Been at "new" job for 8 months,interviewing for another opportunity tomorrow..advice?

Sooo... 8 months ago I interviewed for my first civilian IT job after finishing up my time in the military. I was hired as a Jr Sys Admin making ~45k+mileage.. pretty weak benefits, lots of stress, but gained a LOT of experience in a very short time. I pretty much had basic networking skills, basic server/Windows experience, etc. What I have going for me is I'm young with lots of drive and a passion for IT.. which is why my boss told me he hired me. In my short time at this place I revamped a large Citrix/server 2008 printing environment and learned/became comfortable with Exchange 2010, Server 2008, basic unix, AD, Symantec BackupExec, GP, etc. Let's just say it's an extremely understaffed company that let a junior Sys Admin get hands on with far too many things in a production environment than most companies would. Anyway, all of the "issues" at this place and the lack of staff led to 3 out of 4 sys admins moving on in the last 3 months. One of which was a director and has turned out to be a great connection for me.. leading me to this interview coming tomorrow.

The interview is with a government company that has people working with a science lab. The position is a sys admin and I'm looking at a 25% pay increase working in a much smaller in-house environment. Way less stressful of an environment, way better benefits, better pay, and they "park" my security clearance and keep it alive. Basically the gig I didn't expect to land before finishing a degree or some major certs. The director I worked with has some major connections at this place and put in a great word for me, so my fingers are crossed the interview goes well. Seems like having good connections trumps almost any amount of education.

Anyway, any advice for getting a govt gig? They look for anything special? Am I making the right move pursuing this job even though I've only been somewhere less than a year?

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Comments

Essendon

Cant comment on how govt jobs work out in the US, but I'll wish you all the luck you may need tomorrow!!

ptilsen

Eight months won't look great on the resume, but it's worth it. If you stay at the new position for at least two years you will be just fine.

N2IT

ptilsen wrote: »

Eight months won't look great on the resume, but it's worth it. If you stay at the new position for at least two years you will be just fine.

+1

Keep bouncing on the other hand your resume looks like trash. Be careful, but good luck.

kurosaki00

wow 45k as a Jr Sys admin?
damn
I wish I get paid that

anyways..back to topic

I kind of agree what the others said about the time. But I know a good way of compesating time.
List achievements, objectives, goals that you made in your company and helped them.
Relieved workload on servers by 30% by implementing this and that
Implemented ticket systems, agility of business went up by 50%
things like that

blargoe

If it's a significant and obviously better opportunity, no future employer is going to give you a hard time about moving after 8 months, unless you establish a pattern of doing so. Go for it.

ptilsen

kurosaki00 wrote: »

wow 45k as a Jr Sys admin?
damn
I wish I get paid that

Puerto Rico's cost of living is close to half that of New Jersey. Depending on the specific cities, $45K in NJ is like making $15-20K in Puerto Rico.

ck86

ptilsen wrote: »

Puerto Rico's cost of living is close to half that of New Jersey. Depending on the specific cities, $45K in NJ is like making $15-20K in Puerto Rico.

Yep. Gotta factor cost of living when looking at jobs.. did a bunch of searching recently to possibly relocate and didn't quite realize how much it differs from state to state. I always knew NJ was pretty high and places like NY and CA are ridiculously high, but it's pretty major. 45k is pretty low for a sys admin in NJ and is the equivalent to about 35k in most other states. Making six figures here is fairly common once you get into the decent IT positions.

Just as an update.. interview went great today. Lasted about 2 hours with two different people.. one of which is an off-site director that would technically be my third boss up. Completely opposite environment in terms of stress/constant fires.. dress is mega casual (told to wear jeans & t-shirt basically) and lots of room to advance and build education. Regular pay raises for picking up certs.. etc. Pretty excited, hope to hear from them soon.

afcyung

Don't forget your DD 214 and apply for veterans preference.

