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What does everyone know about contract jobs? I know a good deal about Windows 2k8, domains, dns, tcp/ip, windows networks, SharePoint and probably a bit about VOIP. How much or how decent are those traveling gigs setting up servers and where would I find them?
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| # ¿ Nov 15, 2011 02:18 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 12:47 |
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For those that didn't finish school - how did you get pass the HR requirement of 2/4-year degree?
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| # ¿ Nov 21, 2011 05:52 |
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Vargatron posted:Most places I see with unrealistic requirements are smallish businesses who have no idea what they're even asking for. Either that or they advertise for a helpdesk job when it turns out to be a enterprise server venture. Or its just some HR goon posting something they don't understand. In any event, just submit your resume and see what happens. No harm, no foul in that.
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| # ¿ Dec 9, 2011 04:45 |
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friendbot2000 posted:I have heard from a couple of my teachers that Microsoft Sharepoint Server is going to be the next big "must have" on your resume for employers. Do any of you veterans know anything about this? Well, it's about as important as having a CCNA or what-ever-major-vendor certification.
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| # ¿ Dec 11, 2011 18:54 |
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ITT Tech, University of Phoenix and DeVry have questionable reputations, have been sued numerous times by their students, teachers and even the government. I don't see why anyone would choose these university over a small state-university where often-times the cost is fraction the education much better, online and night classes readily available. There was a thread on this previously, but drat what the hell is up with the SharePoint hate?
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| # ¿ Dec 13, 2011 02:42 |
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balakadaka posted:Microsoft likes to reinvent the vocabulary, implementation, and features of the entire product with every release. And that wouldn't be bad, if the product worked roughly ~50% of the time. The changes the made in 2010 from 2007 certainly make me my head explode. I guess in some circumstances the interface is more user-friendly but honestly what computer "noob" is going to be messing around in Central / Tenant Admin?
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| # ¿ Dec 13, 2011 05:38 |
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RMS Ghost Rider posted:Sysadmin is just about the dullest job you can imagine, unless you're handling tickets all day. It can get "exciting" from time to time though, which basically means an 18 hour Saturday because the box won't boot or something. Other than that [ASK] me about posting on SA for 7 hours a day Posting on SA is never dull 
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| # ¿ Dec 13, 2011 21:24 |
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hieronymus posted:Seeing 'access' in a job description on a job website should be an automatic "do not send your resume to this company," even if you know access. Companies that use access generally lack money and/or technically savvy people. How do you figure this?
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| # ¿ Dec 20, 2011 03:50 |
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Has anyone done those supposed terrible contract jobs that are offered on Dice.com and other sites? 4-weeks to 6-month contract jobs where you migrate from XP to Win7 or you're setting up a huge server farm. I've heard the pay is great but the hours are long, there's no job security after the fact and there's traveling involved. Has anyone done this? Tab8715 fucked around with this message at Jan 7, 2012 around 21:14 |
| # ¿ Jan 7, 2012 19:53 |
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the spyder posted:Thanks! It was a fun processed and I learned a lot. I think you need to be a little more specific about your job duties, history and cert/degree. Though ~55k/y sounds about right if not a bit more.
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| # ¿ Jan 22, 2012 05:38 |
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the spyder posted:Brief job description: The rate of 60k/y sounds about right, though I don't know a whole lot about building the server farm and such. A follow-up question, you got to this point in your professional life with-out any degree at all? That's pretty drat awesome. I'm sort of in the same boat as myself, however is it all it really takes is some decent experience on a resume and decent social skills in the interview?
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| # ¿ Jan 27, 2012 06:03 |
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workape posted:What? I work on a team where I am the network architect/team lead and I have a team of 3 pure senior engineers, 2 juniors and a telecom guy. It took us forever to find someone last fall. It isn't that there aren't jobs, there frankly aren't qualified people. The amount of shitheads that think that they are senior level engineers is loving baffling. Being a ticket jockey for 10 years making vlan changes doesn't make you a senior engineer, it makes you a sad sack of poo poo who can't answer questions about the basics of design or the difference between Architecture and Engineering. Please do tell us more.
