UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi Guys,

my situation is that i'm a 25 year old IT proffessional but due to current reccession market im being forced to work in a different field as comms support guy. my first job was with a software consultancy company working as a application support role but due to being made redundant i lost the job. i have been trying since then to get back into similar fields hence why im now taking it upon myself to learn some key skills such as java, unix and sql (which i done at university basics but have forgotten most of it). im willing to put in the hardwork and cannot afford all these expensive courses out there (support own family etc). im going to be 26 in oct, is it too late for me to go into unix and look for unix related jobs later?

thanks

i according to me it is not to late for anything..only issue to like your job and enjoy it

I'm 40+ years older than you. There is almost nothing out there now that I work with that was around when I was 26. Maybe electricity. Unix did not come around until 1978.


I think you have a lot of bad assumptions.

1. Employers want people who know diverse technologies and are willing to learn new ones.

2. The modern workplace demands flexibility, except in monstrous corporations where employees are siloed into niches, and knowledge transfer is viewed as decreasing your job security.

3. There is no age cutoff for learning, it goes on until you are permanently horizontal.

4. Do not confuse being a tool user with:
understanding IT procedures,
how software really works,
knowing network protocols

Data analysts are tool users, usually Excel or SAS. Support staff, programmers, etc., have to know what goes on under the hood as well as how to work a spreadsheet.

I echo Jim.

My IT started 49 years ago and it has been a learning experience every day, sometimes more than one lesson a day. The unix lessons started 20 years ago and I'm almost ready to start the next chapter for me, Linux.

No matter what you leave behind, the experiences you have gained stay with you, you'll use the techniques again, somewhere.

OMG! Thank you for making a 48-year-old geezer feel young again! ;-))

Seriously, i can only repeat what Jim and Ed already said: knowing IT is not "knowing where to click to do something", but understanding (down to the lowest level) what is going on when you click somewhere. The problem with Windows is that this distinction is constantly obfuscated and Windows "Admins" tend to confuse the two. "Knowing the dialogue where one enters an IP address and a subnet mask" is not "knowledge about networking", etc., etc..

For the learning part: i have only ~30 years of experience in the IT business and so i am - compared to Jim - still a beginner in the art. Still, i work with none of the tools, systems, networks, ..., which were there when i started the job. Go figure.

Life means learning, IT means learning permanently and even more and faster so than in any other job. You'll love it.

bakunin

Take me right, please. Learning UNIX today is well beyond UNIX itself. When I started some 20+ years ago, knowing UNIX was sufficient, today it is not. Today, to have real chance of employment in this bad economy, you also need good networking skills, and perl, +sql, and bash, and ksh, and be familiar with some storage management, and... this freaking list can span 3 pages.
Today finding a real UNIX/Linux admin job is very difficult. I am not trying to discourage you, but I don't want contributing to false optimism. The employers trying to put as much responsibilities on you as they can.
Also, the salaries in today, post 2008 IT are WAY lower than before and the workload is much more severe. I was going to interviews from time to time just to keep myself "in shape", and in 2008, after 3-4 interviews, I would have no problem to get 110-130K job, in nice settings, within 5-10 min from my place. Today I still monitoring the job lists out of curiosity, and I see no real new openings for about a year. Let say 3-4 years ago, you could nail a job with designated Linux or Solaris support, with plenty of licensed software on it and decent hardware support agreement. It is very rare these days. I see all the same old postings, most of them by agencies, most of them are fake. Also the same jobs that paid 110-130k, do not pay even 75k today. And when we are talking about 75k, there is ZILLION of people to compete with.

Think about it. I am not saying that you don't have a chance, but try to get real: it will require long excruciating training. For initial training, you may consider reading www.unix.com.

Moderator's Comments:

No need to post to unix training off this site in this discussion. There is a 100 times "more than enough" for anyone to learn here.

You see, in good economy there were jobs for 45k juniors and for 150k seniors, and everybody had his/her niche and ladder of opportunities. Today, with salaries caping on 90k for new openings, the whole thing is very compressed and competitive. Most of my friends (with three miles long resumes and battalion of references), those who didn't loose their jobs, are stock in 60-70k salaries and happy to have them today. The same people wouldn't even consider those jobs two years ago. Friend of mine lost a job about 1 month ago as his position was terminated. For about a month he didn't find anything (and we are talking about really bright guy with great resume). Luckily he applied to the same company, different devision and they rehired him.

its nice to get different views and opinions from everywhere, just wondering now if it really is worth the time and effort and in the end it doesnt get me anywhere, im married and dont want to waste valuable time in something in which there will be no fruition, dont get me wrong, im very commited and motivated to do it if it will be worthwile in the end, but the way the IT industry is at the moment and the current market it doesnt look good, and as the last guy put it, theres a zillion people better than me at this thing so what chance in reality do i have, i apprecciate all your comments.