So what is the easiest way to get enterprise experience?

[stilly]

So I was going through the hiring process at ESRI and I made it to stage 3 of 4 and then they said sorry, there was no position available for me. I sent an e-mail asking what I did wrong and she actually called me back and talked with me over the phone for a few minutes. (how cool are they still?) She told me that I was a great guy and she enjoyed talking with me but the one thing that I was lacking was enterprise experience and ESRI prefers to hire engineers, GIS certs or GIS guys and folks with enterprise backgrounds (to cut back on training perhaps?) and the other candidates had that where I did not. And of course, I could have furnished a full page of references that would have given me glowing reccos but it did not matter because it was all SOHO experience...

So, I have only seen an internship offered at the City of Rancho Cucamonga (which I just interviewed for) and I THINK it went well but damn, it seems that this is the only thing that I am missing to get a job now unless I go with a small time business and work private sector until who knows when being a little tech maybe or something else I dunno.

But like, why don't they offer internships at other places or do they and I am just not looking in the right spot, OR, is there a different but documented way to get that experience? I think I have like $600 left for unemployment and then I am done so I really want to get this ball rolling now ASAP.

BTW, I will be heading over to Indeed again, that was a great place. They had a lot of things there, I think that I could have possibly found something had I known about that place last year...

[Mute]

Perhaps look for support level jobs or internship (rather than skill specific positions) at engineering firms that uses GIS on an enterprise level. I've been out of the IT game for some time now but I can't imagine it's that much different now. What are your resources for looking for opportunities? Have you considered a headhunter?

[stilly]

Perhaps look for support level jobs or internship (rather than skill specific positions) at engineering firms that uses GIS on an enterprise level. I've been out of the IT game for some time now but I can't imagine it's that much different now. What are your resources for looking for opportunities? Have you considered a headhunter?

I have been laid off since last April and looking all over the place. Any local staffing people have not really been helpful.

I do not need GIS experience, I just want the enterprise so that I can look a little better on paper.

I started with Edjoin and city websites then added indeed and had a few looks at dice. I also went to some of the local hospital pages and stuff also when I got wind folks were looking. There are so many places to look and I do not really know them so I have only been looking at a few.

[ocabj]

My campus has quite a few new recent IT jobs posted:

https://irecruitportal.ucr.edu/irecruit/!Controller?action=jobs_template&page=jobs_browser&public=true&profile_id=

Looks like an IT Security Analyst position was just posted. There's an untitled "Programmer Analyst 2" position that looks like a help desk position, too.

Under the general direction of Assistant Dean, Graduate Division and the Executive Director of Academic Senate, the purpose of this position is to design, develop, test, troubleshoot, maintain, and document software applications for the web, develop, support and maintain various electronic communications tools including web pages and electronic customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and provide mid- to high-level Mac & Windows desktop computer support to Graduate Division and Academic Senate staff.

[spamsucker]

Enterprise means to most of us that work in them, large and or complex installations. If you want experience in that then the only way is to get a gig with a large company and pay your dues for a while. You'll probably start at half the salary that you were thinking might be your starting range but that's how you start.

If you want to try a realistic path, find a low level sysadmin gig and work your way up. There is no free lunch in tech. Check out the porn industry. They're always having to deal with scaling issues which is what the people griping about enterprise experience are wanting.

[ocabj]

Check out the porn industry. They're always having to deal with scaling issues which is what the people griping about enterprise experience are wanting.

Guy I knew in college worked for one of the Adult ID check companies. He had a pretty sweet gig. Had to fly out to Amsterdam every month to work in the datacenters they had there. He was a pothead, so it worked out for him.

[NYT]

call temp recruiters. i hire temps all the time for quick jobs here and there, rollouts, etc.

build up your exp that way and have it clearly documented on your resume.

[stilly]

Thanks for the leads guys. I will head back to UCR and look for some more temp tech recruiters.

[stonith3901]

I am currently in the technology industry. I came in with a music degree and no certificates. Although I did have the big words in my resume and experience through smaller companies, it really came to the technical questions. How I was able to learn, apply, and converse about things on a technical level.