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| # ¿ Feb 3, 2012 04:16 |
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workape posted:Assuming you aren't trying to be sarcastic, what would you like to know? I've worked my way up to where I am after switching into network engineering from being a unix sysadmin. I'm one of those experience > certs > formal education people. I've worked for people in the past that the whole thing was turned around. Never work for someone with a Ph.D.. Oh, sorry if that was confusing. I was more interested in the stories of people applying for Senior Positions when they couldn't even explain /24. You'd think HR would simply filter them out beforehand. At the Microsoft vendor I worked for we had an online interview with simple technical questions like this before our real interview.
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| # ¿ Feb 5, 2012 21:53 |
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necrobobsledder posted:Uh, there's also the problems that laws keep many companies from even putting any potentially sensitive information under anything other than incredible amounts of lock & key mechanisms due to stuff like SOX, PCI compliance (say, for Visa, Amex, etc.), HIPAA (healthcare), etc. Almost all the big IT shops in terms of dollars spent fall into these industries due to their fundamental business operations being so much about efficient information exchange: I won't disagree with that however as working for a Microsoft Vendor that sells and supports Office 365 - Word, Excel, plus all your data on the cloud I'm asked nearly everyday for various documentation that shows our product meets X, Y and Z certification or standard. With that said, most large companies will more than likely resort to their own cloud not necessarily for security but convenience. It's a hell of a lot easier to change or fix something when you own your own "cloud".
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| # ¿ Feb 12, 2012 20:28 |
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Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:Honestly, I'd keep in mind that IT isn't the big money field as the last few pages made it out to be. One of the bigger myths out there is that computers and nursing are always going to have jobs. But they don't mention that both fields are suffering a glut of people, and this glut will drive down wages. It's one of the bad things about 'big' fields: they're big because wages are too high, and having more people on hand will create plenty of jobs, but not in the pay range that you see here. Do you have a source for this? Yes, IT is a big field but by no means have wages been dropping or have jobs in the industry been in decline. Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:1) You will have to get certified, and this will cost money. And you might have to certify over and over again to keep it 'current' and that becomes a money sink. If the company wants you do something or be someone, they pay for the certification and this is a standard practice. Yes, that $2,000 to $5,000 certification from Microsoft/Cisco/VmWare that also requires a mandatory 2-week class - the company eats the cost. I've never, ever seen it the other way around after working for 3 IT Consulting firms. Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:2) The industry services many fields, and this will be a sink on your time. IT is not that respected and given the amount of people getting more certifications/degrees/et cetera, chances are you'll eventually be outsourced or simply not paid much until you have to find another job, making you constantly on the job hunt. This is somewhat accurate, however if you get into a senior role where you're constantly working with management you will get plenty of respect and pay. Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:I don't mean to drive you away, but if you're looking for a job, then make sure IT is what you really want. The pay can be there if you want it to be, but it's by no means a surefire thing. Learning this stuff takes a long time and is sometimes inaccessible. And given how the wages are dropping ($40 for Helpdesk is a fantasy, and even $15 is a dream in the Midwest), it may not be worth it. Learning this "stuff" is incredibly accessible especially with virtualization - I have several Windows Servers simulating your typical corporate network. You aren't going to be making $40/h at a helpdesk but $15/h is actually pretty standard pay for helpdesk in the Midwest. I was making that in Fargo, North Dakota a few years ago.
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| # ¿ Feb 12, 2012 20:54 |
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adorai posted:I just wanted to report how much I hate disaster recovery testing. At a contractor I worked at previously we would regular sell 10k+ worth of various servers, set it up and rent out a small room to companies just so they could do exactly this without impacting production.
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| # ¿ Feb 13, 2012 03:08 |
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Maneki Neko posted:Also nice: takes showers. This. It boggles mind after leaving tier 1 helpdesk hell and staying in the game for 5+ years that nerds cant bathe. I rolled into a co-workers cube a few weeks back to work on another ticket and immediately rolled back the gently caress out because his body oder had infested the entirity of his cube. My managers regularly meet with us in our cubes. I guess now know the reason why theyre always sitting half-way out of his cube.
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| # ¿ Apr 16, 2012 16:25 |
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Rhymenoserous posted:I have no clue, I've been rolling Virtualized environments without Certs for years now. How much does the VCP Class cost?
