How to sell myself?

Long story short, how is it that people are able to break into doing Sys Admin work? I've been trying to work on this goal for years, but I always have a hard time lying about my experiences with servers and what I have done has been limited due to political divides in the IT departments where there has been zero overlap and nobody on those teams are willing to show or teach someone what to actually do when they work in that field. I do more now than I did in the past, but honestly it's been very limited. And of course many companies just seem adverse to taking risks on someone (even with a MCSA) with little practical business experience. So, how the heck do I sell myself? Just frustrated is all at how hard it has been for me. I've always been in the wrong place at the wrong time it seems.

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dhay13

I feel your pain. One of my issues is under-selling myself. I want to exceed expectations so I usually undersell myself and I know it likely hurts me but I would rather do that than to oversell myself and have my employer feel I let them down.

Lexluethar

Study and get your MCSA - you are right there are going to be companies that won't care about your MCSA without experience but there are definitely companies out there that will give you a chance.

I struggled with this as well, IT is full of hurdles. First was to just get your foot in the door, then every large step up in the process you have to work your ass off to get the chance.

Your best bet is to be promoted internally, if that is not an option at your current company look for new opportunities where sys admin promotions are available. I did this very thing, i worked at a very large help desk with a very flat IT org chart. Dozens of help desk people with only like 3 sys admins that had been there 10+ years. I moved on from that company to another company with the sole reason being i would have more of an opportunity to move up - which i eventually did after 2 years.

networker050184

First is be very confident in what you do have experience with. If you put something on your resume know it front and back. I'm much more likely to give a guy a chance that has what he does down pat. Shows she/he has the apptitude and drive to master a topic. If you don't have experience with something I don't expect you to know much about it. I don't understand why people try cramming in knowledge right before an interview. You're much better off shoring up what you already know in my opinion.

Second, show enthusiasm and tell them flat out you want the job. Pretty much every time I've gotten a job I've been told I seemed like I really wanted it which the hiring manager liked.

bettsy584

Study hard, get certified to at least MCSA level.

Maybe even MCSE (but explain during interviews you did this to better understand system architecture, and not to an MCSE-level job right off the bat).

Also get yourself a lab. Lab up exercises when studying, with this you will build some *fabricated* experience, as nothing ever works 100% first time in a lab or in real life. I maintain a technical blog to document some of my break fix stuff, why not do the same and document your experience?

Azure & Office 365 Blog

It at least shows you have configured some stuff, found an issue and worked through it.

MeanDrunkR2D2

Lexluethar wrote: »

Study and get your MCSA - you are right there are going to be companies that won't care about your MCSA without experience but there are definitely companies out there that will give you a chance.

I struggled with this as well, IT is full of hurdles. First was to just get your foot in the door, then every large step up in the process you have to work your ass off to get the chance.

Your best bet is to be promoted internally, if that is not an option at your current company look for new opportunities where sys admin promotions are available. I did this very thing, i worked at a very large help desk with a very flat IT org chart. Dozens of help desk people with only like 3 sys admins that had been there 10+ years. I moved on from that company to another company with the sole reason being i would have more of an opportunity to move up - which i eventually did after 2 years.

I do have my MCSA which I completed last month. I've had other certs and my prior job I stuck around for the chance to get promoted in that role, but it never happened unless I was willing to move to the middle of nowhere west Texas even though the manager for them was in my area in DFW and had originally hired me for a different position before he was promoted. I did that for 4 years but no matter what position opened up I was never really given a shot so we left the area. Where I am at now, could turn into a promotion, but the area sucks and the industry that my work is in has a bunch of potential issues that could turn into massive layoffs which would mean that my small area would soon be overrun with much higher qualified guys and make it that much harder for me to get that role and keep it. The main reason we are leaving this area has more to do with my son and therapies that he needs for his disability. Here, there is a over 2 year wait to even START them. Where we are moving to he will be able to start within a couple of weeks. But, the cache 22 is, I'm not getting any younger and am not willing to take another huge step backwards in my career otherwise I'm already being pigeonholed into lower roles and will have to fight harder to ever get what I want. I have the knowledge and I can learn whatever the heck they want me to learn. They just need to give me the chance to shine.

MeanDrunkR2D2

bettsy584 wrote: »

Study hard, get certified to at least MCSA level.

