Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
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My first home lab was an IBM eServer xSeries 366 8863 with 4 quadcores and 32 gb RAM. I got it on ebay for 6 bucks (50 delivery lol). At the time that was a lucky shot, they were going for way more. No drives in it. Had to pay $250 for 6 75gb SAS's. So, for 300 bucks a datacenter quality home lab. I am not saying everyone should be able to afford this, but it certainly was a good investment for me. I know at the time the money hurt, too. Sitting in the corner collecting dust now because I have the capacity for a lab at work, which is nice, because I do also agree with @RojoLoco that we have lost sight of a healthy work/life balance. Just offered it to my neighbor's kid who is messing around with raspberry PI's and Linux. Guys and gals, remember that first time you turned on an enterprise server and the fans blasted up to 100%...
Think he will have a blast with it!
My that was off topic. I don't know if I would consider it a reason not to hire someone, but if I was hiring it would definitely give a second candidate with a lab an advantage.
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I think you basing your decision on hiring someone on whether they have a home lab or not is complete and udder crap. For example, I do have a media "sever" but that is it. I chose to not spend my money (whether it be on a home server or the electricity to power said home server) on things I have access to at work. My time out the office is my time, spent with family, doing things I enjoy. Not having my head buried in technology (I do that enough at work).
Scott you are different than most since you have come out and said that you cannot disconnect from technology (even when you are on vacation). Those like myself like to leave technology at work. When I get home, I usually (if I can) leave my cell phone on the opposite end of my house and spend time outside. When I go on the weekend camping trips, my phone stays in my tent. We as a society have become so dependent on technology to run our daily lives, we lose sight with the fact that the things we did as children, (hanging out with friends, playing at the park and not coming home until dinner...etc.) we no longer do. Most adults have their heads on a permanent 25 degree downward angle with a phone/tablet glued to their hands.
Yes IT is a hobby/passion but that does not mean IT needs to be your life. I think you discounting someone based on if they have a home server or not is total bs.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
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.)
- Why do we need to show dedication outside of the office? What impact does that have to the job at hand?
- I am passionate about my job and how I do my job, just because I do not show that same passion for IT outside of my job, does that make me any less qualified for the job?
- My experience for the job duties outlined in the description should be enough. My time outside of work is my time and shouldn't come into play when comparing candidates. If I did, I wouldn't want to work for that company anyways.
Personally I see it as, if someone likes to disconnect the less likely they are to be burned out due to stress.
edited #3 comments
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Something to remember: we are an IT firm. We have much higher standards than a business hiring an IT person. I talk to other managers etc. from other IT firms... we all ask this question.
IF you aren't playing with technology and constantly learning how to use both new tech and things you haven't used before, (old or new) then you won't be whole lot of use for a company like NTG, that has clients with 100,000 different environments that run everything under the sun.
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@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Something to remember: we are an IT firm. We have much higher standards than a business hiring an IT person. I talk to other managers etc. from other IT firms... we all ask this question.
IF you aren't playing with technology and constantly learning how to use both new tech and things you haven't used before, (old or new) then you won't be whole lot of use for a company like NTG, that has clients with 100,000 different environments that run everything under the sun.
So at NTG, if you don't have a home lab and aren't learning outside of work then you won't be hired?
I have interviewed at msp's, large and small companies over the past 10 years and have yet to be asked if I have a home lab or not. I don't know if this is a relatively new line of questioning to whittle down candidates or not but it doesn't seem fair. You cannot know everything out there, you get the knowledge by being exposed to it on the job.
Also it takes money to stay on top of new tech. I have a 8 year old tower, 5 year old laptop and a 5 year old android tablet at home. I don't have the means to go out and buy all of the gear necessary to setup a home lab and nor do I want to. Sure you could set it up for under $800, however, that is a mortgage, that is car payments, that is a new stove. For those that make under $50k a year have other things to pay for, so why should that disqualify me from working at your company?
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Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.
IT is what IT is
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@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.
IT is what IT is
Don't get me wrong, if that is apart of the job description where you need to be reachable at anytime that is fine. That is IT in a nutshell. I am not arguing that. I am arguing the point of the validity of hiring someone based on the premise of a home lab or not.
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Well also the argument comes in that why should I pay someone to work on a client's environment if you don't at least have some idea. I can't charge a client for a staff member to learn. Where do you fit your learning time in, if when you are at work you are..working?
There is always a little piece as an IT person that GOOGLE comes to the resuce but it can't give you the wisdom to know how to apply what you are seeing. Wisdom comes with doing.
