Getting out of the Helpdesk. Getting into the system administration.

Posted by eric.s on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by eric.s
Published on 2010-03-23T02:10:28Z Indexed on 2010/03/23 2:11 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 343

Filed under:

learning

|

skills

|

job-market

Today I found out that the job which would have been a promotion for me went to an outside candidate. The position is for a systems admin on our LAN team.

I have been working on the helpdesk here for almost two years with another two years experience working it prior. While we are the first tier support we also work in AD, monitor and update certain servers and set up and deploy Windows/Mac images for those we support.

What I am looking for here is what can I do to better myself to inside/outside places to move up this ladder? I take what I can from my job - working on projects that I can learn from - but what projects should I be volunteering for? What can I do for myself outside to make me a more viable candidate for a systems admin?

© Server Fault or respective owner

Related posts about learning

Machine learning challenge: diagnosing program in java/groovy (datamining, machine learning)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi All! I'm planning to develop program in Java which will provide diagnosis. The data set is divided into two parts one for training and the other for testing. My program should learn to classify from the training data (BTW which contain answer for 30 questions each in new column, each record in… >>> More
what's a good language for learning machine learning?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I've been thrust into a situation where I need to know something about Machine Learning. Is there a language or perhaps a reasonable tutorial that breaks this subject matter in gently? I'm not a math guy, so it's got to start from a pretty basic level. >>> More
Learning WPF and MVVM - best approach for learning from scratch

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I've got about three years c# experience. I'd like to learn some WPF and the MVVM pattern. There are a lot of links to articles on this site but I'm getting a little overwhelmed. Would a sensible approach for a begginer to be forget mvvm for a while and just quickly learn a bit a of WPF, then… >>> More
What are the advantages of Ceylon over Java?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Looking for the recent and powerful upcoming programming languages over net, I came across Ceylon. I dropped in at ceylon-lang.org and it says: Ceylon is deeply influenced by Java. You see, we're fans of Java, but we know its limitations inside out. Ceylon keeps the best bits of Java but improves… >>> More
understanding evaluation function

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am developing a chess program. And have made use of an alpha beta algorithm and a static evaluation function. I have successfully implemented both but I want to improve the evaluation function by automatically tuning the weights assigned to its features. At this point am totally confused about the… >>> More

Related posts about skills

C++ skills higher than C skills?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I feel that the often seen C/C++ doesn't really describe my skills in my CV. So I'm planning to separate it into advanced C++ knowledge and mediocre C skills. Do you think this is confusing for the reader? She could think: "C is a subset of C++, so what is this guy trying to tel me?" Well, what I'm… >>> More
How to improve problem solving skills/programming skills

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi All, I am new to programming, and have been given many interviews for jobs, but what I lag is the concepts and skills of general problem solving not respect to any particular programming language. are there any books or material available which can help me upgrade my programming skills. looking… >>> More
Promote your DotNetNuke skills

as seen on Dot net Slackers - Search for 'Dot net Slackers'
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reaching out to Fusion Partners in an effort to compile a list of finished CMS projects that are noteworthy. Shaun Walker will be picking out a few to include in his blog that he feels are especially interesting. Also, we are interested in building a list… >>> More
Grails - Simple hasMany Problem - Using CheckBoxes rather than HTML Select in create.gsp

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
My problem is this: I want to create a grails domain instance, defining the 'Many' instances of another domain that it has. I have the actual source in a Google Code Project but the following should illustrate the problem. class Person { String name static hasMany[skills:Skill] static constraints… >>> More
Required Skill Sets Of A Software Architect

as seen on DotNetBlocks - Search for 'DotNetBlocks'
The question has been asked as to what is the required skill sets of a software architect. The answer to this is that it truly depends. When I state that it depend, it depends on the organization, industry, and skill sets available on the open market and internally within a company. With open ended… >>> More