Another missed one

murdatapes

Just got a call from a recruiter. Said he had a Jr. Admin position for me. He asked me about my current job and how long I have been doing what I do now, and asked how much practical experience I had with Windows server, over that span of time. I said I don't touch it on a daily basis, and when I do, its not much, because it has to get escalated to the Windows Admins. Well damn, its a jr. position, i think i could get one of those. Well even for a Jr. position, it wasn't enough.

Tell me what the heck I am supposed to say in that situation?

remyforbes777

murdatapes wrote: »

Just got a call from a recruiter. Said he had a Jr. Admin position for me. He asked me about my current job and how long I have been doing what I do now, and asked how much practical experience I had with Windows server, over that span of time. I said I don't touch it on a daily basis, and when I do, its not much, because it has to get escalated to the Windows Admins. Well damn, its a jr. position, i think i could get one of those. Well even for a Jr. position, it wasn't enough.

Tell me what the heck I am supposed to say in that situation?

You have your MCSA? Do you have a lab at home? This is what I did to land my first network admin job, I told them I have a lab running Windows 2003 Server along with some Linux servers. I told them what the purpose of the servers were, (DNS, DHCP, etc) and told them that I work through scenarios all the time such as creating Group Policies, setting up DHCP scopes, DNS records, etc. I did let them know that I did not have any real job experience but that I doubt anything would be heard to learn considering that I know the basic underpinnings of what was going on.

RobertKaucher

You need to get some experience. Get a few older boxes and set them up at home with Server 2003 or 2008. Run you own DNS servers, use ISA 2006 as your home firewall for a few months. Once the trials expire redo everything again to keep it fresh.

Find a few small companies that might be willing to go to Small Business Server 2008. Offer to design their AD and network for free to gain some experience. If you can get a company with 8 to 20 employees to go to SBS 2008 and Exchange you will end up with enough experience to land a Jr. position like this.

Also, try your best to work witht he server admins. See if you can lend a hand on your break or something. Do whatever you can to get some hands on. If you have a friend who is an admin at a company see if you can tag along when she/he does any upgrades or whatever on weekends or your days off.

All I know is, if I could get an intern in here as a Jr. admin I would jump on it. All my documentationwould be up to date, etc... I would love it. The problem is I would not be able to pay any one anything... They can hardly afford my sallery which is bellow market for a net admin whose primary job is running SQL/Exchange/Citrix/ and more.

murdatapes

Damn good advice. After I hung up I thought along the same lines. Kinda pissed in a way. It's cool. Next time. Thanks for the advice man.

murdatapes

RobertKaucher wrote: »

You need to get some experience. Get a few older boxes and set them up at home with Server 2003 or 2008. Run you own DNS servers, use ISA 2006 as your home firewall for a few months. Once the trials expire redo everything again to keep it fresh.

Find a few small companies that might be willing to go to Small Business Server 2008. Offer to design their AD and network for free to gain some experience. If you can get a company with 8 to 20 employees to go to SBS 2008 and Exchange you will end up with enough experience to land a Jr. position like this.

Also, try your best to work witht he server admins. See if you can lend a hand on your break or something. Do whatever you can to get some hands on. If you have a friend who is an admin at a company see if you can tag along when she/he does any upgrades or whatever on weekends or your days off.

All I know is, if I could get an intern in here as a Jr. admin I would jump on it. All my documentationwould be up to date, etc... I would love it. The problem is I would not be able to pay any one anything... They can hardly afford my sallery which is bellow market for a net admin whose primary job is running SQL/Exchange/Citrix/ and more.

Thanks Robert. Your always a good help. I will work on this right away.