How do you find the right employer?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
Yes, but it is increasingly a risky career option. I see generalists becoming rarer and rarer, especially in the SMB where they traditionally are most common, and the remaining generalists roles moving closer and closer to the CFO and CEO and needing to not only be very strong in lots of IT, but also very market connected and business aware. So the generalists get to be fewer, but the ones that remain are more and more the big budget IT leaders.
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@wirestyle22 said:
You and SAM are clearly at a higher level than I am with most things I'm sure. Should I be studying for certs? If so which certs?
All of them, of course.
Just kidding, but I have nearly 200. I've written about ten of them! I find certs a very valuable way to force yourself to learn. But from a career perspective, only a few are going to help very much, especially once you get your career moving along.
Which ones specifically really come down to your career roadmap.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
Yes, but it is increasingly a risky career option. I see generalists becoming rarer and rarer, especially in the SMB where they traditionally are most common, and the remaining generalists roles moving closer and closer to the CFO and CEO and needing to not only be very strong in lots of IT, but also very market connected and business aware. So the generalists get to be fewer, but the ones that remain are more and more the big budget IT leaders.
Let's assume that I want to have a strong foundation running the basic foundation of a company alone and in addition to that want to specialize in VM's/Server Administration--like Domain Controllers, Exchange and SQL Databases. I think that these are the bare bones necessities of a small to mid size business typically (correct me if I'm wrong). Take the SQL Database Admin with a grain of salt because that is an entire job by itself and will most likely be a work in progress for a long time.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@Dashrender said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Hey I'll be there this June!
Ok, meet?
I'll wave as I fly over. I'll be over London on the 17th as I fly from Instanbul to NYC.
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@wirestyle22 said:
Let's assume that I want to have a strong foundation running the basic foundation of a company alone....
All you really need is some light basics and good knowledge on hiring good IT service providers. And while that sounds tongue in cheek, I do not mean it to be. The idea of the lone IT person is a bad one. It's not a good model. That doesn't mean that those jobs will not exist and will not continue to exist, but by and large they are reserved for badly managed companies doing things poorly - not a formula for career success. Even if you get one of the better roles in one of the better companies the lone IT pro cannot be leverage effectively.
No matter how you look at that type of generalist you are either dramatically overpaid for your skill level while you do low level tasks and as the IT advisor you should be telling the company to lay you off. Or you are in over your head and not well suited to the tasks and decisions that are sometimes required of you.
It's a bad situation no matter what.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
Let's assume that I want to have a strong foundation running the basic foundation of a company alone....
All you really need is some light basics and good knowledge on hiring good IT service providers. And while that sounds tongue in cheek, I do not mean it to be. The idea of the lone IT person is a bad one. It's not a good model. That doesn't mean that those jobs will not exist and will not continue to exist, but by and large they are reserved for badly managed companies doing things poorly - not a formula for career success. Even if you get one of the better roles in one of the better companies the lone IT pro cannot be leverage effectively.
No matter how you look at that type of generalist you are either dramatically overpaid for your skill level while you do low level tasks and as the IT advisor you should be telling the company to lay you off. Or you are in over your head and not well suited to the tasks and decisions that are sometimes required of you.
It's a bad situation no matter what.
I understand but If I want to get out I need to put myself on a path to realize my goals and gain the knowledge to transition from baby admin. I don't know what path that is.
If you were hiring for an exchange admin what would you be looking for?
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@wirestyle22 said:
... specialize in VM's/Server Administration--like Domain Controllers, Exchange and SQL Databases. I think that these are the bare bones necessities of a small to mid size business typically (correct me if I'm wrong).
Lots of little companies running those things, and some have great reason to be, but this follows the "companies that are generally doing things poorly" comment. We could delve into the specifics of any individual company and we all know someone who needs AD, someone who needs on premises Exchange and someone who needs on premises SQL Server. But even already today, the chances are that if you are at least running Exchange on site, you are in the bottom quartile of businesses. There are special cases where on premises Exchange is absolutely the right answer, I'm not giving a blanket statement. But the majority of SMBs running Exchange are doing so because they are either just bad at IT, their IT person is doing things intentionally poorly in an attempt to technologically extort career stability from the company and/or someone is operating from an emotional position of fear and lack of understanding of IT. All bad things.
And that will just continue to get worse. As AD begins to pull back from a ubiquitous service, as being laden with SQL Server becomes less and less practical having those specific skills will more and more tie you to small, failing or at least poorly operated businesses. You can always get lucky and get a company that happens to use those and use them well, but the chances and opportunities will continue to get slimmer and slimmer.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
... specialize in VM's/Server Administration--like Domain Controllers, Exchange and SQL Databases. I think that these are the bare bones necessities of a small to mid size business typically (correct me if I'm wrong).
Lots of little companies running those things, and some have great reason to be, but this follows the "companies that are generally doing things poorly" comment. We could delve into the specifics of any individual company and we all know someone who needs AD, someone who needs on premises Exchange and someone who needs on premises SQL Server. But even already today, the chances are that if you are at least running Exchange on site, you are in the bottom quartile of businesses. There are special cases where on premises Exchange is absolutely the right answer, I'm not giving a blanket statement. But the majority of SMBs running Exchange are doing so because they are either just bad at IT, their IT person is doing things intentionally poorly in an attempt to technologically extort career stability from the company and/or someone is operating from an emotional position of fear and lack of understanding of IT. All bad things.
