Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
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I don't have a home lab.
As a single income family, we have other priorities.However, I do have a laptop, a NAS, a desktop and a toy VPS (that I don't talk about).
When I upgrade the CPU/MoBo/RAM in my PC (opted for the graphics card recently), I will be using the Desktop as a lab of sorts with Hyper-V and a VM to play around with... but I'm not intending on having a pile-o-tin sitting in my house to have as a lab. Far too noisy and expensive to run. -
Not hiring someone solely because they don't have a home lab is a bit petty.
I see the value in having one but I still see it as a "nice to have". -
@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Also, I would not discount a candidate just cause she/he does not have a home lab.. I typically hire someone based on their, attitude,
That's a key point that I think that a lab gauges, attitude. It shows that someone is really dedicated.
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What about home offices? What about just a computer at home?
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Also, I would not discount a candidate just cause she/he does not have a home lab.. I typically hire someone based on their, attitude,
That's a key point that I think that a lab gauges, attitude. It shows that someone is really dedicated.
umm.... well ... I kind of agree, and disagree ... Yes, attitude matters the most ... But, what if a person has the right attitude, but does not have resources ? I know so many deserving professionals, who don't have access to resources, simply because they just can't afford, lack the space, etc ... I've been there ... When I was starting off, I couldn't even afford a desktop ...
Most IT pros I know of, who have some really fancy knowledge and/or certifications , do so on the company's dime .... They learn and practice, at the office ... That's precisely, why we have a lab @ the office - Work as a team, learn as a team, share the knowledge, bounce ideas, off each other... We prefer that our team-mates, learn and practice @ the office... We encourage this, and provide the resources (whatever we can afford).. .
A home lab is something nice to have , but it's not a must have ...
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Sorry not read all the reply's but to answer the question, depends really.
I can't afford a home lab or even a cloud lab, but that doesn't stop me learning "out of hours". Example if i wanted to learn something new and don't have time at work i'm happy to spin up a VM or two on my laptop with Virtual Box get them working then transfer to the test server at work that i can remote into to carry on testing later.
Would i hire someone yes i would, as long as the are keen to learn and willing to play at home as me even on a Virtual Box or similar that would do for me
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I fall in the "used to have" category. Cut my teeth on my basement lab where I took every scrap PC/Server i could find and made it something. I had an old 486 (back in the day) that became a NT 4.0 machine that barely ran. A Laptop with a broken screens became an exchange 5.5 servers. Network was a scrap barely functioning 3com hub, and i managed to get at the time Proxy server running on the NT box for dial-up "cached" Intenret access. Today i WISH I could have that all back but with wife and 2 kids, I've got a very tiny corner of the garage, so much of my learning is either VM's on my laptop (windows 10 is a GODSEND here with real Hyper-V)or ugh cloudatcost (yes got suckered into that ponzi scheme, never again) and then finding time to play which may only be 1 or 2 hours a week. But the passion to learn new items and do it hands on is still there and I get very excited when I actually get my hour or so to "play". I am in agreement with hiring someone who has at least similar passion and maybe not a true home "lab" but has the for lack of a better term "desire" to have a lab environment. We have an employee here we brought in as a intern. At the time, he asked if we had any broken computers and told us he was setting up (and I quote) "this FreeBsd thing called PfSense because I hear I don't need to buy a router it just works and I want to play with it" I immediately recommended we hire him. he's now our top network engineer with the home lab that I drool over
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I go back to the others who look for attitude. Even bringing in someone greenfield... If you get excited about technology or the prospect of having your own lab (at home or work), I take that as a good sign.
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@hobbit666 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Sorry not read all the reply's but to answer the question, depends really.
I can't afford a home lab or even a cloud lab, but that doesn't stop me learning "out of hours". Example if i wanted to learn something new and don't have time at work i'm happy to spin up a VM or two on my laptop with Virtual Box get them working then transfer to the test server at work that i can remote into to carry on testing later.
Would i hire someone yes i would, as long as the are keen to learn and willing to play at home as me even on a Virtual Box or similar that would do for me
While you don't have dedicated hardware to your lab, you still have a lab, it's just 100% virtual. that's still a lab.
Don't get hung up on the need to have enterprise class equipment. Enterprise class servers are loud and generally power hungry. Most people wouldn't want them in their homes.
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I do think that anybody with a recent-ish computer (laptop or desktop) can build a lab using VirtualBox. But I wouldn't suggest that as a prerequisite to being hired.
Though, all things being equal, somebody with a lab would be more likely to get hired than somebody without.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think one of Scott's points is that you don't need a decked out box to make a lab happen.
I had an old 486 running Novell Netware what seems like 100 years ago, and a Pentium running Windows NT 4.0 This was when P II's were the rage, or was it PIIIs?
10+ year old hardware used to be completely usable for most lab setups. now with Virtualization, you need something a bit newer, x64 and supports virtualization, but that started becoming very common 8 or so years ago, so there's that. But real servers aren't needed either. A desktop can run VMWare ESXi or XenServer or Hyper-V just fine (assuming the virtualization hardware is there). Other factors will limit the number of VMs you can run, but hey, this is a lab.