Maybe even MCSE (but explain during interviews you did this to better understand system architecture, and not to an MCSE-level job right off the bat).

Also get yourself a lab. Lab up exercises when studying, with this you will build some *fabricated* experience, as nothing ever works 100% first time in a lab or in real life. I maintain a technical blog to document some of my break fix stuff, why not do the same and document your experience?

Azure & Office 365 Blog

It at least shows you have configured some stuff, found an issue and worked through it.

I have the MCSA. I'm currently studying the CCENT then the CCNA to be more well rounded. I don't want to jump in with an MCSE without any experience to back that up. I labbed the hell out of everything that the 70-417 tossed at me and passed it thanks to that and taking my time doing everything the right way.

MeanDrunkR2D2

networker050184 wrote: »

First is be very confident in what you do have experience with. If you put something on your resume know it front and back. I'm much more likely to give a guy a chance that has what he does down pat. Shows she/he has the apptitude and drive to master a topic. If you don't have experience with something I don't expect you to know much about it. I don't understand why people try cramming in knowledge right before an interview. You're much better off shoring up what you already know in my opinion.

Second, show enthusiasm and tell them flat out you want the job. Pretty much every time I've gotten a job I've been told I seemed like I really wanted it which the hiring manager liked.

The thing is, I do have confidence in what I do know and have done professionally. I've always excelled at what I have done and I do convey that in interviews. No matter what I have had thrown at me, I've figured it out whether with help of others around me, or if no-one was able to I'd figure it out on my own. Thanks for the advice, I'll take the enthusiasm aspect and really focus on what I know I am great at.

MeanDrunkR2D2

I guess I'm just hating the whole "job search" that I'm on right now. The good news is, I am getting great interviews and rather quickly. In the week that I started my job search I've already had 6 phone interviews and 2 more scheduled this week so far. I've been ruled out on 3 of them so far, but I guess I got spoiled on my last search where I got offers within a day of interviewing with companies and searching for less than a week, so I'm just not handling the rejection well. It's pretty stressful right now just because I want to make sure that i leave only for a good opportunity that will advance me in my career and really help mold me into where I want to be and to provide as much as I can for my kids and family and not take horrible risks.

To be fair one of the rejections was because I put up some fears about the job just being a 3 month contract, but no guarantee of it extending/job offer and letting them know that was a huge concern for me. Pay wise, it was phenomenal (almost 6 figures) but the risk seemed a bit extreme.

bettsy584

Good strategy, I did the same when I was first doing certs. Went broad instead of deep, did some VMware, Citrix, Cisco etc for completeness.

Techytach

Just letting you know there are others out there struggling and going through something similar. I also have difficulty 1. selling myself 2. dealing with the rejection 3. passing on jobs that look too risky (and then second guessing)

Just remember to set yourself up for success, not failure. Which it sounds like you are doing already. Eventually you'll get there.

DatabaseHead

Craigslist or Backpage, I prefer Backpage the clients are usually more gratuitous.

scaredoftests

MeanDrunkR2D2 wrote: »

Long story short, how is it that people are able to break into doing Sys Admin work? I've been trying to work on this goal for years, but I always have a hard time lying about my experiences with servers and what I have done has been limited due to political divides in the IT departments where there has been zero overlap and nobody on those teams are willing to show or teach someone what to actually do when they work in that field. I do more now than I did in the past, but honestly it's been very limited. And of course many companies just seem adverse to taking risks on someone (even with a MCSA) with little practical business experience. So, how the heck do I sell myself? Just frustrated is all at how hard it has been for me. I've always been in the wrong place at the wrong time it seems.

I lucked out and my company at the time needed a network person at the lab to augment the main office.

MeanDrunkR2D2

I do have a great recruiter that I am working with currently and is really pulling out all the stops to help me find a great role (and a more than 30k pay raise) for a direct hire. I should know later today what the next steps will be (in person interview as I absolutely KILLED the technical portion of the interview process) and hopefully by the end of next week I'll have that job wrapped up and an offer on the table. I pretty much psyched myself out a bit since I hate the whole interview portion. Now, the next interview will be more about personality, etc, and that I have absolutely no issues with as I'm generally great at those, it's the technical ones that trip me up, especially for this position since they went fairly wide with everything asked.

I know that I can handle any job I apply to, even if they have rather deep requirements because I do learn and retain that information and not turn into the guy that asks the same question to the same problem for months.