[AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

[Ryan Crouch]

Hey AusNOG,

There's been some great points that many have brought up in this thread.
The most important of those for me that I would endorse are typically the
work hard, research all of the technology and also don't be afraid of
mistakes.

>From my perspective, I find the personality and ability to communicate of a
candidate with both staff and customers to be one of THE most important
factors. You can always teach people new technical skills, but it's
difficult to shape someone's inter-personal skills and also
attitudes/hunger for knowledge.

As someone who's interviewed many hundreds of people for positions both
locally and globally, the whole textbook employee is always a factor.
Someone who's honest about what they can  and can't do and can also talk
about their experiences with a degree of confidence and pride will always
'rate' better. Massive points go to those who know when something is out of
their league and they can explain how they might tackle it themselves while
also highlighting how they can avoid impacting the situation further. If
their responses are customer focussed then there's even more points to be
had.

Just one general thing that disappoints me in this entire industry more
than 'textbook' qualifications is the lack of female candidates. I suspect
it's got a lot to do with the type of work but I truly wish there were more
applications for network engineering (or even just technical) roles by
women. In the US/EU we had a few, but in Australia out of about 300
applications in the last couple of years for roles locally I have yet to
see one. I know there are a few of them out there, but it's very very rare.
Both men and women have differing strengths and weaknesses and often I find
they tackle things from different approaches and a broad cover of more deep
seeded skills across any team is valuable. I have also seen customers that
refuse to deal with female technical staff, which probably exacerbates the
entire reason there's not that many out there. On the flip side I have seen
customers who are extremely 'difficult to work with' for male staff be
utterly diffused by a woman in a technical team and they all of a sudden
become a non-issue. I wouldn't hire one over another simply based on
gender, but I do wish there was a more equal balance of candidates.

Just some input/food for thought, merry xmas to you all :)

- Ryan
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