[TriLUG] Career planning - certs(?)

[Jarod Watkins]

Greg Cox wrote:
>> Work on your skills, volunteer if you have to.  Beef up your
>> resume with actual knowledge.
>>
>> Having interviewed several hundred people, knowledge
>> impresses me over paper.
> 
> I'll second what Matt's said, with a little more.  One of the things
> I ask in every interview is "Tell me about your home network."
> 
> There's plenty of sysadmin-y things you could run that would let you
> pick up some knowledge that might help you get in the door.
> Set up a server.  LVM your partitions.  Set up automounting your
> home directory across boxes.  Run your own internal DNS.  Set up
> a DHCP server.  LDAP your userids.  Set up serial consoles to
> everything.  Set up apache and mysql and a wiki.  Document your
> changes.  Get some cheap managed cisco switches off ebay and VLAN
> your servers from your desktops.  Set up a backup rotation.  Set
> up monitoring for all the services you just spun up.
> 
> There's plenty you can learn at home for far less than an RHCE costs,
> and it gets you buzzwords for resume fodder.
> 

I know this helped me get my current job. Almost all of my experience 
for my first sysadmin job was setting up applications for my home 
network and using them. This really impressed the manager. Also, 
anything new I learn now (Asterisk for example) I quickly implement it 
in my home network as to keep my skills fresh. Also keeping a personal 
wiki for notes is also very helpful. Personally I wouldn't worry too 
much about the certificats, I would worry more about knowing how to 
actually do tasks that are in demand now. Hope this helps.