AIX

Hi all,
I'm a Solaris/linux sysadmin with a good general UNIX skills and with a little tiny background on AIX with no exposure to IBM's hardware ( just reading ) , but i think i can cope with it .
UNIX jobs nowadays are rare here ( i mean hp-ux , solaris , aix ) not linux specially after the recession , linux is much popular in web hosting industry.
So barely you get chance to get a good job .
An employer called me for interview ,
they need the following skills
as i said before my AIX skills is not strong .
shall i accept the interview ?
if i pass the interview and i'm hired shall i accept the position?
what is the popular AIX interview questions ?
can i map solaris/linux experience easily to AIX ?
any quick resources to get on track within few days ?
regards,,,

We could open up a poll here for you.. seriously: That is something you have to decide for your own.

Another poll? If you do not like to pretend things and get remorse, that can be bad. On the other hand don't show up with that "I am unworthy!" look in your eyes.

Too many posibilities in my eyes to write them down here.

No - but you have a good base to build on. You should not pretend stuff about AIX knowledge just to get the job. Maybe tell them you are open for new stuff and like to learn. Else you might also get trouble with new coworkers if they notice you know about nothing on AIX.

Hm hardly. Best would be to have access to AIX and try out stuff and get used to the "other" commands, etc.

Far too much documentation to read it all up. It does not make up for experience.

first of all thanks for your reply
perhaps i misrepresented the use of words to tell what i want to tell , what i meant if someone were in a situation like this . I'm not going to cheat him or pretend to be an expert in AIX , i already told him i have no experience with AIX but he replied on the phone "all unices has common ground" . i never wrote a word regarding IBM or even AIX in my cv he has eyes . its not strange to see someone who has knowledge with all major UNIX flavors . one more thing i can't afford to buy an AIX machine even from ebay for 50$ or less for practicing or take a course , you still only have the option just to read or to watch a CBT

Hi,
they are searching an AIX Clusteradmin with Linux skills for a high availability environment on stone old hardware (and probably equally stone old software, too). Probably they don't pay enough - not even for your country - to get a real AIX admin. The very old hardware means you'll have a lot of performance and configuration problems, a lot of hardware problems and you have basically no dignostic skills.
Of course all Unix has common ground - one or more cpus, some memory, a command line - but that is all true for Windows too.
AIX is a very special Unix - I am always joking that due to the ODM and smitty, it is probably closer to windows than to i.e. Solaris - without knowing anything about it at all, you're bound to fail badly.
Your hiring person apparently knows about as much about AIX and the position itself than you do or he would not offer you the job. You do not even know if there will be experienced AIX SAs out there that you can ask for help.
In my company I am an AIX-only SA. We have lots of Solaris and Linux too - but I don't touch them at all. Why? Because I don't know anything about their operating systems. Since I know that - and I know that our environment is business critical - I just stay away from them - and the Solaris and Linux guys stay away from my AIX systems.
There is a saying 'measure twice, cut once' - if you don't know how to measure, you will never make the cut.
At the end of the day it is obviously your decision only but getting hired for a job you know absolutely nothing about is a tough call.
Still you have likely some probation time and you seem to desperately need the money - and you don't have anything better to do - so why not accepting, working a few weeks in the environment and see how you get on and if you can get used to it?
Hope that helps
zxmaus

With this additional info I have to agree with what zxmaus said that I don't know either why to not take it up if there is maybe no better opportunity. If they already know you are new to AIX so why not take it.
Also you can have a look at it like a career stepping stone. Having some time of AIX administration (maybe you also get some courses payed) should look good for the next interview. You can only learn from it I think and still have a good heart at it since you did not had to pretend anything you don't know.

Going to an Interview never hurts, and it is great practice with your interview skills. I got passed up a promotion at a previous job because of seniority. Which, in all honesty, it did not bother me all that much because I still got to do the back end Unix stuff of Mac OS X. However, the guy above me relied on me to get tricky stuff done. He was a cool guy though and me and him were friends, so no hard feelings about him getting the job even though I felt I was a bit more qualified. He had been there about 1.5 years longer than me. So I decided to start scouting out a new job thinking it was time to move on since no promotion was in my near future.

I had a small Linux background and this is when Apple made the first switch to Intel (about 4 to 5 years ago) and Apple started to get an increase in market share. So, soon enough I saw all sorts of Apple sys admin jobs when businesses would deploy a few macs here and a few macs there, because god forbid a Windows Sysadmin learn anything outside of Windows....I picked up on OS X rather quickly since I had a Linux background.

So, my first interview was with a very prestigious medical research firm, and they were about to roll out a bunch of Macs. The would be boss interviewed me and wanted a strong background in AD (active directory) so the Macs could play nice over LDAP. I said, OK, that is not hard for the Mac to authenticate to LDAP on an AD server. I didn't get that job but I got some skills interviewing.

In the end it was for the best. I got a new job running all the servers, managing and deploying packages, managing over 8,000 Mac clients, and so forth; and I even negotiated a higher position and higher salary than was posted for the job. All because my interview went so well and my background and credentials were sound.

So, I would say you should go to the interview regardless. Be honest and tell them you have a learning curve with AIX. Worst case scenario, you gain experience at the job interview process. That is worth it, in my humble opinion.

It depends on whether you are looking for a job or a career. If it is the former, tell them that you have some deficiencies, but are still willing to take the interview if they accept that fact. If it is the latter, you will have to explain to them that the role description matches your long term career goal, despite the technical challenges that you may be facing, but that your focus is fulfilling a passion and that therefore you are the right man for the position.