Marketing Yourself as an IT Jack-of-All-Trades? 169
ultimatemonty asks: "As an IT professional looking for a new job, I'm trying to figure out how to market myself as a 'jack-of-all-trades' IT worker. I'm currently employed at a medium sized university as a video conferencing specialist. I'm good (competent) at many IT related tasks (Linux server management, programming, Windows/Linux desktop support, video conferencing support, etc...), but specialize or excel in none of them, sort of like the lone IT manager in a small shop. What kinds of jobs would the you look for with this kind of work experience, and how would you market yourself (design your resume, cover letter, and so forth) to prospective employers so they get the full-breadth of your capabilities, without over-stating your abilities?"
Don't do that (Score:5, Informative)
Tailor your resume to fit each specific job you apply for. If the job is Windows heavy, emphasize your Windows work on your resume. If the job is Linux heavy, emphasize your Linux work. Also, don't just list what you know, list what you've done. Tell them about your big project that saved the company $10 million. That sort of thing holds a lot more weight than telling them you once logged in to a VMS machine.
Basically, employers don't need to know and don't care about the full breadth of your capabilities: they care about what you can do for them. Do not just shotgun a laundry list resume to a thousand different companies, make sure each resume you send out specifically addresses how you can fill the need the company has, as evidenced by their job posting.
Re:Don't do that (Score:3, Informative)
That's not how you land a job. (Score:3, Informative)
That said, if you want to do a mish mosh of just about anything you want to look at a smaller company that has a small IT team or maybe a start-up but start-ups eventually grow (or die) and you might find your self having to pick a role. Your other option here could also be contract work, it's a great way to do varying things provided you're only landed quick contracts.
In the end I'd advise you pick a specialty and see it through. Generalism is fine but if you want to be the best you specialize. Pick the one thing you're best at or love the most and pursue it with everything you got. You're general knowledge will never be wasted, everything ties together in one way or another. I was a bit of a generalist too and when I really focused on my speciality my general knowledge really paid off since I could always talk about my work in the larger context of what was going on.
Solution-Independent IT Professional? (Score:3, Informative)
Another thing you can do that no one else can is a nuts-to-bolts solution from the bottom up from a problem -- you can manage a solution from the get-go rather than being "the oracle guy". Large consulting companies like IBM do solutions that are sometimes agnostic w.r.t. implementation.
Lastly, you're an independent worker -- you can find solutions where none exist! This is terrific for many positions.
Some ideas of places where you'd be good: I work for a large software company who does road shows regularly. There's an IT guy who goes to set up our servers/clients/etc who needs to know how all of it works -- he can't call the database guy to help him. Freelance IT Professional -- there's quite a few places (car dealerships, small businesses, etc) which need IT infrastructure but can't pay for a full-time IT guy. Just ask around, you'll be surprised at how many places need help (and how well it pays) and you're one of the few people who could do it (warning: requires people-skills). Last idea: larger consulting company like IBM. IBM builds call centers and stuff all over the place and needs people who can implement solutions as well as think them up to work in existing IT environments.
You sound like a very qualified employee who I'd rather hire than the "oracle guy", since I bet you can learn oracle whereas other IT guys get stuck in specialization ruts.
Re:Don't do that (Score:3, Informative)
For Instance:
I work for a small(ish) company (~200 employees, about 50 users, and about 100 networked devices). Unfortunately for me, about 20 of these networked devices are wireless, and only support 32 bit WEP. This is a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR problem for me. Our wireless network is expected to cover a VERY large outdoor area (a huge car lot, and a ~10,000 square foot vehicle re-conditioning building). To accomplish this task, i built us a couple of soekris boxen with ubiquiti XR2 radios in them, and some big honkin' gain antennas. This causes quite a bit of "bleed". Or signal goes a LONG way if you point the right antennas at it. I have explained this to my boss time and time again, that we need to upgrade to devices that either support WPA, or preferably openVPN. I just get a blank look and a "no". Since we're not going to invest the probably 20 grand that it would take to get the devices that I need (a bunch of intermec CK-31s), i have set myself up a rudimentary network monitoring station. I run etherape to keep an eye on what is going where, and kismet/airodump-ng to keep an eye on what macs are out there probing, and who is connecting to what. This setup works okay i suppose, but it is done using my own PERSONAL equipment.
