[SLL] Greetings Open Sauce People

[Bryan McLellan]

On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Rob Blomquist <rob.blomquist at gmail.com> wrote:
> I take it that you are saying that the Linux+ test gets no respect on the
> street? I was wondering about it, as I think I could easily pass with a self
> study book. Maybe that is why, because anybody could?

Right. The multiple choice questions on any CompTIA test lend easily
to the memorize->pass method. I've never liked CompTIA, but somehow
hiring managers somewhere had a secret meeting and voted to recognize
it and leave to get cocktails. However, I don't think I've ever heard
Linux+ spoken of in a work place, ever. Really, Linux cert's don't get
much cred. RHCT/RHCE gets most the press, but I've only looked at it
in passing because I am racist against RPM packages. I did take LPIC-1
and LPIC-2 in search of something vendor neutral-ish, and because
Canonical made the whole Ubuntu Cert by way of LPI. They were super
annoying by way of expecting you to have options for many different
tools memorized (what fsck flag does blah).

> So is the way to go to get into the M$ world of certs and handle M$ support,
> then move toward more varied jobs and building my resume and experience?

That's what has worked for me. Really, get any hands on experience you
can and don't stop. Usually finding a smaller company that needs
someone to perform magic is best because you have the most leeway to
try different things and enough breadth of responsibility to learn a
lot. I much fear the pigeonholing of large companies.

I agree with Derek that you should spend as much time doing something
as possible. That is, getting involved. Although I think the people
I've worked on projects with speak higher about my skills than mailing
lists and whatnot. Nobody has ever told me that my decade of
blabbering on the tubes got me the job, but I have heard that so and
so put in a good word about me.

Bryan