Internal position is open, not sure if I should apply

Greetings everyone, busy as hell on my side.

However a internal position has opened up at the company that I work it. Not sure if I should throw my hat into the ring. For those of you who haven't been following my progression, I've been looking at trying to move into a sys admin/networking position.

However this position is on the InfoSec side of the house. It seems like it is on the admin side of the house. They are wanting a person to know Windows 2003 AD/Linux/Mainframe. Looks like it is going to dive into some policy, working with business analysis, internal IT auditors, and I'm sure other IT folks.

The position will also be on call.

I feel this would be a good move, however at this time, I don't want to go into a position that is over my head. While I reset passwds in Windows AD, and a few other things, I don't work with alot of details on it. And for Linux, I do manage my own box, however I've never managed a box at the enterprise level.

Long story short, not sure if I should apply. I am wanting to grow, however at the same time, I don't want to be setup to fail.

Let me know what you think.

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Comments

Lizano

I would apply, just be very very honest in your interview about what you know and what you don´t. If there are senior members in the team, and you are willing and capable of learning fast, it can be a great learning experience for you...

Companies like to "grow" their employees cause it creates two-way loyalty...(at least some do...)

drewkeg

I agree. Go for it. Give it to em straight, but don't talk yourself down too much, yes you are employed, but you still have to sell yourself. Focus on your strengths. It seems as though you have plenty. Show them your passion for learning and bettering yourself, and the commitment you've made to studying on your own time.
Then, let them decide. Don't worry about the work being over your head. Growth is about moving into the unknown. And hey, you may even surprise yourself.

Good Luck!

Solaris_UNIX

Ask them if they are running "Linux on System Z" on their IBM mainframe (and if so which Linux distro- SUSE, Red Hat, etc.) or if they are running a traditional mainframe operating system like z/OS or z/VM on the mainframe instead.

My guess is that if they are a Bank or other large financial institution, then they're probably NOT running Linux on System Z.

If they paid the $$$$ that are required to play with IBM Mainframe hardware (usually either a z9 or a z10) then they're probably running z/OS or z/VM on it because most businesses that shell out the massive amounts of cash that a mainframe infrastructure requires do so because they need it for running a massive CICS or IMS deployment and those two large scale transaction processing systems only run properly on something like z/OS (as far as I know).

Give me some information about the nature of the Linux setup and what they're using the mainframe for (like I said probably something like CICS or IMS) and I'll give you a quick **** of important information and links to useful stuff on the internet that you can study and then impress the heck out of your boss in the interview.

Also ask them if they have the mainframes running in a parallel sysplex or not (see link below for info):

IBM Parallel Sysplex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

laidbackfreak

I agree with whats already been said, apply for it

You may think it's over your head, but that doesnt mean they do. Even if they do it may force them to re-think and bring you on at a slightly lower scale than they had originally planned for.
If all else it raises your profile and show you want to devlop and move up, So hopefully should anything else come up you will be in their minds already

JockVSJock

Matter of fact, they do run zLinux on their mainframe. They are an IBM shop and IMS/CICS regions runs thousands of transactions.

Solaris_UNIX wrote: »

Ask them if they are running "Linux on System Z" on their IBM mainframe (and if so which Linux distro- SUSE, Red Hat, etc.) or if they are running a traditional mainframe operating system like z/OS or z/VM on the mainframe instead.