I have been a programmer for a long time and am now unemployed. I have no degree and no certification. I've had some experience with unix as a desktop environment. I've maintained my home LAN in various forms using various linux and bsd distros. I've been thinking of trying to move to system administration for a few reasons.

One of my concerns is how to present myself in a job interview. I can't think of anyone to ask for advice, because it would reveal that I'm thinking of changing my career.

Reasons for transitioning that I think an interviewer would not like if I revealed them are:

* My career as a programmer has been declining
* My programming jobs have involved less and less actual programming. It's more finding where to make some little 3 line change.
* I'm often not all that interested in the thing that the the program is actually meant to do, e.g. I'm not fascinated by accounting.
* I would enjoy being a systems programmer, but don't have the background because of the jobs that I've had. Being a systems administrator might allow me to gain experience that could be useful while studying systems programming outside of work.

Reasons for transitioning that an interviewer may or may not like:

* I find I am usually more interested in the actual technology that I am using, than in the the thing that the program I'm developing is supposed to do.
* I have enjoyed maintaining my home LAN and experimenting with various operating systems.
* I want to learn about network protocols, hardware and operating systems.

I understand that programming and system administration are different skill sets, and I can't just automatically perform the role of a system administrator just because I did minor system administrative tasks while being a programmer. So, I was hoping I might be able to get a Jr. sys admin job.

I'm afraid that I will appear as a desperate unemployed programmer thinking that he can take a system administration job until he can switch back to programming. Do you think the positive reasons I gave would sound like good reasons to an interviewer? Advice?

Hmm. Every interviewer is different, but experience that stands out helps the most. Play up the things you are most enthusiastic about in your resume and in the interview when you get that far. The fact that you have managed your home LAN under different configurations would probably be a plus.

Besides that, I'm sure someone who's had the sort of job you're looking for would be more help :-)

As 2ck says, every interviewer is different. Some want you to have had (X years of) experience of every technology that will be used in the job. Others look for personality (how will you fit in the team, both socially and by specific skills that will make up for the existing team's deficits), enthusiasm and potential to grow into the job, for ability to express clearly in writing and speech ...

So making the transition you want will be a matter of luck, happening on an organisation that values your strengths and is happy to accommodate you weaknesses.