Hired on as a Junior Sys Admin! Some questions...

kbowen0188

I am pretty excited to be moving up in the tech world! I am moving to a new company to be one of two assistants for the systems administrator of a database marketing solutions company. It is a small (roughly 50 employees) business with the three of us making up the entire IT department. In my old position, I was a Help Desk Specialist/Field Tech.


I am dropping by here to ask you fine folks a quick question. What is knowledge that you think is essential for a junior sys admin who eventually wants to rise to sys admin? Any particular certifications I should speed after? Any particular books that every sys admin can benefit from reading?


I am working on a Microsoft cert and CCENT cert, but I am curious to hear what others have to say. Thanks!

tcosic

I would go for the CCENT and then CCNA, they are worth more than Microsofts in most of peoples opinions.

+ It's way more interesting

Danielm7

Depending on what they actually classify the sysadmin position as, the MS certs might be worth a lot more than the Cisco ones, especially if they don't use any Cisco gear. Systems admin is a really generic title that can mean almost anything, so to answer your question it really depends on what they want you to do. If it's mostly going to be server work, and they are a Microsoft shop, then go for the MCSA first. But, like I said, it really depends on what they run, where you want to point your career and what they expect you to do in the role.

"It's way more interesting" is all relative, lots of people find networking really boring and love other types of systems, just depends on what the OP is interested in.

jdancer

Since bits still go over a network, it's in your interest to learn how networking really works. You'll see that once you get your CCNA.

If information security is in your future, it will be in your interest to learn Linux since most if not all information security professionals use it. Your Cisco training will prepare you for using Linux at the command-line.