My advice is to bring up a virtual machine, run something like VMware ESXi, KVM, Xen server or whatever virtualization technology and learn the enterprise operating system you want to excel at. Run it on a cloud based server, Amazon, Linode and the likes and dabble. Dabble and break the server, fix it, learn from your mistakes and apply your knowledge. Cant fix it, no harm done, reinstall and learn from it. The beauty of virtualization, redundancy, clustering and expensive toys. The enterprise world.

There are also simulators so you dont have to have the money to dabble with real physical network gear or load balancers.

I remember interviewing a person that had everything under the sun (as in microsystems), oc48, bgp, mpls, hp aix, netapp, emc, brocade, mcdata, f5, netscaler you name it, couldnt answer any of my technical questions and had to inform him that the position was for a systems engineer. Not a project manager that lead projects with those fancy names.

I also did not progress with another candidate that worked for NASA and has worked with **** that involved in hubble telescope. He was an excellent storage engineer, unfortunately thats all he knew and literally lived in that fenced world. We needed someone with a more overall knowledge and not specialized in one particular area. It can be a double edged sword.

Aside from the technical aspects, one needs to have the drive and passion to be in this industry. If you want to clock in and clock out, not participate with oncall (like doctors) to fix an issue at 3-4pm in Europe then the bigger enterprise world isnt for you. Stay in the smaller companies or helpdesk we dont want people that puts in their time and clock out, it hurts the team.

Good luck.

[stilly]

I am currently in the technology industry. I came in with a music degree and no certificates. Although I did have the big words in my resume and experience through smaller companies, it really came to the technical questions. How I was able to learn, apply, and converse about things on a technical level.

My advice is to bring up a virtual machine, run something like VMware ESXi, KVM, Xen server or whatever virtualization technology and learn the enterprise operating system you want to excel at. Run it on a cloud based server, Amazon, Linode and the likes and dabble. Dabble and break the server, fix it, learn from your mistakes and apply your knowledge. Cant fix it, no harm done, reinstall and learn from it. The beauty of virtualization, redundancy, clustering and expensive toys. The enterprise world.

There are also simulators so you dont have to have the money to dabble with real physical network gear or load balancers.

I remember interviewing a person that had everything under the sun (as in microsystems), oc48, bgp, mpls, hp aix, netapp, emc, brocade, mcdata, f5, netscaler you name it, couldnt answer any of my technical questions and had to inform him that the position was for a systems engineer. Not a project manager that lead projects with those fancy names.

I also did not progress with another candidate that worked for NASA and has worked with **** that involved in hubble telescope. He was an excellent storage engineer, unfortunately thats all he knew and literally lived in that fenced world. We needed someone with a more overall knowledge and not specialized in one particular area. It can be a double edged sword.

Aside from the technical aspects, one needs to have the drive and passion to be in this industry. If you want to clock in and clock out, not participate with oncall (like doctors) to fix an issue at 3-4pm in Europe then the bigger enterprise world isnt for you. Stay in the smaller companies or helpdesk we dont want people that puts in their time and clock out, it hurts the team.

Good luck.

Good stuff to know. But how do I get started in vmware and the virtual machines? I saw references to people wanting to run an ESXi box on another thread I was reading about but I did not know what one of those was. That sounds like a couple of books might be needed.

Also, I know you did not, but just in case ANYONE has that opinion of me: Please do not EVER call me that. When it comes to computers they are my life. I am no poser that just wants to wear the team colors and look cool. Sadly though I have not had my eyes opened to the world that is really there and I only know what others have shown me (with extra exploration needed on my part) with the exception of this Linux stuff that is getting to be more and more fun each day. I have never been a guy to take a job and just show up to collect a paycheck. I like to think that I am making a difference with even the little things that I do.

Matter of fact, today another lawfirm (on the opposite side of the building) gave me their contact info and they want me to give them an estimate on "fixing" their completely wireless network to be wired. All I thought was, My gawd this is a HUGE job (not a high paying job, just a huge job) that may take a couple of days or more to straighten out. But I think that based on what ESRI told me and after talking, I think I can do that as well. I will be calling them back in a day to set up another more detailed appointment to get all of the work straightened out. But damn, I might need another thousand feet of cable and some more rj-45 ends... I also need to look up ways to make a solid bullet proof wireless connection that passes through a hallway to connect one office to the other two. I am not wanting to drill holes in the building and run cables up the walls and over the lighting tiles. I even thought about getting that thin cat-6 cable that is meant to go under carpet. Maybe fish that puppy through and cut a piece of the carpet out...