And that will just continue to get worse. As AD begins to pull back from a ubiquitous service, as being laden with SQL Server becomes less and less practical having those specific skills will more and more tie you to small, failing or at least poorly operated businesses. You can always get lucky and get a company that happens to use those and use them well, but the chances and opportunities will continue to get slimmer and slimmer.
So I should be getting Cloud certifications?
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@wirestyle22 said:
So I should be getting Cloud certifications?
Certifications are good but a good way of learning how to leverage it is to see if you can use it in your current environment.
Personally, certs don't tell me a huge amount about a candidate, too many bootcamp/shortcut options.
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Instead of thinking about specific certs or products, try to think bigger than that.
We're currently using email like this, how else could we use it?
Our data is stored as xyz, is there a better way to improve it?
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@wirestyle22 said:
If you were hiring for an exchange admin what would you be looking for?
IF I needed an Exchange Admin, I'd be looking for....
- Exchange experience, hopefully a lot of it. Almost certainly from the enterprise. Hopefully from an industry where production risk is well understood.
- Good ability to be flexible and able to move on to other skills as this one is unlikely to remain stable and I don't want to intentionally plan to hire for the short term (personal thing, not everyone is going to care about the long term viability of the relationship.)
- Lack of hubris and a good understanding of both Exchange and Office 365
- PowerShell automation skills, specifically as they apply to Exchange, but more broadly would be just fine.
- An understanding of licensing, costs and Exchange project needs.
- Certification from MS is nice, but minor. I have this, I know how little it means.
- Solid understanding of SMTP, MTA, relays, SPAM, phishing, other mail products, mail bagging, AV, etc.
- Knowledge of and understanding of DAG.
- The ability to understand and articulate the business needs and ramifications of decisions and pricing around email systems.
- Ability to interact well, efficiently and intelligently with other teams, especially the Windows Systems Administration group.
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@wirestyle22 said:
So I should be getting Cloud certifications?
Start with cloud experience. Certs are fine, but not a big deal. I know of no one who really uses certs in hiring.
Although yes, you should get some. I wrote several of the ones out there
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@scottalanmiller said:
Although yes, you should get some. I wrote several of the ones out there
Though with your time budget, if you had a choice between getting experience or getting certs.
Get the experience first.
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@wirestyle22 said:
I understand but If I want to get out I need to put myself on a path to realize my goals and gain the knowledge to transition from baby admin. I don't know what path that is.
We don't either BUT we can figure one (or more) out once you determine a career goal.
Try this exercise... within reason, where are you today and where would you like to be in a year, three years and five years? What kind of job, what kind of duties and what kind of technologies do you wish you were working with?
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What kind of money/benefits/perks/Time off do you want in the future too.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
I understand but If I want to get out I need to put myself on a path to realize my goals and gain the knowledge to transition from baby admin. I don't know what path that is.
We don't either BUT we can figure one (or more) out once you determine a career goal.
Try this exercise... within reason, where are you today and where would you like to be in a year, three years and five years? What kind of job, what kind of duties and what kind of technologies do you wish you were working with?
If I could do anything I would be working with File Servers, VM's and maybe even Media streaming. I find them all to be interesting. At the same point I don't really care. My primary concern is to put myself in a strong position to provide for my family ultimately. I will do what I need to do period.
One Year: I'd like to be much stronger than I am today in my knowledge. I don't think I would make a transition within a years time but if I were given the opportunity of course I would take it.
Three Years: I would have "finished" my education in my given career path and started applying to much higher end jobs. I use quotations because as we all know we are never done.
Five Years: I would have a few years of experience as a higher end sysadmin.
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@wirestyle22 said:
If I could do anything I would be working with File Servers, VM's and maybe even Media streaming. I find them all to be interesting. At the same point I don't really care. My primary concern is to put myself in a strong position to provide for my family ultimately. I will do what I need to do period.
File Servers I see as phasing out very quickly. Already I see them dropping very quickly. Like AD, we phased ours out in the past few years. They just don't make sense like they used to.
VMs are ubiquitous and is almost like saying "working with computers". All servers are VMs and should have been for nearly a decade now, even in the SMB. It should be assumed that anytime someone says servers, VMs are just assumed. It's not something that you really specialize in, it's just part of doing everything else. In the enterprise space you get a few rare roles that are "platform" roles that just handle the VM layer, but they are few and seem to be getting fewer as that gets absorbed by the more technical and needed systems departments.
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@scottalanmiller said:
- Solid understanding of SMTP, MTA, relays, SPAM, phishing, other mail products, mail bagging, AV, etc.
OK I know what most of these are, but what is Mail Bagging?
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http://www.message-continuity.com/how-it-works/what-is-mail-bagging.html
"Have you ever gone out of town and forwarded your mail to the post office until you return? Our Mail Bagging (MX Backup) solution acts in much the same way by allowing you to forward your email messages if your mail server becomes unavailable.
When your email server is unavailable, Mail Bagging (MX Backup) stores the emails sent to your mail exchange (MX) server and sends them to you when your system is back online. What's more, our SpamWeeder gateway system filters any blatant incoming spam and viruses from all bagged messages!"
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LOL - my Spam filter does that for me.
