Why so many system admin jobs go unfilled?

When i search for jobs the other day i searched for system admin

There were a LOT of high paying system admin jobs so how come these jobs go unfilled if they pay well?

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W Stewart

Lack of qualified candidates willing to put up with this level of stress.

chmod

Highly specialized people is hard to find.

mackenzae

Depends if the skill set they are looking for is too expansive and the pay isn't decent enough or if they are looking for an Expert in everything aka a Unicorn which doesn't exist.

Verities

From what I've seen in the San Diego market, the skill level continues to move upward as most sophisticated tools are implemented. The lack of qualified candidates results in loads of job opportunities being reposted every 30 days. I'm sure companies will eventually set their expectations lower and either hire someone who can learn or just outsource the responsibilities to some shady MSP who has 1 qualified person they overwork, with high level problems.

mackenzae

Verities wrote: »

From what I've seen in the San Diego market, the skill level continues to move upward as most sophisticated tools are implemented. The lack of qualified candidates results in loads of job opportunities being reposted every 30 days. I'm sure companies will eventually set their expectations lower and either hire someone who can learn or just outsource the responsibilities to some shady MSP who has 1 qualified person they overwork, with high level problems.

Its sad that a majority of companies these days don't invest more in training/development of their own IT dept. They want the newest technology and then expect people to have training on it already or learn on their own

networker050184

chmod wrote: »

Highly specialized people is hard to find.

Yep. It takes months and months to find someone to fill a highly technical role. You usually end up settling for someone not half as good as you wanted in the end anyway.

Verities

mackenzae wrote: »

Its sad that a majority of companies these days don't invest more in training/development of their own IT dept. They want the newest technology and then expect people to have training on it already or learn on their own

I agree; its like companies are afraid if they train you, you'll leave. I can't even get a voucher or reimbursement for certifications at my current place of employment. Its easier for them to transfer the cost to the individual rather than the company.

shodown

Unrealistic salary demands by both parties

Companies not knowing what they want and so on.

I'll give an example. A very large company contacted me recently, and wanted me to come work for them as a contractor. They wanted me to built Large cisco voice systems for there performance labs, write code in Python, and Java to automate the testing and write documentation, and support these projects once they went into production.

They offered me 65hr.

echo_time_cat

shodown wrote: »

Unrealistic salary demands by both parties

Companies not knowing what they want and so on.

I'll give an example. A very large company contacted me recently, and wanted me to come work for them as a contractor. They wanted me to built Large cisco voice systems for there performance labs, write code in Python, and Java to automate the testing and write documentation, and support these projects once they went into production.

They offered me 65hr.

The nerve...

chmod

networker050184 wrote: »

Yep. It takes months and months to find someone to fill a highly technical role. You usually end up settling for someone not half as good as you wanted in the end anyway.

It happens all the time.

networker050184

It does happen very often. That's why when I see people say there isn't a skill shortage I kind of chuckle. There isn't a shortage of people that think they're skilled because they have a degree or certification, but reality doesn't always stack up. It's extremely hard to find competent engineers in my experience.

LeBroke

networker050184 wrote: »

It does happen very often. That's why when I see people say there isn't a skill shortage I kind of chuckle. There isn't a shortage of people that think they're skilled because they have a degree or certification, but reality doesn't always stack up. It's extremely hard to find competent engineers in my experience.

I'd say it's easy enough to find qualified people... if you're willing to pay them what they cost.

Just like shodown's example above - qualified people aren't hurting for work. It's easy to say "candidates have unrealistic salary expectations." But.. if enough candidates were hungry/unemployed, they'd take the work for less.

The fact that they're not taking the work, means the candidates exist, but companies aren't willing to pay them what they're worth.

tl;dr: companies are cheapskates to pay people their real worth.

networker050184

I haven't ever really had salary be a problem for finding good people. Maybe once or twice someone wanted too much money, but that is extremely rare in my experience (not that it doesn't happen). I also tend to like to work for companies that pay well so maybe that has something to do with it!