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
And that's the price to keep it online and running 24x7. You can make scripts and build them when you need them and tear them down when you don't to learn more, cheaper than even the $5 mark!
Yeah, I don't have a HOME lab, but I've been building things in ramnode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr in not quite wild abandon. My current Vultr instance I'm playing with is all the way up to $0.56 for this billing period. That's less than I'd pay for the electric to run something at home.
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@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think one of Scott's points is that you don't need a decked out box to make a lab happen.
I had an old 486 running Novell Netware what seems like 100 years ago, and a Pentium running Windows NT 4.0 This was when P II's were the rage, or was it PIIIs?
10+ year old hardware used to be completely usable for most lab setups. now with Virtualization, you need something a bit newer, x64 and supports virtualization, but that started becoming very common 8 or so years ago, so there's that. But real servers aren't needed either. A desktop can run VMWare ESXi or XenServer or Hyper-V just fine (assuming the virtualization hardware is there). Other factors will limit the number of VMs you can run, but hey, this is a lab.
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
And that's the price to keep it online and running 24x7. You can make scripts and build them when you need them and tear them down when you don't to learn more, cheaper than even the $5 mark!
Yeah, I don't have a HOME lab, but I've been building things in ramnode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr in not quite wild abandon. My current Vultr instance I'm playing with is all the way up to $0.56 for this billing period. That's less than I'd pay for the electric to run something at home.
If you are doing it outside of work hours, then it is a "home" lab IMO.
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@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think one of Scott's points is that you don't need a decked out box to make a lab happen.
I had an old 486 running Novell Netware what seems like 100 years ago, and a Pentium running Windows NT 4.0 This was when P II's were the rage, or was it PIIIs?
10+ year old hardware used to be completely usable for most lab setups. now with Virtualization, you need something a bit newer, x64 and supports virtualization, but that started becoming very common 8 or so years ago, so there's that. But real servers aren't needed either. A desktop can run VMWare ESXi or XenServer or Hyper-V just fine (assuming the virtualization hardware is there). Other factors will limit the number of VMs you can run, but hey, this is a lab.
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
And that's the price to keep it online and running 24x7. You can make scripts and build them when you need them and tear them down when you don't to learn more, cheaper than even the $5 mark!
Yeah, I don't have a HOME lab, but I've been building things in ramnode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr in not quite wild abandon. My current Vultr instance I'm playing with is all the way up to $0.56 for this billing period. That's less than I'd pay for the electric to run something at home.
If you are doing it outside of work hours, then it is a "home" lab IMO.
^ This.
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Since I found out about virtualization I discovered I could always have a lab.
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I dont own a home lab but I intend on building one soon. I just need the money. I just moved so I am a little parched currently
I would be disappointed if I wasnt considered because of a home lab, especially out of college. As a experienced person, I would be a little suprised. But I also see the value in going home to unwind and learning can be the opposite of that sometimes
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For a lot of us (me, especially), I live, breathe, and sleep techy stuff... I work in IT, I've got a "lab" at home, and a few extra bits in the cloud... and I tinker some in my free time... I tinker because I have nothing better to do, lol.
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So some things that I think are important, some are questions, others are points...
- If you don't have a lab at home, how do you cover that same educational ground in other ways? I understand that some people think that needing a lab is unnecessary, and I'll bite: what's the alternative that would show the same dedicated to learning on personal time and without needing outside resources?
- Given that the reasons that labs are seen as important are 1) a dedication to learning on your own 2) ability to learn without needing to be taught only by others and 3) passion because mostly we look for passion more than experience.... what would be alternative or better ways to gauge these factors?
- Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them (because without that, it's just another term for ruling out those without.)
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@JaredBusch said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think one of Scott's points is that you don't need a decked out box to make a lab happen.
I had an old 486 running Novell Netware what seems like 100 years ago, and a Pentium running Windows NT 4.0 This was when P II's were the rage, or was it PIIIs?
10+ year old hardware used to be completely usable for most lab setups. now with Virtualization, you need something a bit newer, x64 and supports virtualization, but that started becoming very common 8 or so years ago, so there's that. But real servers aren't needed either. A desktop can run VMWare ESXi or XenServer or Hyper-V just fine (assuming the virtualization hardware is there). Other factors will limit the number of VMs you can run, but hey, this is a lab.
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Then today we can get $5/month VMs online - so there are options.
And that's the price to keep it online and running 24x7. You can make scripts and build them when you need them and tear them down when you don't to learn more, cheaper than even the $5 mark!
Yeah, I don't have a HOME lab, but I've been building things in ramnode, Digital Ocean, and Vultr in not quite wild abandon. My current Vultr instance I'm playing with is all the way up to $0.56 for this billing period. That's less than I'd pay for the electric to run something at home.
If you are doing it outside of work hours, then it is a "home" lab IMO.
Exactly. An alternative home lab could also be "volunteer at a non-profit where I have essentially unlimited educational opportunity."
A "home" lab need not be in your home.
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@scottalanmiller said
- Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them
...A degree.
I'll get my coat.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said
- Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them
...A degree.
I'll get my coat.
In business administration....
bu da bump..
