Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
-
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@thwr 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:
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
The question that should be asked is does the dedication to the IT industry mean you should sacrifice your hobbies?
A better question, if IT isn't your hobby, should you have a different job? One that more closely matches you true likes and desires.
Would you ask a car mechanic the same who doesn't want to fix cars in his free time?
Most mechanics I know also have their own fun cars they work on as a hobby.
Mechanics have the mostly beaters in my experience. There is no need for FUN as they break down enough already
-
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@thwr 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:
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
The question that should be asked is does the dedication to the IT industry mean you should sacrifice your hobbies?
A better question, if IT isn't your hobby, should you have a different job? One that more closely matches you true likes and desires.
Would you ask a car mechanic the same who doesn't want to fix cars in his free time?
If I'm hiring a car mechanic for high end cars or something like Indy car racing - absolutely, and if they said no.. I'd bin their application. NTG is at the top of the field. Some companies put themselves there. They want the most enthusiastic for IT group they can get. As Danielle said, you can't teach enthusiasm, but you can teach skills. So far, their needs have been met buy people with either both enthusiasm and skills or just enthusiasm, and they taught them the skills. when the work pool starts to dry up, and they have fewer choices, they will have to be less picky on who they pick.
I agree from a personal point of view. But I can't expect everyone to be like this. Maybe someone just wants to do his job, that's ok. We should keep a few things in mind here:
- Salary
- Position
- Goals
for example. I wouldn't expect a Level 1 helpdesk tech to have a small datacenter in his basement, he care barely live from what he carries home. If we are talking about a 100-150k+ position, it's a whole different story.
-
@IRJ 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:
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?
It should be built in to the pricing. If you are charging a client $300 an hour, it's not like you are paying your IT person $250 an hour so that is where the margin is built in. You are more than likely paying them $25-$100 an hour.
Training should be done on company time IMO. Our company spent an extra million dollars YTD on training this year, but on our bottom line we made an extra $60 million YTD. So you reap what you sow.
With on the clock training, and more encouragement towards certfications and such you get happier employees. I believe a company should pay for a calls or certification each year as long as the employee is interested. Higher skilled employees means better efficiency, and higher skilled employees lead to better clients and more money in the long run.
I wish we had those margins.
-
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
It's kinda simple. You're building a team. Do you pick people looking for a paycheck, or people with a passion about what you're doing? If you have the option, you're looking for passion... or you shouldn't be the one doing the hiring.
once again passion shouldn't be determined on if they do stuff outside of working hours. I work to get a paycheck yes, but I also show passion for my job while doing so.
-
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@IRJ 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:
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?
It should be built in to the pricing. If you are charging a client $300 an hour, it's not like you are paying your IT person $250 an hour so that is where the margin is built in. You are more than likely paying them $25-$100 an hour.
Training should be done on company time IMO. Our company spent an extra million dollars YTD on training this year, but on our bottom line we made an extra $60 million YTD. So you reap what you sow.
With on the clock training, and more encouragement towards certfications and such you get happier employees. I believe a company should pay for a calls or certification each year as long as the employee is interested. Higher skilled employees means better efficiency, and higher skilled employees lead to better clients and more money in the long run.
I wish we had those margins.
Even at $150 an hour and paying an employee $50 an hour that is still around the same.
-
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
It's kinda simple. You're building a team. Do you pick people looking for a paycheck, or people with a passion about what you're doing? If you have the option, you're looking for passion... or you shouldn't be the one doing the hiring.
once again passion shouldn't be determined on if they do stuff outside of working hours. I work to get a paycheck yes, but I also show passion for my job while doing so.
But, the person who only does 1 thing has an edge on the one who does 5 things, when you're looking for someone to do that 1 thing. It's not demeaning your passion. It just makes the other guy more focused on that 1 thing. It's math.
-
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
It's kinda simple. You're building a team. Do you pick people looking for a paycheck, or people with a passion about what you're doing? If you have the option, you're looking for passion... or you shouldn't be the one doing the hiring.
once again passion shouldn't be determined on if they do stuff outside of working hours. I work to get a paycheck yes, but I also show passion for my job while doing so.
@david-wiese -- The difference between the way you work and the way someone with a home lab works could an example like this: I have a home lab, and have setup several VMs, to run this, that and the other, and I talk about that in my interview.
You talk about past projects you've done at your current or previous employer...Yes, you may have the enthusiasm, and passion for it. But because it's all done on the clock, it may come across as you just doing your job and nothing more.
However, since I set everything up in my home lab, and have done it in my own personal time since it is my hobby as well as a source of income, may have a better chance in this type of job interview, because of my obvious passion for learning and doing.
You may be a great and passionate / enthusiastic worker, but because you don't have your own home lab, it can be hard for others to see your passion. (keeping in mind that home lab can be a Desktop + Virtualbox, no need for a basement datacenter!).
-
I get that part and agree with most of what you said, for certain positions. Positions were not named in the OP (but has since morphed into that). For a helpdesk /desktop support, a home lab most likely cannot be afforded, for a network admin/sys admin it might be warranted. For System engineers it would most definitely set you apart and is almost warranted. It all depends on the level of personnel the company is hiring for. I don't know NTG and what they typically look for so I cannot speak to that.
