in what are you interested? develop software... user/system administration... network admin... storage/san/nas... virtualisation... there is so much to do this days!

A more fulfilling and rewarding career will be probably be in networks or application development.

just my opnion

I was thinking of going into the area of user/system administration as I have found that to be the most interesting area while I have been learning about it.
Thanks

o yes... the problems have being straight out of school. i know because i am/was still there. i've found the hardest thing is not what you know but getting into that first interview. usually employers are looking for 4-6 years experience in unix sys admin admin type work. so how do you get there? i still have yet to figure that out. but what i can tell you is you have to be patient. most likely, you won't get that sys admin job right from the start (unless you know someone). i have been a sys admin for 2 years (3rd year out of college). my first year as a linux admin was nothign more then a glorified operator. my next year as a solaris admin was because i found the right company at the right time. they needed someone and they couldn't find a unix admin. i just happened to know a good deal about unix from my studies, reading and as everyone else has said... doing. unfortunately, the project got cut and i was well.. back in the market again. currently i am a hardware engineer. its not pure SA work but it teaches me a great deal about architecture and i get to expand on my OBP (forth) commands as well as other unix commands. i've had nightmares about HBAs from this job!

point being, you got to be patient about getting to those SA jobs. Or you have to really be smart in your unix knowledge. read as much as possible and always have servers at home to work on. keep up with technology and read the forums. its hard to find a good job right now. so again, be patient. my recommendations for you:

1. read and execute. know your commands and different ways to get the info you need.
2. learn apache, php and mysql.
3. look at the big companies that have the money and resources to allow individuals to learn and grow with the company. small shops need the experience now and don't have time for you to catch up.
4. submit your resume to everything. you need to get exposed to all types of employers and their silly questions. unix interviewers like flex their unix knowledge. don't be scared. just be honest and always always seem eager to learn. tell them how you can find info you dont know. if a guy is a real jerk to you in the interview, just think about how big of a jerk he will be when you work there.
5. look up unix interview questions. i've had people read off a list of questions straight from the internet in front of me.
6. be patient. it will happen.
7. become friendly with your professors. they have some industry ties. look for the ones that used to be in the industry. my assembler prof. got me my internship at IBM.
8. find a head hunter. they can really help out. however, keep the head hunter within the technology market. their are a million tech hiring firms out there. i'm sure you can grab someone to help you out.
9. read read read!

hope this helps somewhat. it really is a crazy time trying to find a job out of school. its not fun and can be really crappy at times. just stay positive. you'll make it happen.

A couple other remarks, just to maybe help you look in other directions, too.

If you're comfortable with scripting languages and databases, there's a whole web business world full of incompetent people to impress. I don't think it would be very gratifying in the long run, but this is one of the areas where you don't necessarily need to be strong on C / systems programming, which is often otherwise a baseline requirement for Unix-y jobs. Personally I would not touch PHP, but of course, that's where a lot of the buzz is right now. Ruby on Rails might be more interesting, but I'm not too familiar with that.

And of course, there's a lot of "real" development shops doing real products on Linux or Unix. The ones I've been looking at tend to work on Internet appliances and stuff like that, where probably systems programming is an important skill, too; but in actual practice, from what I've heard, some of these shops mainly use Python in practice. (I guess Google, too?)

era points out another thing.

there are so many different types of programming languages its hard to just pick one. one shop will use php, another python. yet another will be all c and another will use all java. what one do you learn, god only knows. i think if you can program in c, you're probably a good candidate for a junior systems programmer position. i don't program so i never looked in that direction. i just do scripts. bash, ksh, csh... you all know the drill

I was required to interview some candidates in my former company (I was in the management post then but I have moved back to technical now). The most important criteria we looked for were:

1. Attitude of the candidate - we looked out for rudeness, selfishness, unable to work as part of a team, etc

2. Flexibility of the candidate - we preferred someone who was flexible in picking up new skills, able to communicate effectively and flexible in duration of working hours. Once we turned down a top student after we told her sometimes we needed to work till 8pm and her response was "So late?". In reality, sometimes we worked till past midnight

3. Ability in communication - must be able to listen and communicate effectively.

Technical skill was actually at the lower priority but it's one of the important criteria.

Honestly, I am not good in any specific programming language but as long as you're willing to learn, it's no big deal. I have to admit that I was a job hopper and I am not a specialist. I was in both UNIX and windows environment...moving from one language to another. Here are the list of languages/database/operating systems I have to pick up for over 10 years in my career:

Dos/ Windows/UNIX/Linux
SQL Windows/Centura
Sybase - stored procedures and triggers
Powerbuilder
Oracle - stored procedures
C
C++
Natural
Java
C Shell
now...Bourne shell

I even moved from technical to management and back to technical.

I also admit that sometimes I lost hope in my career, fed up and looked for opportunity to get out of IT industry. I don't love this industry...it's just my bread and butter. It's definitely better if you love it.