SpetsRepair

Specialization, lot of people out there but not everyone is qualified to what the company wants. I recently had 3 interviews with a very good company. Even though i am qualified and experienced with help desk etc, it isn't what they're looking for. I answered every question they needed and we talked about the tech and systems we support etc.. Well i didn't know how to setup an exchange server and i really don't know what that is. I wasn't given the job based on that requirement.

beads

If your 40 and still doing network administration - your wrong. Time to move on to bigger and better things to do with your career. Administration is seen as a stepping stone to other more important roles within an organization.

-b/eads

anhtran35

I also notice that multiple contracting companies( ex: TekSystems; Global Insight etc ) will advertised the same SA or NA position for one client. I recently had 5 companies called me for the same position/location/client.

UnixGuy

beads wrote: »

. Time to move on to bigger and better things to do with your career. Administration is seen as a stepping stone to other more important roles within an organization.

-b/eads

+1 agreed!

What things do you consider to be bigger and better? I'd like some insight

shodown

echo_time_cat wrote: »

The nerve...

That job alone building large scale voice network is worth about 75hr and more. When you add in the fact that they wanted me to code in python(which I do) and Java(which I don't) to write up and make performance test was asking for quite a bit much. Their justification that I didn't code in a preferred language as a way to make the salary lower was a slap in the face. I want them to go out and find a voice engineer who can build complex voice networks, and code and see what he/she ask for.

TheFORCE

UnixGuy wrote: »

+1 agreed!

What things do you consider to be bigger and better? I'd like some insight

+2 I'd like to hear the answer to that also.

koz24

shodown wrote: »

That job alone building large scale voice network is worth about 75hr and more. When you add in the fact that they wanted me to code in python(which I do) and Java(which I don't) to write up and make performance test was asking for quite a bit much. Their justification that I didn't code in a preferred language as a way to make the salary lower was a slap in the face. I want them to go out and find a voice engineer who can build complex voice networks, and code and see what he/she ask for.

They're never going to fill that position with those demands. It's much more realistic that they'll need a Voice Engineer to do one part and a programmer to do the other. The fact that you had 2/3 and they still low-balled you says that they are cheap as hell. Oh well, no big loss.

TLeTourneau

beads wrote: »

If your 40 and still doing network administration - your wrong. Time to move on to bigger and better things to do with your career. Administration is seen as a stepping stone to other more important roles within an organization.

-b/eads

That's a it of an over-generalization I think. I'm over 40 and in systems administration, I am a senior engineer on a team that maintains our companies Windows and Linux servers. I work for a moderately sized healthcare company that maintains over 7,000 servers. I don't feel wrong... unless I'm missing the point or context.

LeBroke

koz24 wrote: »

They're never going to fill that position with those demands. It's much more realistic that they'll need a Voice Engineer to do one part and a programmer to do the other. The fact that you had 2/3 and they still low-balled you says that they are cheap as hell. Oh well, no big loss.

It sounded like a one-off contract to me, not a full-time position. So even before factoring in the skillset, $65 is already a slap in the face. A shitty MSP usually charges $100+ for desktop-level work. Bump that to complex voice networks and coding, and you're looking at a $150-250/hour consulting firm, or a $10-12,000+ set rate contract.

They're either trying to find someone who will do it on the cheap (i.e. a recent Indian immigrant, or even a guy in India), hoping to low-ball any candidates for whatever reason and hope they agree, or just don't know how much that stuff costs. Or already had a contractor in mind (someone's friend, or someone's kickback), and just wanted to make sure no-one else takes the job.

chmod

LeBroke wrote: »

I'd say it's easy enough to find qualified people... if you're willing to pay them what they cost.

Just like shodown's example above - qualified people aren't hurting for work. It's easy to say "candidates have unrealistic salary expectations." But.. if enough candidates were hungry/unemployed, they'd take the work for less.

The fact that they're not taking the work, means the candidates exist, but companies aren't willing to pay them what they're worth.

tl;dr: companies are cheapskates to pay people their real worth.

That's the thing, good engineers are hard to find because there's just a few for the hundreds of specialties and the majority already have a job. Is not just a matter of money, you have to convince to join the company.

Even if you(your company) are willing to pay, is not easy to find the right candidate.

If you have been in charge to setup a new engineering team or IT department, if you try to find SMEs or at least an engineer that really knows his stiff is incredibly difficult.

