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Looking for help/tips/advice with career
RTM
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Hi guys. This might come off as whiny but it's not supposed to be. I apologize in advance if it does. I'm sort of stumped and any help is greatly appreciated.
Background: I've been working at the same place as the network administrator for about 10.5 years. We have four offices and used to have 75 employees before the recession. I'm a one man shop and I literally do everything IT related. Smartphones, PCs/laptops, servers, routers, switches, ASA firewall, etc. I installed all that stuff and I do the daily maintenance and support. I've got a pretty solid certification list, CCNA, CCNA Security, MCSE (NT 4, 2000 and 2003) and I even got my CISSP last fall. I also went back to school and got a graduate degree in Information Security. I'm currently studying for the ROUTE exam. After the CCNP I am thinking about updating my MCSE to the new MCITP. Or maybe looking at the GIAC stuff.
Problem: We are in construction and that is a bad sector. We've lost over half of our staff in the past few years and it's probably going to get worse given our specific market segment. So I've been looking around for a job. In the past few months I've gotten 4 face to face interviews and a few more phone interviews. That sounds really good, right? Well, the problem is that every interview goes the same way: "Your resume looks great. Tell us about your environment." So I do and they discover that my network is on the small side. At that point the interview is effectively over. It's always something like "You just don't have the hands on experience we are looking for."
So I basically have two questions.
1) What's that old saying about an inch deep and a mile wide? My knowledge goes more than an way more than an inch on most things, but I can't call myself an expert on any one thing. All the jobs I'm seeing are basically looking for an expert on something. Do the "jack of all trades" jobs still exist? Or do I need to find a way to specialize?
2) If I need to specialize how the heck do you get started? I need hands on experience with a larger network, but if I can't get a job working with one that presents a problem. Any suggestions there?
Thanks for any input, even if you tell me to *(^$&*@^!
Rusty
Background: I've been working at the same place as the network administrator for about 10.5 years. We have four offices and used to have 75 employees before the recession. I'm a one man shop and I literally do everything IT related. Smartphones, PCs/laptops, servers, routers, switches, ASA firewall, etc. I installed all that stuff and I do the daily maintenance and support. I've got a pretty solid certification list, CCNA, CCNA Security, MCSE (NT 4, 2000 and 2003) and I even got my CISSP last fall. I also went back to school and got a graduate degree in Information Security. I'm currently studying for the ROUTE exam. After the CCNP I am thinking about updating my MCSE to the new MCITP. Or maybe looking at the GIAC stuff.
Problem: We are in construction and that is a bad sector. We've lost over half of our staff in the past few years and it's probably going to get worse given our specific market segment. So I've been looking around for a job. In the past few months I've gotten 4 face to face interviews and a few more phone interviews. That sounds really good, right? Well, the problem is that every interview goes the same way: "Your resume looks great. Tell us about your environment." So I do and they discover that my network is on the small side. At that point the interview is effectively over. It's always something like "You just don't have the hands on experience we are looking for."
So I basically have two questions.
1) What's that old saying about an inch deep and a mile wide? My knowledge goes more than an way more than an inch on most things, but I can't call myself an expert on any one thing. All the jobs I'm seeing are basically looking for an expert on something. Do the "jack of all trades" jobs still exist? Or do I need to find a way to specialize?
2) If I need to specialize how the heck do you get started? I need hands on experience with a larger network, but if I can't get a job working with one that presents a problem. Any suggestions there?
Thanks for any input, even if you tell me to *(^$&*@^!
Rusty