Career ChangeIn mid July this year I became one of those outsourced assets you hear about all the time. I was part of the Infrastructure team which provided systems, storage, network, data base and security administration for the organization. I was the OpenVMS and SAN (Storage Area Network ) admin. For those of you who may not know, OpenVMS is the operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation which became Compaq and is currently HP (Hewlett Packard) which runs on AlphaServers and the most current Integrity Servers. There aren' t a lot of OpenVMS jobs out there so I have been concentrating more on the SAN Admin job search. The trouble I seem to be having is that due to the structure of my department my storage admin experience is somewhat limited in regards to a lot of opportunities. The department structure was such that admin duties were very silo' d meaning we had Windows admins, Unix/Linux admin (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris etc), backup/recovery admin, Network admins, Data Base admin and me the OpenVMS and SAN admin. Most jobs are looking for a storage admin that is a heavy Unix/Linux admin including shell scripting etc or heavy Windows admin with in depth AD - Active Directory, DataBase or VMWare knowledge, as well as heavy backup recovery knowledge. My SAN experience (4 + years) covers everything SAN related from cardboard box to production. Including: racking/stacking new servers, installing HBA' s (host bus adapters) and fiber cabling from server HBA' s to SAN switch ports, Installing OS, patches, HBA software/drivers and firmware(Windows only) and assisting systems administrators with configurations in regards to storage provisioning. Zoning was accomplished using Brocade’s web GUI and provisioning was accomplished using EMC Navisphere Manager GUI and CLI. EMC Control Center was used as a monitoring tool for the Operations staff. I was responsible for creating, updating and maintaining all SAN documentation and procedures, interfacing with vendors and support contractors, identifying issues, support call initiation and remediation, working with other teams in project related work as well as day to day operational support, including after hours maintenance of SAN relating to upgrades, break/fix or new installations. I seem to be always coming up short regarding the OS admin skills. I' ve been in the business for 22 years with the first 8 working field service and new systems installations for Digital Equipment Corporation and 14 within a full service IT department for a large hospital. The other issue I am running into is that it seems that everyone (employer wise) seems to be in a holding pattern waiting for something. I' ve heard this frustration from from recruiters and search firms I' ve been working with as well. I' ve even begun contemplating getting out of the business entirely but just not sure what to do at this point. Any thoughts? The IT party is over with, unless you have a 98% skill set match with whatever happens to be the current Whiz Bangy software flavor of the month. It also helps if you are 20 years old. First, go to dice.com and plug in your alphabet skill sets and try and determine which states offer the most opportunity. You may have to move. It does you no good to be a COBOL programmer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Second, think about a new career, one where you can actually see your client and where downsizing and offshoring will be less of an issue in the future: Pharmaceutical Sales, Radiology Tech, Nurse, Teacher, Hair Stylist, Plumber, etc. Its hard to offshore an overflowing toilet. As far as new careers go, IT is on my AVOID list.
Try not to limit your vision to the acronyms that clutter your resume. You are an IT professional with a lot of technical skills, and the ability to learn new technical skills fast, on the job, while solving problems. Your "obsolete" experience and skills are actually a solid foundation for you to learn these new skills. If you know one language, it is easier to learn a second than it was to learn the first one. Try to makrket yourself based on your transferrable skills - general IT troubleshooting skills, teamwork, self management, self motivation, demonstrated ability to prioritize tasks, proven ability to be self taught to keep up to date technically, etc... Employers (with any sense) look for people who can change and keep up with the technology. The HR department may have a list of acronyms they will checkmark, but you won' t be working for them, will you? If you want to stay in IT because you enjoy it, are passionate about your work, then try to find a company to work for that matches your other values - what you CARE about. Every organization on the planet that wants to part of the third millenium has an IT infrastructure, and all the bigger ones have an IT department. Take the initiative and choose the organization you want to work for - be it a hospital, university, the air force, national parks or whatever it is you believe in. Get out the yellow pages, phone the companies you want to work for, talk to the person who makes the hiring decision, and arrange a face to face meeting. Most jobs are not advertised, and you can often create a new job just by being the right, enthusiastic, self starter candidate that does more than post your resume on monster and wait for the offers to roll in. | |
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Career Tips
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