Looking for a Jr. System Admin Internship

Hello all. I've done help desk support for an enterprise company (Around 30,000 employees/30-50 calls per day) for a year and a half from mid 07 to late 08. I left the job to go on an extended vacation. I recently returned and have been looking for work for over a month now.

With the experience I have now I probably would only land another desktop support/help desk job. I'm looking into to do system admin/network admin work in the future. I'm working towards a CCNA via CCENT route. In the meanwhile I was wondering if there are any internships for jr. system admins? I rarely see any internships posted on job boards. I'm located in San Francisco/Bay Area.

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Comments

Slowhand

Keep looking around, you should be able to find something that'll suit you. I'd check Craig's List as well, a lot of companies here in the Bay Area post there as opposed to Monster or Dice. Shoot me a pm and remind me that you're looking for work and I'll see if any of my cohorts here in the area would want to give you a shot.

impelse

If you do not get an internship you could work for some companies that give you jobs by our, that will help you to get more exp in different enviroment (normally home users).

Like Slowhand said, check Craigslist.com

philthy

Thanks for the info guys. I've been checking Craigslist on a daily basis and I've applied to a bunch, but no call backs. I'm assuming I don't have the necessary requirements. Plus, there are not many internships posted on there as well.

One thing I might do is go take some classes this fall at the local community college. They offer CCNA, MCSA, and UNIX/Linux admin course.

Daniel333

You are going to need to finish your CCNA/MCSA to be taken seriously I think. While you area earning those get some volunteer time in at the libraries or your church.

Talk to your current management while you are at it, see what they recommend to move up in your currently company.

Alif_Sadida_Ekin

I agree. Just keep working towards the mid level certs like MCSA and CCNA. You stated that you're probably going to be taking some classes at the local community college to help you out. I think this is a great idea. While your at the CC you can look into their career center and maybe they can help you land an internship. Most internships are posted within college campuses because they're positions that are aimed more towards students.

philthy

^ Good point. I totally forgot about the career centers at colleges. Been away from school for too long now.

masterUniverse

yes, if you want to go to college, it is a great resource of learning. They teach from cisco to microsoft to linux. I myself going to CCSF and Foothill college.

Here is a link for internship from foothill college, I think they have a good relationship with NASA as I seem some students while studying at foothill, they are working for NASA.
Foothill-De Anza Community College District NASA/Ames Internship Program

remyforbes777

What do you know? Beyond help desk stuff that is. You have to convince employers to take a chance with you. Do you have Active Directory set up in a lab? Do you know about configuring DNS, DHCP, group policies? Help desk experience is just that, help desk. It's not going to get you that jr. admin position until you show that you know about the other things in an enterprise. I worked on the help desk for 4-5 years and yeah you can reset passwords, and help with Outlook issues but do you know how to configure Exchange? If you have a lab and you practice those things, mention it. Don't list it as experience but list it as knowledge. Just my two cents.

masterUniverse

I forgot to mention, once you go to college and you enrolled to some Microsoft or Cisco classes, you can get MS software for free or 5 buck for them to make the DVD with no time bomb. Check with your college. It is real MS software with license. you can get exchange 2007, windows 2008, etc. to build your home lab

qwertyiop

I have to agree with remyforbes777. I started at helpdesk intern for about 6 months. After the first few weeks I showed them that I was ready for more so my daily tasks changed slightly and I became more of a desktop support specialist with more interaction with the server deployment and pbx's. After that internship I was able to land a job somewhere else as a junior network admin.