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@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.
IT is what IT is
@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@Veet said
Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?
Now that I've seen the page
http://osticket.com/featuresI can tell you that this is what Comodo One uses and offers as their branded Service Desk. - The UI is clunky and awful.
Yep ... One of the plus point of osTicket is that its pretty customizable ... I've used and implemented osTicket (Haven't any deep feature customizations, though), and while the backend UI could be better, it's pretty functional and responsive .. Plus, it's not as resource hungry as some of the other ticketing systems I've seen (Spiceworks, being one)
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@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Well also the argument comes in that why should I pay someone to work on a client's environment if you don't at least have some idea. I can't charge a client for a staff member to learn. Where do you fit your learning time in, if when you are at work you are..working?
There is always a little piece as an IT person that GOOGLE comes to the resuce but it can't give you the wisdom to know how to apply what you are seeing. Wisdom comes with doing.
By and large, I'd agree with that. But sometimes you run into things that are off-the-wall and odd that you've never seen before and google doesn't help much. Especially if you work in many different environments...which means that there's always going to be learning that has to take place on the job.
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@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Well also the argument comes in that why should I pay someone to work on a client's environment if you don't at least have some idea. I can't charge a client for a staff member to learn. Where do you fit your learning time in, if when you are at work you are..working?
There is always a little piece as an IT person that GOOGLE comes to the rescue but it can't give you the wisdom to know how to apply what you are seeing. Wisdom comes with doing.
I agree with this as well, but that comes with experience, both on the job and to a small extent self taught. As every IT person knows, every environment is different and you cannot quite possibly be exposed to everything. So inherently there is going to be quite a bit of on the job learning that comes with it. My point is, I don't have time or money to do a home lab setup, but why should that disqualify me from working for you? If I can demonstrate the knowledge, and if I hit a wall I can resolve it (it might take me a little more time, but still get it resolved) isn't that doing the job?
That is why you have specialists, windows, Linux, mainframe etc....
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@Veet said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.
IT is what IT is
@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@Veet said
Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?
Now that I've seen the page
http://osticket.com/featuresI can tell you that this is what Comodo One uses and offers as their branded Service Desk. - The UI is clunky and awful.
Yep ... One of the plus point of osTicket is that its pretty customizable ... I've used and implemented osTicket (Haven't any deep feature customizations, though), and while the backend UI could be better, it's pretty functional and responsive .. Plus, it's not as resource hungry as some of the other ticketing systems I've seen (Spiceworks, being one)
huh ? How did the above response get posted on this thread .... have I stumbled-upon a bug ?
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It's not that you could never be considered. It's really not so black and white. But it's a key interview component, for sure. And because we have unlimited applicants who do have home labs and do "live IT", how would you portray yourself in that situation in order to demonstrate why not having a home lab (or better) in your case still makes you a better candidate than someone who does have a home lab? Remember that we are looking for passion around IT more than we are looking for strict skills and experience. So demonstrating passion for us would normally trump demonstrating experience. Because we can get you experience, but we can't make you passionate.
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@Veet 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:
@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.
IT is what IT is
@Breffni-Potter said in HelpDesk Ticketing System:
@Veet said
Say, does anyone use osTicket ? and how has your experience been, with it ?
Now that I've seen the page
http://osticket.com/featuresI can tell you that this is what Comodo One uses and offers as their branded Service Desk. - The UI is clunky and awful.
Yep ... One of the plus point of osTicket is that its pretty customizable ... I've used and implemented osTicket (Haven't any deep feature customizations, though), and while the backend UI could be better, it's pretty functional and responsive .. Plus, it's not as resource hungry as some of the other ticketing systems I've seen (Spiceworks, being one)
huh ? How did the above response get posted on this thread .... have I stumbled-upon a bug ?
The threads happen so fast that it is easy to accidentally post on the wrong thread cause it updated while you were clicking on it
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NTG hired me without my having a lab - But experience was taken into account. @scottalanmiller invited me here from SW, and it's evolved from there.
When I started just over a year ago (April 6, 2015) I had already worked in IT since 1988ish with several yeas on different scales of Help Desk...
So - As @Minion-Queen stated,.. it's not all B & W...