I am not denying that a home lab cannot set you apart from those who have equal experience, but would that really sway your decision on who to hire? Personally I have seen more positions hire based on your people skills and not your technical skills, since those can be taught.
The question was asked that would you hire someone who doesn't have a home lab? My answer? Depends on the position being applied for.
-
If I'm curious about something I will spin up a VM on my desktop at home. It's got the guts to run quite a few at once to try something new.
I find I don't use it much.
When I'm at work I have better resources if I want to build something to test.
Also, they pay me for that.
So... honestly... I don't much see the point. I also worry you are self-selecting for traits I do not find desirable, at least in myself. It's good to go home and turn off. It's healthy.
-
@MattSpeller IMHO the point is to have something you can completely screw up, fix, rebuild, etc without having any repercussions. Sometimes something should work a certain way theoretically but doesn't. If I'm not sure I use the test environment. If I want to build something like Rocketchat, Nextcloud, etc. I just build it and play with it. It's great.
-
@dafyre said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
It's kinda simple. You're building a team. Do you pick people looking for a paycheck, or people with a passion about what you're doing? If you have the option, you're looking for passion... or you shouldn't be the one doing the hiring.
once again passion shouldn't be determined on if they do stuff outside of working hours. I work to get a paycheck yes, but I also show passion for my job while doing so.
@david-wiese -- The difference between the way you work and the way someone with a home lab works could an example like this: I have a home lab, and have setup several VMs, to run this, that and the other, and I talk about that in my interview.
You talk about past projects you've done at your current or previous employer...Yes, you may have the enthusiasm, and passion for it. But because it's all done on the clock, it may come across as you just doing your job and nothing more.
However, since I set everything up in my home lab, and have done it in my own personal time since it is my hobby as well as a source of income, may have a better chance in this type of job interview, because of my obvious passion for learning and doing.
You may be a great and passionate / enthusiastic worker, but because you don't have your own home lab, it can be hard for others to see your passion. (keeping in mind that home lab can be a Desktop + Virtualbox, no need for a basement datacenter!).
Honestly, I never ran i to that issue when on interviews for contracts. Interviewer would ask me if I am familiar with such and such concept...and I'll hit them with an example.
"I built a Citrix Farm and then integrated it with RSA Secure ID."
"I wrote a powershell script that migrates users home directories from a 2003 box to a Windows 2012 File Share....complete with logging, remote management, and easy to read code."
"I built a standard image for ten thousand pcs and then deployed them to the departments over night and on weekend."
"I used PS App Deploy to package apps for ScCM but liked having everything wrapped into an executable that anclient cannot just willy nilly open, so I stuck with Wise Packaging."Depends on the interviewer really.
I can see the pros and cons of asking/not asking a candidate if they have a home lab.
-
@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@MattSpeller IMHO the point is to have something you can completely screw up, fix, rebuild, etc without having any repercussions. Sometimes something should work a certain way theoretically but doesn't. If I'm not sure I use the test environment. If I want to build something like Rocketchat, Nextcloud, etc. I just build it and play with it. It's great.
counterpoint, if you need it for your job, why are you doing it at home?
-
@david.wiese I have remote access to it so I can work on it here or at home but it helps me learn as an individual instead of whoever is working at a particular company. I could lose my job tomorrow and retain the ability to learn. It's not contingent upon the company that I work for.
-
@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@david.wiese I have remote access to it so I can work on it here or at home but it helps me learn as an individual instead of whoever is working at a particular company. I could lose my job tomorrow and retain the ability to learn. It's not contingent upon the company that I work for.
then the question comes into play, why are you remoting into your machines at home, when you are at work?
What I am getting at is, if it is work related, your work should provide the environment to test.
-
@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@david.wiese I have remote access to it so I can work on it here or at home but it helps me learn as an individual instead of whoever is working at a particular company. I could lose my job tomorrow and retain the ability to learn. It's not contingent upon the company that I work for.
then the question comes into play, why are you remoting into your machines at home, when you are at work?
What I am getting at is, if it is work related, your work should provide the environment to test.
That brings me back to my point where no job I have ever worked has ever paid for a test environment for me. I have argued for so long so many times about the necessity of it and they won't do it.
-
@wirestyle22
so you are using your own personal resources to test out things for work? That seems backwards. -
@david.wiese That would apply if I didn't receive any personal benefit, which is not the case
I use it for a lot of things. oC server, Plex, etc. It's great for learning which is my whole reason for purchasing it. That is a benefit to me personally, not just my company. -
for me, if it is for work, it is on company provided equipment, period. I do not use personal stuff for work in any capacity without getting reimbursed (such as using my car).
-
@david.wiese You could look at it that way, sure. We just don't agree, which is okay. Everyone sets the value of anything they purchase for any reason. To me, the increased speed of my education is worth the cost.
-
@david-wiese : I agree 1000% about the people skills.
That's something a lot of IT folks seem to lose the higher up the ladder they go.
