I'm a writer for The Linux Foundation. The topic: What's the best place to look for a sysadmin job? Specific job boards? LinkedIn? Elsewhere? Are any places especially good for certified Linux Pros?

Hi,

Do you have any actual work experience? Certifications show you were able to answer the queries properly to get that cert.

It can be difficult getting one's foot in the door with only certs. Maybe you can volunteer with a non-profit to gain some on the job experience. Most employers would look at doing work with a volunteer organization as good means to get experience in the field. That is as long as you actually get Admin experiences within that organization.

Remember, you will be starting entry level without experience on the job to justify your abilities.

EDIT: You will hopefully have a good admin at the non-profit that can mentor with good thoughtful considerations for your growth.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

What content do you write for the Linux foundation? Are you a certified Linux pro? If so, what do you feel are your strengths in that field? Can you work as a sysadmin? Have you done so before? If yes, then where and what did you do? Regardless of whether or not you have experience, what do you believe a sysadmin's job entails?

These are not questions I'm asking you to answer here, they are questions which someone interviewing you will ask.

It would seem that you'd have some peers with the Linux Foundation who could offer some suggestions. It would also seem that if you have taken the steps to become certified that you understand the strengths you have and where best to target opportunities.

In looking for a job, there are job boards, LinkedIn, and the web to help you find companies; but the actual obtaining of a job is a combination of you selling yourself to the employer as well as you sizing up the target company and situation as one which you feel suits you. Use every resource possible to locate opportunites, however understand that those resources are not specifically going to simply hand you a good position.

I'm not looking for a job myself. I'm gathering opinions for an article.

I wouldn't call this the, "best place to look for a sysadmin job?" This is more of a set of guidelines I follow when I'm job searching. Rather than using a typical approach like in many other fields I tend to have the following process in order from top to bottom.

1. If I have friends in the area I will attempt to gravitate to their company if it is a good company to work for after talking with them. I may also do some company research. I visit their career site for direct applications on job openings and list friends as a referral. They typically get a few thousand dollars in their pocket for a referral hire.
2. Review the top companies to work for lists in my area and then research them. If they're a company I'm interested in then I visit their career site for direct application on job openings.
3. Reach out to my local Linux User Group mailing lists (as well as Special Interest Groups) and ask them about companies they work for or recommend. Do the research on responses. If I'm interested then I visit the company career site for direct application on job openings.
4. Look at sponsors of conferences I enjoy attending as well as the companies my meetup group members work for. See if any of the companies pique my interest. If so I take time to research the companies. If I'm interested I visit the company career site for direct application on job openings.
5. Search for key words on places like Indeed which tend to have a lot of job postings for companies in my area. Keywords include, "Linux Administration", "Linux", "Systems Engineer", "Operations Engineer", "Build Engineer", "Application Engineer", etc. I then make an effort to research the companies that appear in the list and attempt to determine if it is a place I would enjoy working. If so I visit their career site for direct application on job openings.

In every step, no matter which approach, I rewrite my entire resume for the company in which I'm applying. I have a broad skill set so I tend to include relevant skills for the position. I don't typically write a cover letter (even if it is optional). Instead I attempt to make my resume a good read since it is tailored for the job.

My application throughput is low but I get a fairly high interview rate with this method (I would estimate 4/5 applications I get an interview). I also tend to interview the interviewers on how they like the company they work for. Daily challenges they face. What sort of culture they have. How they feel about open source contributions. Discussing benefits and bonus structure. If the company has ever given them a hard time with time off when they really needed it. Etc. I also make it clear during this process that I'm evaluating them as a good fit for me as much as they are because if you're not happy where you work you'll have a bad time.

Thanks, Sag47. I appreciate your answer.

I've taken the opposite approach lately, I just download everything using wget from sites like indeed.com and then harvest them for emails using scripts. I've pushed out my resume to 30,000 email addresses so far in the last week. I get many people calling me every day, the amount of calls I get from recruiters everyday is now annoying, apparently nobody knows how to email. I started doing this because I can't stand the sites that force you to manually reenter everything that's already on your resume, it takes too long to do all that, it's infuriating.

wow nbritton. now you are bombarded. I think you overdid it. if the ratio is even 0.2 out of 5 you will still have 1200 interviews(4 a day for the next year. Good luck!

@nbritton, those results make perfect sense to me, albeit to be clear I think what you did was not a great idea, at least for my preferences. I say it makes perfect sense because likely the very many calls you're getting from recruiters are because many jobs are posted on boards from recruiters.

I think you're going to see similar results of GIGO, while not perhaps garbage in/out, but rather the equivalent results from SPAM assault to get a job. I have the experience of being contacted probably 50 or more times for the same position, and over a lengthy duration. If you happen to have a certain skill set, the recruiters do the same as you've done, in reverse and search resumes for key phrases, therefore when a certain position comes up, they locate all the resumes they can which match a certain set of keyword criteria. I recall interviewing for a particular position where they never contacted me back, meanwhile I got contacted numerous times by recruiters where it was clear that they were targeting that exact position. That process seemingly took a year, I'm sitting here wondering if they ever filled that position. At the time I probably would've taken it, if offered, but I sort of cringe now wondering how that job would've gone.

You will likely get a position and perhaps the chance at more than one of them. However, I do wonder how many of those 30K opportunities are exactly what you're looking for.

I had a "startup" period where I did work for a number of companies, unfortunately none rocketed to where they wished and the results were layoffs. I was never one to enter pro bono employment so never got some founder's stock. Other than that, I've had 3 pretty long term jobs, the least of which was 6 years. First out of school, one beyond that, and my present one. The latter two were chosen, pointedly by me because they were positions which I felt were excellent opportunities, and they were/are situations where my skills are exercised to great extent, overall just great jobs.

What I'm saying there is the "Hey, here's a job, they'll pay me (large amount of money) and I can absolutely do it!" approach is one which I followed for what I call my startup phase. Job enjoyment was a sometimes thing, job duration was a sometimes thing, high end rewards did not occur, there were some minor incentive bonuses, there were ZERO raises mainly because the whole intent of being at a startup was because we'd "cash in" ... someday.

I hope it works to your benefit and you always find exactly what you're looking for in a position. I guess I have to admit it's not my style, however I do understand the necessity to get one's name out there and get job leads.

Sag47, would you be willing to give me your real name for my article? Contact me at Hallsusand@gmail.com. Thanks.

This appears to be the article that ended up being produced:

https://www.linux.com/learn/linux-ce...a-sysadmin-job

I didn't think it was bad. Would have been nice for her to post a link to it here though.

Are all your posts on this forum for that same purpose?