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UNIX Hints & Hacks |
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Chapter 10: System Administration: The Occupation |
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In many cases this is a timing issue. At times it can be the hardest thing in the world to find someone qualified or who meets your criteria. Sometimes the ideal person doesn't exist and you might have to give up some qualities to get the closest candidate possible. When you are ready to advertise the open position, here are some resources that will help you find that ideal candidate:
Newspaper: This is probably one of the best resources for searching for the candidate you seek. However, advertisements in major newspapers are not cheap. They can be quite expensive, but you should get a batch of semiqualified to qualified responses.
Conferences and seminars: Specific conferences and seminars do exist for UNIX administrators. There are often company bulletin boards for posting open positions for free. If you do not have anyone attending the conference to post the position, contact the conference officials to see how you can have a position posted for you. It is also possible to sponsor a recruiting party in a room at the hotel where the conference or seminar is being held. Some of the conferences will have a vendor expo. In recent years more and more recruiters and companies recruiting have had booths in the exhibition halls of the conference expos.
Vendors: The support engineers for the computer manufactures you deal with come into contact with UNIX administrators on a daily basis. Pass the word to these support engineers. UNIX administrators tend to befriend and speak openly to the engineers when the are not happy a current position. There is also a great opportunity to steal the support engineer away from the vendor as well. Be careful though. An engineer might be an excellent hardware specialist or software engineer, but lack the qualifications for systems administration.
Other divisions: If you work closely with the other information services organizations at other divisions or business units, contacting administrators there can be a great resource for finding a candidate. Other organizations may have recently interviewed someone who was not a good fit for their environment but would be for yours. They may also be interested or know someone in their department who is interested. Be aware that in many companies, employee stealing is frowned upon. You can make employees aware of the available positions, and if they are interested, without you asking, they can pursue the position themselves without compromising your relationship with the other organization within the company.
Recruiters: Contacting the right recruiter to find a UNIX administrator is the key. There are not many who handle qualified UNIX administrators. Although they all claim they do. Many recruiters don't know what a UNIX system administrator does. They usually send over people who are qualified to be operators and don't have an understanding of the roles and duties that the position entails. Some companies require that you use technical recruiters the company is already contracted with. Because the majority of environments are dominated by PC and Macintosh users, these recruiters specialize more in these positions than in the UNIX industry.
Internet Web sites: many of these Web sites will charge an excessive amount for advertising an available position. There are a select few that will allow you to do this for free. When you post one of these positions, you will be making it available to those all over the world, not to selected areas of the country. If relocation of a candidate is not an issue, you might have success with a posting on a Web site. The UNIX Guru Universe offers free job postings for companies that are targeting specific types of UNIX administrators at http://www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/show?jobs.listings.
Usenet newsgroups: Although these postings are free, UNIX administrators don't tend to weed through all the extraneous job postings. Many of the postings in the newsgroups are not related to UNIX administrations, but to some other aspect of computers that may involve UNIX such as, system programming, development, or testing. You will reach many people from all states and countries around the world. You may or may not be looking for this kind of response.
Technical job fairs: You may have some luck finding a candidate at a job fair, but the odds are you will get a hodgepodge of candidates applying for a position. Only one out every 100 résumés you collect may result in a possible candidate to interview. You have to weigh all the positions that you have available to see if it is worth it to you and your company.
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UNIX Hints & Hacks |
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Chapter 10: System Administration: The Occupation |
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