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Re: [orca-list] Ot: does anyone have a certification from the Linux foundation?

I'll preface what I write by saying I have hired people before and will probably be in a position to do it 
again in future.  Now then, I totally get needing to finish High School.  It's the very basic proof of basic 
education.  I'm much more flexible about college because I've hired college graduates who could not perform 
at the same level as someone who did a few years of college but had experience in the job I was hiring for.  
Honestly, I can see the logic of hiring someone with an Associates of Applied Sciences more than a 
Bachelor's.   The job-specific training received under an associates is much more focused without all the 
superfluous stuff that has no bearing on what you are going to do.  I do give weight to certifications 
provided they are from certain institutions known for their rigorous testing.  As for the discipline 
argument, I've had people come through my class who finished high school, didn't finish college but were 
diligent, hardworking and dedicated.  In that same class, I had someone who did finish college and was one of 
the biggest slackers it has ever been my displeasure to have in my program.  He was certainly smart enough, 
no question, but his work ethic was deplorable.  Probably partied all through college and crammed for all his 
tests.  That, or he was one of those people who never needed to study for their tests and still managed to 
get good grades.  Someone like that gets a rude awakening when he is in the real world.  

This sort of thing has happened to me enough times for me to give much less credence to that degree as an 
all-around indicator of competence or a good disciplined employee than say, a pre-employment assessment 
measuring reading comprehension, critical thinking, problem solving and financial math skills.  This is 
especially true when that degree was in something totally unrelated to what the job is about.  I'm in 
customer-facing financial services.  Why would I hire someone with a bachelor's in Math, history or 
engineering  over someone who has done this kind of job before even if they didn't finish their degree?

Sorry about the rant.

Alex M



-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of John Heim
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2016 3:21 PM
To: orca
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Ot: does anyone have a certification from the Linux foundation?

Yes, many jobs at a high school, college, or university legally require you to have a degree. No matter how 
much they might have liked a candidate for my job, for example, they couldn't have hired him without a BS 
degree. Even in the private sector, not having a degree is a huge drawback at least in a place like Madison 
where even the guy that serves you coffee has a BS degree. If you were hiring, what would you think of 
someone who didn't finish high school? I am extremely sympathetic to that kind of thing. Believe me, I 
understand how life can run you down. 
But if I was running a company, I'd want people who had the discipline to at least finish high school. These 
days, that same kind of thinking applies to college.

Most ads say that the job requires a BS degree or equivalent experience. 
Of course, the problem would be getting the equivalent experience without the degree. I talked about how 
around here, jobs for linux systems admins go unfilled but those are not entry level positions. My department 
has jobs that require a BS degree and those that don't. The last time we had a job that required a degree, we 
got 5 applications. 
The last time we had a job that didn't require a degree, we got more than 30.


Personally, I don't know why anyone would not want to go to college. You don't have to go to Harvard. Just go 
to your state university. You will have tons of fun, learn a lot, and set yourself up for a great career.  
Well, major in something useful, like Comp Sci.


On 03/09/2016 12:04 PM, Alex Midence wrote:

Bummer.  So, you could have someone who is perfectly knowledgeable, perfectly competent but who won't get 
hired because he or she doesn't have a BS degree.  Wow.  Maybe the lpi Certification might make the 
difference for somebody like that then.

-----Original Message-----
From: orca-list [mailto:orca-list-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of John 
Heim
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2016 11:40 AM
To: orca
Subject: Re: [orca-list] Ot: does anyone have a certification from the Linux foundation?

Well, I don't know anything about certifications but  I work as the linux admin for the Math Department at 
the University Of Wisconsin.
Managing the mail, print, database, and web servers isn't even that big a part of my job. I do all that but 
I also manage the research cluster for the faculty. We have some machines with 32 to 40 cores that are tied 
into everybody's office computer so they can use their office machine as a node on the cluster. It's all 
linux. As you may know, almost all high performance computing is done on linux computers. Anyway, my point 
is that I almost never have accessibility problems.  For a career for a blind person, I think linux systems 
admin is about as level a playing surface as you are going to find.
I am not sure what the demand is for linux systems admins in other parts of the world but around here it's 
really high. Jobs go unfilled for years because of the lack of qualified candidates. This is a university 
town and that is what accounts for the demand. The university creates it's share of jobs but many are also 
created by businesses spun off of the university. All the jobs around here, even most of those in the 
private sector, require a BS degree or better.

On 03/08/2016 02:27 PM, austinAustin quesada wrote:

Hi. I figured i would ask this here, as i trust this community to 
give me some honest answers. So, recently, i have been looking in to 
being certifyed from the Linux foundation, for employment purposes. 
From what i gather, there is quite a demand for Linux systems admins, 
and the pay is quite good here in the US. I'm wondering though if 
this type of job would be practical using speakup and or orca to 
manage a stable server environment, assuming of course that i 
actually land the job? Any thoughts on the matter would be much 
appreciated. Also feel free to share experiences and the like. Thanks.
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--
John Heim
john johnheim com

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Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org



--
John Heim
john johnheim com

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Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
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