[Gllug] VACANCY - Linux Specialist @ Visual Effects Training Facility

[Nix]

On 2 Oct 2007, tid told this:
> A list of questions should cover the obvious: If someone says they know
> sendmail, then the purpose of the interview is to find out how much.  My
> advice to potential applicants is to be wholly honest with themselves first
> on how much they know about individual subsystems and raise it in the
> interview. I've seen people say "good knowledge of perl" and
> then put
>
> #!/bin/pearl
>
> on a sample script.

This is one reason why I've never dared switch jobs: the
interview. Extreme nervousness around people I've never met before in
conditions of social stress really *really* doesn't help in this
situation.

In my last interview (failed, of course, like every formal interview
I've ever had) I managed to entirely freeze up and basically lost the
ability to talk. In the one before that I stumbled while discussing
trivial details of C which anyone who'd been using the language more
than a week would know.

I no longer bother applying for jobs.

> IMHO, a positive and upbeat attitude is preferable to sheer intellectual
> genius for sysadmins. Likewise, an ability to explain yourself and teach
> others is useful. People who can't explain how or why they solved a
> problem usually don't have a ordered approach. Likewise people who
> don't document systems or procedures.

The ability to automate things *is* crucial, though. I've known a good
few Unix `sysadmins' and DBAs who couldn't handle simple shell scripting
and the result was invariably pain (guess who had to write the scripts
in the end).

-- 
`Some people don't think performance issues are "real bugs", and I think 
such people shouldn't be allowed to program.' --- Linus Torvalds
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