Is true that some companies request a lot and offer very little, but there are some jobs with very good compensation packages but finding one guy is very difficult, if you require to find 2 or 3 sometimes is mission impossible and you have lower the bar in order to hire someone.

JustFred

shodown wrote: »

Unrealistic salary demands by both parties

Companies not knowing what they want and so on.

I'll give an example. A very large company contacted me recently, and wanted me to come work for them as a contractor. They wanted me to built Large cisco voice systems for there performance labs, write code in Python, and Java to automate the testing and write documentation, and support these projects once they went into production.

They offered me 65hr.

I love how they think anyone with some very very good skills would accept any offer heh. Some of these companies are not serious.

tt0000

beads wrote: »

If your 40 and still doing network administration - your wrong. Time to move on to bigger and better things to do with your career. Administration is seen as a stepping stone to other more important roles within an organization.

-b/eads

Actually you are wrong. If it is something you enjoy and have a passion doing their is no age limit on it. I myself plan to be an admin for a very long time as I enjoy it as long as I am constantly working with new technology while at the company I am presently employed with. I have see 50+ year old admins who do their jobs quite well and are very knowledgeable on what they do. They get much respect from me the youngster.

kurosaki00

networker050184 wrote: »

That's why when I see people say there isn't a skill shortage I kind of chuckle.

I'm still entry-medium level kind of, so I'm not there quite yet. But this is what Seniors and managers have been telling me always. If you ignore help desk/noc and entry level. The truth is that there is an extremely shortage of experienced and specialized professionals in I.T.
I've seen first hand how it takes months to fill an specialized position.

chmod

kurosaki00 wrote: »

I'm still entry-medium level kind of, so I'm not there quite yet. But this is what Seniors and managers have been telling me always. If you ignore help desk/noc and entry level. The truth is that there is an extremely shortage of experienced and specialized professionals in I.T.
I've seen first hand how it takes months to fill an specialized position.

Is very very hard to find specialiezed resources.

You ahve no idea, i have traveled to so many countries, including USA and when we need to hire someone with high level skills/specialized engineer is so difficult.

LeBroke

It's a two-way street, though.

In junior-mid positions, and senior positions in smaller companies, everyone wants someone who can do everything and install a sink. It's easy to get approximate knowledge of many things, but difficult to specialize.

Even when you specialize, you tend to do so in things that are used in your company. Sure, you can find enough high-end Cisco guys because most places use Cisco.

But when your company suddenly requires a senior infrastructure automation engineer with Ruby skills, chances are, they're in for a long search. Why? Unless the guy was already a mid-level infrastructure automation engineer with Ruby at a different company, he won't have the required set of skills. A candidate might have Java experience instead, or he might be fuzzy on AWS, or something or other.

Few people wake up one day and decide "I'll focus my career on Ruby and infrastructure automation, and only do jobs that require both." Simply because it's not practical - the job market for that is too small. People might be coders that pick up infrastructure automation. Or sysadmins that learn coding and do DevOps. But rarely something super niche.

SpetsRepair

tt0000 wrote: »

Actually you are wrong. If it is something you enjoy and have a passion doing their is no age limit on it. I myself plan to be an admin for a very long time as I enjoy it as long as I am constantly working with new technology while at the company I am presently employed with. I have see 50+ year old admins who do their jobs quite well and are very knowledgeable on what they do. They get much respect from me the youngster.

I hate to ask but i have worked contract at places that had guys in their early 50s working at a tier 1 job they've been there for over 10 years and i understand you love the place you work at but at some point doesn't it get tiring of troubleshooting someones outlook? I love the help desk job but it isn't something i would want to do all my life, well maybe if they paid very well. I'm 27 by the way and love the IT field

techfiend

I think this issue is more of a systems problem than anything else. They probably put a lot of non-infrastructure responsibilities to weed out a lot of candidates. I can't imagine many are highly qualified in systems, sql, a scripting language and html/css but I see it on a majority of systems positions lately. It would probably be easy to find 2 candidates, one in systems and the other in sql, scripting and html/css.

Network and security positions seem pretty specific, occasionally see a scripting language preferred but that's it.