody who shows an interest in tech support to get certifications, and to never give up.

********************************************
Certs Earned: MCP, CCNA, N+
Certs Working For: A+, MCSA, Solaris 8, CCNP
********************************************
 
It seems people here believe that achieving certifications are easy, and thus they are worthless. That anyone who has a certification doesn't mean they know anything.

Certifications require a methodical study, and to pass them show a level of understanding. Certifications can't be had by just any Joe Blow who didn't work to know the material being tested.

So, having a certification without the experience, is that worthless? Is it just trying to please the mindless HR personnel? I don't think so.

I've had many conversations with friends where I ask them, I'm 26, and I make less than 100K/year, I didn't graduate, what the heck am I doing? I want to beat 6 figures before I'm 30. I have friends who are (under 30) lawyers who make at least 120K/yr. Many of my friends fire off with, I don't really want to have more money because it'll make me a snob, or that more money will cause problems, and they're always quick to point out about the inverse proportion of happiness to wealth. The weathier a person, the less happier they are. These are their justifications for being poor, as if they chose it. Honestly, I've never met a rich person who was miserable.

The arguments throughout this thread has been similar to this. People who have experience, but no certs and degrees belittle those who have them as if they are worth nothing to justify not having to subject themselves to the gruelling journey through certification.

IMHO, certifications teach those who don't know anything about a system. For instance, the MCSE as undermined as it is today by even those who bear the title have to admit that learning the MCSE has helped them become more knowledgeable. The material in the MCSE, I'd say has pretty much made me an expert on WinTel systems. I can solve anything related to these systems because the certifications don't promote knowing only the features of the product, but more importantly the ability to troubleshoot it.

Whenever I use netstat to see built-in routing tables or some eccentric CLI stunt, I'm reveered as God. To us this is simple stuff, but in actuality, these simple things are why we get paid the big bucks; whether it's the certification or the experience that taught it to us.

The value of certifications are:
1. It teaches a person very quickly the basics of a system.
2. It teaches a person the more complex features of a system.
3. It promotes hard-knows how troubleshooting.
4. It's expensive and requires studying... it prices people out, and weeds out only those are determined to learn the system.
5. To please the mindless HR personnel.

After all the pros and cons of certifications, the net result is still on the positive that it helps a person in their career but to also perform well to be able to build a career.

I've held two positions now requiring college degrees, but as I've mentioned, I don't have a college degree. At the same time, please don't think I'm saying college degrees are worthless because given the chance to go through college for free I'll take it faster than you can say anbesol. Experience does speak louder than certification, but how does one guage/quantify knowledge without the certs? Or how do you check the veracity of the claims of so-called UNIX experts coming through the door applying for that mission critical role of UNIX sys admin?

Get the certs, the the college degree, and most certainly get the experience too. All of those put together make a person an irresistable candidate to many companies.

Peter
 
the Problem is a person with a cert and no experience usually believes that because they have certificates that they deserve a much higher pay scale or responsibilty.
do you give a graduate in management the job of head of department for their first job? no, of course you don't. doesn't mean they dont know how to manage, just that there is practice and experience.

at a manufacturing company i worked at temporarily there was a new manager brought in who had been through college and really knew the machines inside out ... but had very little experience ...
he saw one day that some of the drilling machines had been turned down to a low speed, and saw an opening to "improve" the company output and get brownie points for noticing how to speed up production ...
the boss, not knowing much about the machines, scolded the engineer on the instrument and told him to turn up the speed as the young boss had said.
the engineer being beligerant, having been scolded, did axactly as he was told.
the 20 year old machine suddenly went faster than it had for 2 years (since it was found that it's bearings and gears were wearing out) and in a great cloud of smoke finally sheared all the teeth off of it's drive.

the company wasn't too impressed that instead of having a machine working at 80% it now had a machine working at 0% ...

the guy without experience, but with the qualification believed that he knew all he needed to know about the machine. the guy who worked it didn't have the qualification but had the experience ...

qualifications are not bad ... noone said they were. what we said was that we would value experience above qualifications.

if you have both, so be it :)
 
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