[Gllug] getting into the linux work scene

[Ms. Lene Jensen]

On Tue, 3 Sep 2002, Tethys wrote:

Ok, first I want to warn you, I teach RHCE so a I am "slightly" biased, 
but I want you to understand that the RHCE is different from other Linux 
certifications.

> >What are the most respected certifications for the UK market? I have
> >seen information on Linux+, LPI (seems well spoken of) and RHCE.
> 
> I can't speak for others, but when I'm recruiting, I tend to ignore
> certifications like this. Real world experience counts for 10 times
> as much as a piece of paper that says you know the theory. Given the
> amount of money that professional certifications cost, I can't see
> it's worth taking them.

Hmmm.  I tend to agree, but, the RHCE _is_ testing your experience, not 
your theoretical knowledge (well, it does, we spend one out of six exam 
hours on theory).  More companies are recognising this, and especially 
the larger ones are asking for RHCE.  If you look closely on adverts, 
you will see more and more of them mentioning RHCE.

RHCE consist of: 2.5 hour trouble shooting, 1 hour theory (multiple 
choise) and 2.5 hour setting up services and security to a 
specification.  Each part must be past with a score greater than 50% 
plus an overall score of 80%.  Around 40-50% fail this exam, even after 
years of unix/linux experience. Compare this with the multiple choise 
exams (I have one from Brainbench, took me 35 minutes to complete.  And 
pass) where you spend an hour or so.

> >I want to focus my time as best I can. What I want to know is: if you
> >were hiring for a junior network admin, what do I need to add to my
> >skillset to make you sit up and take notice?

It all depends what you need an admin for/how big the company is.  If it 
is huge, you will probably be hired for one task only, if it is a 
smaller one, you would be asked to do everything.  Break it down into 
two areas, basic knowledge and advanced.  Basic contain info such as 
commands, regexp (not a lot, the more simple things), shell scripting, 
protocols.  The things we need to know, but _might_ be boring to learn. 
The advanced stuff can be things like mail (sendmail, qmail, postfix, 
zmailer), webserver, sambaserver, dns, dhcp, nis, ldap, ftp, ssh, 
security, useradmin and so on.

What most of the people say: just keep on learning, never stop :)

LJ
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