Want a fulfilling IT career? Learn Linux

Hi,

Want a fulfilling IT career? Learn Linux;

Posted 12 Aug 2014 by Shawn Powers How can understanding Linux enhance a career? This question is interesting because there are two drastically different answers. The first is the obvious answer that you can find through websites and studies everywhere, but the second is a little more subtle. And a lot more awesome.

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thank you ,
very nice article aim for future and this
will make us to dig further for more knowledge.

Discover if you are already skilled in IT. If you have a PC and use it for more than just typing and basic office work, doing homework, playing games and casually browsing the web, then you have the right stuff for the job.

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Basically, if you want a job in technology, being a Linux expert is like finding a golden ticket in your Wonka bar.

Go ahead. Feel that way. Hope lots-n-lots of people buy your articles, too. Sell that illusion as best you can. It's a free world out there, and you're entitled to be one of the "... and two to take 'im," if you can manage to pull it off.

Hi,

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Go ahead. Feel that way. Hope lots-n-lots of people buy your articles, too. Sell that illusion as best you can. It's a free world out there, and you're entitled to be one of the "... and two to take 'im," if you can manage to pull it off.

That's the difference in optimism & pessimist. If everyone had the ideal of gloom & doom the world would not be moving forward. Pessimist are nothing more than a person having restrainer/restrictive attitude.

I liken to the lighter side and provide a positive attitude. Why be so paranoid? Someone that is suspicious and providing a poor outlook to the finality of something will get no where but darker. Open minded forward looking people do seem to have success in this world when they look at things with a positive attitude therefore willing to look at changes as positive thus beneficial.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations in life…that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Knowledge is of two kinds. We Know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."- Samuel Johnson "Life's tough...It's even tougher if you're stupid." - John Wayne “It takes a strong person to be ethical, for ethics are standards you may decide to follow even when others do not agree. Unless you are completely in control of your life and have a great deal of discipline, you cannot be ethical.” - Deng Ming-Doa A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. - G. B. Shaw

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

My comment is simply that: "there are no golden tickets, and your career is not a Wonka bar."

Having a particular skill-set, Linux or otherwise, is not going to make any hiring-manager drool and slather over you and beg you to name your price. That's not the reality of IT.

Let me tell you what is: that every "shop" probably has a mixture of Linux and Windows (and midrange, and maybe big-iron), and the people who work in that "shop" wear many hats every day. Versatility, humility, attention to detail, and a generally great work-ethic are among the things that will "get you noticed" as a potential candidate to enter into such an environment.

It is very important to broaden your skills-base ... if you get a chance to sit down in front of an AS/400 or even a System/38 console and do something, jump at the chance. If you're a Windows sysadmin and you get a chance to work with a Linux server, or vice-versa, stick your hand up and volunteer to do it. But do not "just switch silos." The broader your perspectives on what a workgroup is actually doing and how, the more useful you will be to that workgroup, and the more "people will speak favorably of you."

(Be a little circumspect. If, for example, you see a button on the console that's labeled, "Explode," it's probably best not to push it just to see what happens.)

Thirty-odd years ago, IBM won a bid that DEC was supposed to win. Uhhh... No one knew about that IBM system. Any volunteers? Stuck my hand right up there, and soon enough the manager was pointing at me. It was another chance to "vacuum-up all the manuals in the (new) shop," which I subsequently did. Went on to parley that into several very interesting career-moments since that time. Although I haven't used that type of system in many years, I still could and who knows one day I might. It was a "golden-ticket moment" for me, one of several that I made for myself. (Nice thing was, I didn't have to pretend to know, and I got to go to a lot of very interesting training classes all over the US.)

One thing that still surprises me about "the industry, today" is how incredibly siloed it has become. "I am an <<XXX>> programmer." Linux folks looking for Linux and saying that "shiny things are fun." Windows folks getting deeper and deeper into the Redmond way of doing things and they neither know nor seek to know anything else. Ditto for iOS programmers, who remain studiously apart from the Androids. That notion is altogether strange to me. "That's it? How boring, and this biz is never supposed to be boring!"

"An IT Career" is "fulfilling," if you just use a little imagination and are willing to stick your hand up.

One thing that still surprises me about "the industry, today" is how incredibly siloed it has become. "I am an <<XXX>> programmer." Linux folks looking for Linux and saying that "shiny things are fun." Windows folks getting deeper and deeper into the Redmond way of doing things and they neither know nor seek to know anything else. Ditto for iOS programmers, who remain studiously apart from the Androids. That notion is altogether strange to me. "That's it? How boring, and this biz is never supposed to be boring!"

That is because of the sheer amount of skills and effort it takes to understand something now days, and also the sheer amount of DIFFERENT skills, languages, hardware, OS's, standards etc that there are.

In the 90's it wasn't difficult to be the 'computer whiz' because you knew how DOS worked and could program in BASIC, Pascal or C. Now though, if you want to be JUST a bottom of the barrel, average, help desk person, you have to work with AD, Exchange, Printers, Print servers, RDP, Drive mapping, Group Policy, Firewall rules, Anti virus, Virus/Malware removal, Imaging, WSUS and Updates, Proxy settings, Mozilla/IE/Chrome settings and extensions, Ticketing systems, Lync or some other IM, the Office Suite, the Online Office Suite, VOIP Phones, and so on and so on.

So, yeah, if you want to be good at something, you are going to end up concentrating most of your time on that ONE thing. Systems Administration, Network Architecture, Security, Programming or whatever. Because each of those 'silos' represents years and years and years of training and specialization. That is, unless you don't mind being mediocre at lots of things.

I don't know about IT, but in R&D having "one" particular talent is no guarantee of success. It may be a guarantee of hire because hiring managers see buzzwords, don't always listen properly, and just hire sometimes because they can't afford to lose a req. I do feel as said in at least one other post that having a variety of talents as well as the capability to be adaptable is highly important.

Hi,

I feel my skill set & education was the reason I was hired at the University. Specialization can be a good niche if it happens to be one that everyone wants or needs for service in their environments. The OP article is a good viewpoint and that is why I referenced the article. Another perspective and one that shows there are other ways/means to enter into IT. I am not saying that experience is not relevant but that one can open doors as shown in the article. Interview chemistry means something when the applicant marries well with the interviewer through good communication skills.

One can have a beautiful resume but if you cannot meet requirements or show the skill set to anyone then you loose. Versatility will go far when one is in the IT arena. If your skills are narrow or limited then you will not go far. Yet if you can show improvement in abilities as time goes on that benefit the department then you do have a chance to continue within. If your skill set is limited then a trainee position should be the target for your employment. Most lead positions are had by people who have been in the profession for years and are not overnight wonder-boys. I say that once you open the door you had better know how to walk through and then close it properly. Not go boldly and beyond or the door will be shown to you, while they say; BTW, do not let the chains hit you in the butt on your way out the door.

“Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world” -Chesterfield “What once were vices are now manners.”-Seneca “Politeness goes far, yet costs nothing.”- Samuel Smiles

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!