I got offguard by recruiter's questions, advice needed

I had an interview for an entry-level system admin position and the recruiter wasn't technical (pre-screening). She asked me broad questions that kind of caught me offguard. She asked if I knew distributed systems and infrastracture/application support.

I made a mistake of asking her to be more specific

I explained to her I needed to know about specific technolgoies involved. I believe this sounded I didn't know anything about these while I do.

My biggest problem is that every interview I go, I'm always faced with an area that I don't have practical experience, but know about it:

-Exchange
-SQL
-Programming
-Networking (CCNA, MCSE, Unix)

What skills are a 'must-know' for a system admin? Do I have to learn them all, after all each requires a lot of time, where to begin? I know a bit of everything, but more of networking.

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Comments

billg

Part of the problem is that a lot of recruiters especially the ones that do prescreening are not very technical. They have heard some buzzwords and throw them out to you to impress you or just to get you to bite and start talking. You did nothing wrong by asking her to be more specific. That showed that you know about the topics and realize how vast a subject each one of them are and wish to narrow down the question. Unfortunately we are living in an economy where an employer wants you be a jack of all trades but isn't willing to pay for it. They have the mentality of let's see how many jobs one person can do and not have to pay for multiple employees. Considering what kind of position it was that you were applying for, what she was asking you was not even in the ballpark. These days it is very hard to be a jack of all trades. New software and operating systems come out almost on a monthly basis. I would suggest finding a niche that you are comfortable with and knowledgeable about and concentrating on that. It doesn't hurt to have knowledge on all these other subjects but nobody can expect anyone to be an expert on all of them.

Danman32

Just about every network is a distributed system these days (multiple DCs, DNSs, etc). Servers, routers and switches I would say is infrastructure, and we all know what applications are.

If you don't know about a particular vendor's application mentioned, but you know another vendor's application of the same type, I would probably say that I haven't worked with that particular vendor's application, but I know about those kinds of applications.

For example, I know exchange. If I was asked about Lotus Notes/Dominoes, I'd probably say I am familiar with email systems since working with Exchange, and could easily grasp the differences involved with Lotus.

Of course it is easy for me to say that while comfortably sitting in my workspace, calmly contemplating my response to you guys/gals. It is a different matter sitting in front of interviewers that are scrutinizing me.

binarysoul

Thanks folks, you both Danman32 and billg have raised some excellent points , billg you're absolutely right that we are expected to know about everything in IT, but that is not possible unless we are the superman (for one thing I am not

. And I really liked Danman32's suggestion of mentioning your expereince with another vendor's technologies, e.g. Exchange vs. Lotus Notes.

But one thing that has puzzled me for years and I admit that sometimes I lose focus as to which area to foucs Each recruiter wants something different. My goal is in system admin, I know networking (Windows & CCNA-level knowldge), server/pc hardware and some Unix and general applications. Where do I go from here? Exchange/Lotus Notes, SQL, Oracle, SAP or something else. What should be my next step? I'm willing to put good work/hours and I know I can learn fast

Danman32

Message collaboration (such as Exchange) and database management (such as Oracle or MS SQL) would probably help alot.

If time and expense is not an issue, some Java and/or VB programming can be of use to automate administrative functions you might come across.

pjam76

Many recruiters like to think they know IT... They say a few buzzwords here and there but it's obvious they have no idea.

Find a niche, learn as much as possible, but don't get caught up in learning every new thing that comes out.

I got caught up in that for some time and no matter what came out, software, hardware, new language, etc, I tried to learn it. I'd spend my time working as a programmer/software engineer and then my off hours studying everything... Subscribing to every magazine, website, newspaper, etc.

I learned various certifications from books, but since I was making good money, not great and had a mortgage, insurance and student loans i couldn't afford to take every cert that came out. But I learned and learned.

As much of my work was contracts.. sometimes the same company, sometimes not so I had tons of interviews.
And like you, sometimes they'd(recruiters, Tech people, hr,etc) would mention someting I perused over, but wasn't an expert at... So I had to learn it. Then another interview, something else, and I had to learn that.

Problem was, it burns you out fast because no matter how smart you are, there's always new things that come out. New things you won't know. Yeah you might have a general knowledge of that area but when you need to go into more detail, you don't know enough......

So eventually you just get tired of keeping up with everything. You burn out......

Stay away from burning out. Learn what you want. Keep up to date. But you don't have to or need to learn everything just because some interviewer mentioned it.....

Because in the long run, many of the things you learn will be yesterdays news or something you forget because you haven't used it in 5 years.

binarysoul

I believe you hit all the points, so no need for me to repeat just to say I agree with you 101%

You know, I've touched up ***Everything***

I have to convience employers that if they hire me only based on past experience they make the decision based on one side of the coin. I believe they should also be able to decide one's future potentils.

Only with respect to behavior past expereinces can reflect future behavior and that's why they do 'behavioral interviews' (Our communication prof told us this).