I could keep ranting, but the point is that something working for the big honkin' company can be a really good thing.
There are two types of employers (Score:3, Informative)
I'm in the same spot you are. I'm a coder, a sysadmin, I do server support, desktop support, network support, firewalls, routers, topology planning, you name it. Geek through and through.
My experience teaches me I'll NEVER be happy in a place that hires Hammer Engineers. Why? for one thing, because I'd be undervalued from day one ("How many years of experience do you have managing Veritas Netbackup?"
Now, if by any odd fate you'd end up working there, you'd be sitting among people who made a career of running Netbackup, or Solstice Disksuite, or BMC, or notepad, or whatever. People the majority of whom cannot manage their own windows box. People who don't meddle and tweak and experiment what they're given to, seeing themselves as specialists in their field and knowing nothing but ("You're a SOLARIS administrator! WHY are you wasting your time on practicing your coding skills?!")
This is, of course, an extreme case, but it's a real-life one I've worked on and hated every second.
Contributing factors are size of company, non-technical management (the level of management directly responsible for hiring the tech people, not senior management) that have limited capability of gouging how well a candidate fits a role other than by narrowing down the scope of the role to something their non-technical minds can grasp and putting a numeric estimate (# of years experience) on that. Companies with high employee turnover rates that use these narrow-scope-job-roles to easily replace people, etc.
I'm not an Open Source fanboy. I'm pragmatic both ends of the divide, and am just as good using paid solutions as unpaid ones. I'm for *thinking*, then doing what's best. These hammer-engineer-hiring companies typically stay away from the thinking bit, some having policies dictated by FUD-overfed clueless management. When I mentioned simple solutions like using some Open Source tools, I ran into a fucking concrete wall, just making me more frustrated.
I've since moved to a company that hires carpenters. ONLY carpenters. When I hit here, there were 3 of us taking care of a 300-odd-employee organization, ~100-200 servers, 3 int'l subsidiaries, and everything from PABX to desktops to servers. Needless to say, all three of us were complete JOAT's that had the required skills to put into production anything the organization required, given access to google, the net, and a reasonable amount of time to learn and implement the topic.
We've since become 8 people, and being a Jack-of-All-Trades is the only way one would ever get to work here. The sysadmins code, the coders can do their [linux!] desktop box without desktop support changing their diapers.
This kind of employer is YOUR home court. Whereas you would almost always be undervalued, underpromoted and underpaid at the former kind, here you are valued significantly higher than a specialized candidate. Needless to say, the proximity of likeminded individuals will very simply and in the most literal sense, make your work really really fun.
If I had a gazillion dollars, I'd quit my former job, yet I would keep working at this one because I enjoy it.
To narrow down the places you want to be looking for, look for the following:
1. Places that are not afraid to use open-source. More often then not (obviously not always) this requires people who "know their shit" to properly piece together and manage.
When I was looking for a job, I found the following search criteria to plug into job-ad searches to
Re:That's what I've been billed as... (Score:3, Informative)
ummmm No.
Average time a person spends on a resume, 12 seconds.
It better be short, it better list what they are looking for at the top, and your first sentence needs to make them want to read more.
Re:Don't do that (Score:1, Informative)
Not that hard, and won't cost much.
Re:Don't do that (Score:1, Informative)
No new hardware, way more capable than the CK-31s, very secure, and easy to manage.
Re:Don't do that (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm I can only think of two right now... I thought there was one or two other cons. The biggest one is the second one. It's VERY hard to get a good opinion about a tech direction from non-technical people, or people who don't know your business.
Apparently, the pros far outweigh the cons. ;)
Rick