Anyways. In reality I might just go with a strong WAP on the walls of each office maybe. :\

Damn, now that I think of it, if I gain any more clients there that want networks installed, Maybe I will just rent an office there and build up a huge network over the entire building and then just run each office out on subnets... Oh this could be very enterprising... pun intended. (yes, I suspect that I might be bi-polar with delusions of grandeur at times...)

[Cowboy T]

True, there's no shortcut in tech. I'm currently a systems engineer for large networks. Here's how I did it.

I built several computers with (at the time) Windows NT 3.50 and 3.51 (yes, this is going back) and made a domain. There was a PDC as the print server and a BDC as the file server. My workstation was running Windows NT Server 3.51 in "member server" mode, so I got all the server admin tools. Hooked it up in a network and used that entire network as my "daily computer". That meant I had to regular administrative tasks on that network. That got me my first job at the local State University, building basically what I had built at home, just with more workstations (this setup was remarkably scalable for university LAN's at the time, which is why I built it at home).

Time goes on. The university got me my "Big Enterprise Experience", and I was off to the races. Eventually, after resisting it as "paper tiger" nonsense, I got the MCSE to get past HR droids who sort by keyword instead of actual experience. The MCSE, combined with my university experience, got me an INFOSEC job for the DoD. From there, things just kinda snowballed to where I am now.

The first step is all-important. Build an enterprise-style network at home and work with it. Nowadays, that would mean--for me--at a minimum the following things:

1.) Two servers of some sort. I mean physical servers, i. e. bare metal. On top of these, you can be running server OS's or VMware or Linux KVM or whatever.
2.) A managed switch, like a Cisco Catalyst, or NorTel 450T, HP ProCurve, or similar, that supports 802.1Q VLAN's.
3.) A Cisco or Juniper router as your home broadband router.
4.) A business broadband account with at least two static IP addresses. The first is for your router, and the second is for your VPN Concentrator (this can be another Cisco or Juniper router, or OpenBSD VPN gateway, or similar).
5.) Your workstation.

That should be enough to get you started. It sure did serve me well.

NOTE: my cameralady, "Miss B.H.C." is watching me type this. I had not realized the pun I just made ("serve me well"). Yuk yuk

[stilly]

0o0o0o that is nice. That is what I was wanting to make too.

I have enough hardware to make some sort of servers. I am sure that with the 5+ computers that I have I can make something work. + Linux Untangle and other OSes I can grab.

I actually have a Cisco Catalyst managed switch but I am not sure what it supports.

Cisco or Juniper router? How much does a business broadband account cost? Is that the T-3 for $1500 a month?

Workstations are easy. I got laptops and other computers for that.

Why is it important to have a Cisco or Juniper router versus an all in one router/modem that I found on Amazon? This seems scaleable like you said and seems like a decent starting point. Why the need for two servers though? I was just going to make an untangle box and let it loose, but hmmm...

[Germz]

get positions as a government contractor. I dont work at a regional service center and provide remote administrative management of AD and some network infrastructure via TACACS, and a good lot of the contractors do as well.

[LittleOldLady]

Color yourself brown and move to a Middle Eastern country. I can't get rehired for the life of me!

I started with Commodore/3.11/NT etc etc.

Had a PDC/BDC NT with a Novell controller plus all the extra's. Added Linux and Mac etc etc. Got hired did some stuff made some $$ then the crash happened. If I find a job I am either too old or want too much or a combination of the both. Or maybe I have the wrong plumbing who knows.

Good luck matey!

[d4v0s]

For the law office portion look into the unifi wireless bridges.

1gbps and indoor/outdoor capable.

The experience part, just gotta do your time. I started as a comp tech and fixed problems and proved myself one project at a time. There is no free lunch you will continue to be challenged and always need to apply common sense upgrades and repairs where you work.

Btw took me 5 years to move up. Sucked but I got my bachelors in there and made a name for myself.