Salary range for NOC position based on job description?

UPDATE 2: Completed an in-person interview today. Wanted to get some advice and opinions from you NOC people! New post at bottom of thread.

UPDATE: Got an interview for this! Have some other questions for you guys in a new post below!

So I'm applying for a NOC position and I'm wondering what you guys think this job would pay based on the job description? Ideally, I'm looking for a position where I can get some hands-on System Admin experience working with Windows servers, SAN/NAS, VMware etc. Based on the description, do you guys think this position could lend to that? Or does it look like it's more hands-off monitoring/call-center type position? Appreciate everyone's two cents. Check it out:

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Cat5

Well, here in the south it would probably be around $40k/yr or so. But in California it's hard to know. A comparable salary there could be $500k.

boobobobobob

I would guess 40-50k in California. I currently work in southern california. It's odd they do not specify what certs would be preferred.

pert

14-18/hr

Tooms

$25k-$35k midwest

Haunt

Interesting, approximately 40k-45k is what I found as well when researching myself.

What do you guys make of the description? Kind of vague as to what exactly you'd be working with right? I'm hoping this is hands-on tech work and not call-center/monitoring type stuff.

About7Narwhal

From what I have seen there are usually two main reasons for vague postings:

1) Someone who doesn't work in IT made/offered/posted the position.
2) There is more "Other duties as assigned" work than the positional work you signed on for.

Not always the case, but I see it frequently enough.

Haunt

Well.....it's a phone interview, but it's a start! So I'm scheduled to talk to an HR person tomorrow morning and wanted to ask you guys what I should expect? Will they be asking me general "tell me about yourself" questions or should I expect to get the more specific questions you normally get in an in-person interview (work experience? why do you want to work there? what are your salary requirements?)? I've never done a phone interview before so not sure how in depth and specific I should get with my answers, you know?

Also, what are some questions you guys recommend I ask during the phone interview? I have a couple of questions written down to ask but I want to see what you guys recommend.

Posted this last minute but I hope I get some responses from you guys, I really want to be prepared for this. This is a good opportunity for me that I don't want to lose!

instant000

It could very well be a "pre-screening" that they ask you, so that they see where you are, before they go further with the technical interview.

They may have a script of twenty questions, which are used to weed out candidates before they are seen by their technical interviewers and hiring manager.

I have done a few of these, but they are usually so basic and easy that I'm not sure what they were trying to accomplish. (That is, if you have a decent amount of experience, most of the questions will seem quite trivial.)

Like for an e-mail job, they had questions like what port does SMTP use? Or they ask about the FSMO roles. Or AdModify, or any other of a group of utilities used for managing AD back in the day (having done it for about two years now, so I'd be rusty, I'd imagine).

For example, I hadn't memorized the names of all the FSMO roles, but I was able to spout off a couple, and say what their purposes were, and also tied in the importance of seizing these roles when you were in a disaster recovery or migration situation for your domain. (Had a job doing SBS migrations back in the day, so I had to whip out ntdsutil from time to time.) This showed a much greater understanding about FSMO roles than just spouting off a list of them.

That is to say, don't just learn for the test, learn for life.

Be as honest as possible, and answer quickly. If you don't know the answer, then at least show that you know where the answer would be.

Hope this helps.

Mishra

Asking questions is easy... Just pretend like you are sitting at their work place doing the job. If you can't picture it, then ask questions until you can.

Haunt

So I think the phone-interview went well. Sounds like a great company to work for. They're growing fast and are looking to hire a lot more people for data center type jobs and learned that the position will eventually turn into rotating shifts for nights and weekends and on-call status which is a huge turn-off but I guess it comes with the territory, can't afford to be picky.

I got pushed hard on my salary requirements and eventually gave in after trying to deflect the questions. I gave a range based on my total compensation package at my previous job of 45k-50k and she said it looks good for me to get around the 50k area which is pretty exciting.

I'm a little scared and intimidated at the level of advanced tech work I'd be involved in but I have to try and not think that way and be excited at the prospect of getting into and learning more advance technology. Any of you guys feel intimidated in this way?

GoodBishop

Yeah, I was thinking 45-50k based on the position description and the skills required.

boobobobobob

Haunt wrote: »

I'm a little scared and intimidated at the level of advanced tech work I'd be involved in but I have to try and not think that way and be excited at the prospect of getting into and learning more advance technology. Any of you guys feel intimidated in this way?

I feel that way everytime I switch jobs. You're getting paid more to do higher level work, which means you're moving up the ladder. You aren't going to be expected to be an expert on your duties the first day to work, you'll have time to learn everything you'll need to know.

Haunt

So I completed an in-person interview today and I think it went pretty well. There's going to be a final interview with some of the other IT management people and the CIO later on, just gotta wait to hear back from them next week. At this point it appears that this is more to gauge my personality and fit with them more than it is to gauge my experience.

I found out that not only will this position become rotating night-shifts with weekends and on-call status but they're 12-hour shifts (I believe 3 days on, 4 days off) which is a big bummer. I've never worked anything other than normal 9-5 hours so I'm not so sure how I'll handle this kind of schedule if I get the job. For those of you who work this schedule, how do you deal with it? How was your transition to it and did you get used to it or even prefer it over a normal schedule?

The data center itself is housed in another location entirely so I wouldn't be getting any hands-on physical experience working with servers and other hardware which sucks but was told that I would be doing a descent amount of remote system administration type work which was good to hear as opposed to straight up monitoring and escalation 99% of the time.

They also emphasized that the job will get stressful which makes sense with the mission-critical nature of it. Kind of freaked as to how I'll handle that kind of stress as I've never been in a mission-critical role before.

For those in NOC positions, how was it for you guys when you first started in these positions? Got any advice and words of wisdom?

Xyro

Good luck if you're sure this is really what you want.

As for the this type of schedule, that's a matter of personal preference. I would prefer this type of schedule as only 8 hours at work leaves me unappeased & having 4 consecutive days off is great for studies. It allows one to segregate their life into work & study time periods. I find that much superior than attempting to juggle everything on a daily basis.