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I think there is an issue here in understanding where the "required home lab" actually fits. Let's say I am looking for a guy who can put wingnuts on bolts, and 2 guys apply for the position. Candidate #1 has been employed putting wingnuts on bolts for a handful of years, and his references look good. Candidate #2 has also got employment experience, and is obsessed with wingnuts and spends his weekends competing in wingnut fastening speed competitions (don't get lost in the analogy...). There is nothing anywhere that says that the job requires a candidate who is thoroughly obsessed with wingnuts, but which candidate is going to be better-suited to do the job? You can bring psychology into the discussion, but if all I care about is how many wingnuts are on bolts at the end of the day, you'd be hard-pressed to make a case for hiring candidate #1 when his competition for the position is candidate #2. Insert "home lab" in place of speed competitions, and look at how obvious it is. The applicant who is all about technology has a competitive edge over the applicant who is only interested in doing 9-5 and getting a paycheck. It doesn't make that attitude wrong, and it has nothing to do with fair or unfair. Each person does what they choose to do. They must live with the consequences of those choices. If the better applicant gets hired, and you don't like it, figure out how to be more competitive so you can be the better applicant next time.
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@Minion-Queen I can portray passion for my job, because I am passionate about it. If I were being hired at ntg I would show my on the job accomplishments, I would show how I constantly strive to better than I was the day before, through gaining knowledge on the job. Yes my learning of IT stops after I am done for the day, why? Because I value my family time. I value the time with my 2 month old son (time which if spent working on my home lab I wouldn't get back). I value the time spent away from a computer because it keeps me grounded Now this does not mean that if I get a call from an executive who needs my help, that I wouldn't answer and help them. This means that I value the work/life balance. I work to live, I don't live to work.
Passion can be shown in many different ways, as can dedication. I am very dedicated and will put in time when needed and or asked to. For me however I don't see having a home lab as not being passionate, it just means that my time is spent in other ways.
I feel it is very important to not be married to work. You need that separation to keep you grounded (at least I do).
The question that should be asked is does the dedication to the IT industry mean you should sacrifice your hobbies?
I guess at the end of the day my accomplishments should speak for themselves. If you don't find me qualified than so be it, but to have a qualifier of well this person has a home lab and this person doesn't, to me is crap. A job shouldn't ever be based on what someone choses to do with their time outside of the office. Maybe I am an oddball that likes to get away from all things tech, but that is me. And obviously I wouldn't fit in at ntg because of this.
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@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
A job shouldn't ever be based on what someone choses to do with their time outside of the office.You've obviously never applied for a high-level position. Your life goes under the magnifying glass, including social media posts, etc. That's absolutely how it's done.
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I think the whole "homelab or not" thing also depends on what type of learner you are. For me, it's mostly reading some docs, blogs, howto's etc in the evening / weekend and that's it. There's rarely a thing I have to run in my home lab (yes, I have one, but it's rarely in use) to actually understand it. Others may need to get hands-on, and that's ok -> type of learner. There are cases where you just have to get your hands dirty: Postfix, for example. Awesome piece of software, but you can easily screw things up which may either result in an open relay or a non-working system.
So for me, a home lab would be "nice to have, but not a hard requirement at all".
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@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I think you basing your decision on hiring someone on whether they have a home lab or not is complete and udder crap. For example, I do have a media "sever" but that is it. I chose to not spend my money (whether it be on a home server or the electricity to power said home server) on things I have access to at work. My time out the office is my time, spent with family, doing things I enjoy. Not having my head buried in technology (I do that enough at work).
Scott you are different than most since you have come out and said that you cannot disconnect from technology (even when you are on vacation). Those like myself like to leave technology at work. When I get home, I usually (if I can) leave my cell phone on the opposite end of my house and spend time outside. When I go on the weekend camping trips, my phone stays in my tent. We as a society have become so dependent on technology to run our daily lives, we lose sight with the fact that the things we did as children, (hanging out with friends, playing at the park and not coming home until dinner...etc.) we no longer do. Most adults have their heads on a permanent 25 degree downward angle with a phone/tablet glued to their hands.
Yes IT is a hobby/passion but that does not mean IT needs to be your life. I think you discounting someone based on if they have a home server or not is total bs.
I'll disagree with this for the following reason(s):
People who are into IT, not just doing it for the money, do it as a hobby as well. They are constantly learning. That's not to say that you have to go home and spend hours and hours working on learning new things.. Maybe it's once a week, or even once a month. The point is, unless your office has lab space you can use on your own time, the chances are that you need a lab to learn new things. I don't know about your job, but my previous jobs never had lab equipment nor dedicated on the clock time for me to learn.. .that was my responsibility. It was like going to school - that was completely on me, on my own time, not up to my office to give me time and resources to do it. Now some better jobs have offered reimbursement for that education after I paid and passed the class.
If you only do IT stuff while on the clock at work, how do you grow and learn new things?