SteveLord

Yes, you are making a good move. You'll likely have opportunities for advancement/transfer to other agencies. And you'll network with some really talented people. erpadmin is a regular and a NJ state employee. If he doesn't see your thread, be sure to PM him.

Iowa never asked me for my DD214, but there obviously was a piece of the application that lets you check off your status. Also, I know when my supervisor hired me/hires other people, she uses a score chart and one of the items is veteran status.

ssnohman

always do that whats ur mind thinks.

kurosaki00

ptilsen wrote: »

Puerto Rico's cost of living is close to half that of New Jersey. Depending on the specific cities, $45K in NJ is like making $15-20K in Puerto Rico.

Where did you read that?
I only see PR being half or something to places like NY who are extremely pricey
Half expensive as NJ? nop, sorry. A bit less could be or on par, could be.

I wrote an extremely long post but deleted it because it would hijack the thread.
But I assure you PR is not cheap.
To give you a few
Gas = $4 per gallon ($1 a litter, uS gallon being around 3.7litters), milk gallon is $6, we have huge taxing effect on our food and products
We pay 7% tax locally (certain towns have their own tax to add), then we import 90% of our things, mostly from US
Means we get a snowball effect. Vendor sell local seller (price + uS tax), local seller sell in here (makes price from how he bought + 7$ tax)
I know people who moved to Indiana, NC, FL, Boston, Texas, and many other states and most of them find their states if not cheaper the cost of living equally or at least better paying for their jobs.
In PR the average income for a person is 18k a year. 25k is looked by the people as "middle class".

ck86

kurosaki00 wrote: »

Where did you read that?
I only see PR being half or something to places like NY who are extremely pricey
Half expensive as NJ? nop, sorry. A bit less could be or on par, could be.

I wrote an extremely long post but deleted it because it would hijack the thread.
But I assure you PR is not cheap.
To give you a few
Gas = $4 per gallon ($1 a litter, uS gallon being around 3.7litters), milk gallon is $6, we have huge taxing effect on our food and products
We pay 7% tax locally (certain towns have their own tax to add), then we import 90% of our things, mostly from US
Means we get a snowball effect. Vendor sell local seller (price + uS tax), local seller sell in here (makes price from how he bought + 7$ tax)
I know people who moved to Indiana, NC, FL, Boston, Texas, and many other states and most of them find their states if not cheaper the cost of living equally or at least better paying for their jobs.
In PR the average income for a person is 18k a year. 25k is looked by the people as "middle class".

Very off topic.. but yeah here's some quick info..

"Rent Prices in Newark, NJ are 51.16% higher than in San Juan"
Source: Cost of Living Comparison Between San Juan, Puerto Rico And Newark, NJ, United States

ck86

SteveLord wrote: »

Yes, you are making a good move. You'll likely have opportunities for advancement/transfer to other agencies. And you'll network with some really talented people. erpadmin is a regular and a NJ state employee. If he doesn't see your thread, be sure to PM him.

Iowa never asked me for my DD214, but there obviously was a piece of the application that lets you check off your status. Also, I know when my supervisor hired me/hires other people, she uses a score chart and one of the items is veteran status.

Thanks for the info.

ptilsen

kurosaki00 wrote: »

In PR the average income for a person is 18k a year. 25k is looked by the people as "middle class".

You basically made my argument for me. Average in the US is close to $40K. Also, New Jersey has very high cost of living -- not much lower than NYC, and in reality higher because car ownership and/or extreme telecommuting is common in New Jersey. $18K a year isn't even enough to get a studio apartment and walk to work in most of New Jersey -- or anywhere but Detroit, frankly. That is about $8.65/hr, which is not much higher than Federal minimum wage.

Anyway, I based my figure off food and housing comparisons between Newark and San Juan. ck86's link is not what I used but is basically the same figures I've found.

effekted

Definitely go for the government job. I wish I was at the 45k mark and I'm currently a sys admin... the experience that I'm gaining though is invaluable and is going to allow me to likely double my salary when I go somewhere else which will hopefully be in the next couple of months.