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| # ¿ May 3, 2012 20:51 |
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icehewk posted:How awful of an idea is working as the sole help desk for a smallish law firm? It Dept may only consist of a systems analyst and network engineer. Personally, I find working at small businesses the best. You know everyone personally and there's a lot less corporate bullshit. On the flip-side they'll demand that'll you keep everything running that's over a decade old because they're broke or just greedy and don't care to invest a single dime into their infrastructure.
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| # ¿ Aug 16, 2012 04:56 |
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Corvettefisher posted:Depends what state, some will ask you for a prior paycheck from your current work as proof of employment history or some bullshit like that My new Tier 2 HP-UX / Unix Support position required a W-2 from every single job I've had in the last 5 years.
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| # ¿ Sep 14, 2012 22:00 |
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angrytech posted:Don't listen to what anyone says: alcohol is great no matter what age you are. Mostly because you wont be able to keep up 
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| # ¿ Sep 15, 2012 00:04 |
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Docjowles posted:Not to nitpick but this is not really accurate. A network engineer is responsible for, well, the network. Switches, routers, hardware firewalls, down to the physical cabling. Not applications, storage, servers or VM's, just their connectivity. It's not a position that even exists at a lot of companies unless you're really huge or networking is your core business (like an ISP or a big datacenter). In many companies, the sysadmin(s) are the defacto network engineers along with their other responsibilities. Seconded. In my experience - most small companies (>100 People) generally have a full-time IT guy but all of the Networking tasks are contracted out to IT Firms who has people who just do networking stuff. This is done simply because networking is difficult, extremely-sensitive and it's you're only going to need to work this only a few days out the whole year.
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| # ¿ Oct 5, 2012 03:42 |
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Spudalicious posted:Working on a 1000-man team on 88,000 account migrations from Lotus to Google Apps. Praise jeezus. How does Google Sites compare to SharePoint 2010?
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| # ¿ Oct 18, 2012 23:06 |
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joe944 posted:I'm not sure if it applies to everyone - but moving away from windows entirely has also really increased my overall workplace happiness. I agree with this completely. I don't mean to de-rail this thread but it looks like we've got the right group of people to answer my question. I've worked for a few contractors - working for another company despite being employed at a different company. This also known as working for a vendor. I used to work at a vendor that had me supporting a document-collaboration solution and now I work at one supporting unix systems for a major telecomm. I could understand if this project only last a few years but these systems essentially need to be supported indefinitely. Yet, somehow this is a cost-cutting measure but how? I'm sure I'm paid less than FTEs whom while are working on more complex systems but how are they saving money? Sometimes, it's almost like the company I work for doesn't exist. I'm to tell my customers I'm a full-time employee, I work with every single customer big or small, I have access to each systems and almost nearly everyone I work with is employed through the same vendor or works for a different one. What gives?
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| # ¿ Oct 19, 2012 00:03 |
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Frag Viper posted:Are recruiters worth it? One out of my 12 recruiters got me a job. Take it as you may.
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| # ¿ Oct 22, 2012 23:13 |
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Vargatron posted:Based on my experience with recruiters, they are only there to make the max profit for themselves, so they'll basically try to sell you these super cheap jobs that have good margins for them. I have yet to have a good experience with recruiters. They all had the same bullshit line "this is a great opportunity to grow with the company"! Any idea's how to find out what kind of cut your recruiter is getting?
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| # ¿ Oct 23, 2012 01:25 |
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adorai posted:We caught one of our helpdesk guys saying, "U as in unicorn" one day. I just cant remember uniform or Yankee. Yeti and Unicorn work just fine!
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| # ¿ Nov 3, 2012 02:45 |
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Eh, I've good luck with contractors. A job's still a job no matter what.
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| # ¿ Nov 13, 2012 01:00 |
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Red Robin Hood posted:I make $14/hour as a "Junior Systems Engineer". My job duties include low-level to medium level engineering tickets, creating, modifying, and terminating profiles in active directory, and helping out support. The head engineers have decided that they want to give me more responsibilities. Right now when support places an engineering level ticket it is passed to one engineer who passes it out to the appropriate engineer for the job. They think I can do that now. How'd you even get this job? I'd be asking for 38k at least.
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| # ¿ Nov 13, 2012 21:33 |
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Red Robin Hood posted:I have zero schooling outside of a high school diploma and know the network admin here. I'm 21... am I getting shafted? Do you work for a major corporation? You are young but it does seem low - and the stuff about earning less due to no degree is bullshit. The lead SharePoint Engineer making 60k+ had a degree in Philosophy. I have a question for the thread - how much importance do you place upon references?
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| # ¿ Nov 14, 2012 00:07 |
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Red Robin Hood posted:I work for a small 23~ person company. I honestly think you should be making $36-40k from the sound of it be honest. Tab8715 fucked around with this message at Nov 14, 2012 around 07:11 |
| # ¿ Nov 14, 2012 07:09 |
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Internet Explorer posted:I used to provide references on my resume but now I just put "references upon request." I don't think I've ever had someone call and check my references in 4 or so jobs in 10 years. It beats having someone call your current employer when you haven't given notice. It's not so much in that way but references in general. At first real IT Job for two years I mostly by myself. I was also young so I honestly didn't care or understand about the whole professional-connection thing. My next - I did well made some good connections including my manager but I am not so sure how good of reference he would be - he had quite the personalty of angry old man. I suspect if he was called, the conversation would go something like "Who the gently caress is this? Ted? Yea, I worked with him. He was good. Bye". My last - it worked out well and I enjoyed it however they put me and few others on a 2 month overnight shift and on team that was short-staffed. I was unhappy they said its just the way it is, a few month later things changed and everyone was happy - until I was fired. Why? I was never told other than an hour beforehand I was interviewing for a new job.  I have one manager from the team that I feel would be a good reference and two co-workers that would work out. As I completed writing this - I think I'm putting a little too much importance on references but what how does the rest the forum feel in this regard?
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| # ¿ Nov 14, 2012 08:02 |
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sanchez posted:Some people do and they are gold because of it. I've met people who loved the poo poo out of talking to people and helping them with their mundane desktop problems all day. I felt this way... For 6 months only to realize there's nothing technical about your job and your just an over glorified customer-service agent. I can't comprehend how some people stay in "user support" positions for more than a few years.
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| # ¿ Nov 21, 2012 15:32 |
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For those that are in some kind of System Admin / System Engineer Role, work in a Windows Environment and have their MCSE. What does your-to-day job look like?
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| # ¿ Dec 3, 2012 05:44 |
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Misogynist posted:Pardon the question, but why does the MCSE play into this? What information are you trying to get at by including this? Right now, I'm primarily a Unix Sys. Admin and a backup on various Windows Servers. For all intents and purposes I essentially have my dream job  My only complaint - I'm located in Fargo, North Dakota. This place is flat, cold and boring. My family is originally from California I would love to move back more than anything in the entire world. From looking at the jobs available in California - it seems nearly every single one wants some combination of CCNA,VCP or MCSE. Given what I already do having my MSCE seems to be my golden ticket for decent job that's 45k/y+ and benefits. MC Fruit Stripe posted:I am a (senior) sys admin with my MCSE and work in a Windows environment. This is basically what I do all day - though much less relaxed and I work about ~45 hours a week.
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| # ¿ Dec 4, 2012 21:08 |
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Is anyone actually able to use their sick time? My problem is no one would really be able to sub in for me while I'm away.
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| # ¿ Dec 5, 2012 08:07 |
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It's common practice for employers to ask for your last 3 pay stubs at your last job.
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| # ¿ Dec 5, 2012 22:37 |
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I told my most recent employer I enjoy hiking, badminton, paintball, sushi, Starcraft and Democrats. I got the job!
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| # ¿ Dec 12, 2012 19:00 |
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I'm on salary but for any kind of change that's during off-hours, holidays or on-call is overtime.
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| # ¿ Dec 31, 2012 18:54 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 12:47 |
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JHVH-1 posted:This is the kind of thing you don't always find so that is when it is good. I got hired for shift work on salary but get paid overtime. A lot of places you are on salary and you end up needing to put in more than 40 hours a week and don't get paid a dime extra. I was shocked the first I heard about it and it seems most employers don't do this sort of thing.
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| # ¿ Dec 31, 2012 21:28 |
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