[AusNOG] AusNOG Digest, Vol 145, Issue 3

Sat Mar 16 20:24:12 AEDT 2024

It's shame that an otherwise perfectly valid reply felt the need to lower itself with a cheap shot at anyone born after 1981 - most of whom are now well into middle age and packing 15-20+ years of experience on the tools.

Regardless - I agree with your last paragraph. Unicorns do exist, and most come up through MSPs, however they are now more likely to be found working as contractors in the high end, high dollar space with a very servicable day rate, or in a large enterprise where other perks make up for the difference in cash.

Either way, they're not cheap and the good ones who can talk both business and tech are very, very rare.

Regards,
-Brad.

On Sat, 16 Mar 2024, at 2:58 PM, David McIntosh wrote:
> Unfortunately there are a lot of candidates out there that just think they can be an L2. These candidates are people are typically Millennials (or worse) that have some sort of IT knowledge without any practical application. As someone who specialised in Exchange/ AD for 10+ years, I found that everyone who had M365 experience, believed they could manage Exchange / AD too, surprise surprise, they couldn't when push came to shove.
> 
> I do agree, as someone that has been in Gov, Corp and in MSP's, that the culture is different. The thing that I learnt about being in an MSPs for over 10 year is that, as much as the skill and experience diversity is worth, you are never remunerated fairly. I saw contracts saying "review after 12 months", which never happened, doing 60+ hour weeks with TOIL that you could never take or the expectation that because you were highly paid you would always be available, no matter what.
> 
> It's unfortunate to say, but the majority of MSPs don't treat their staff well, so it's little wonder why MSP's are finding it challenging to find good candidates, even in the smaller MSP world in SYD is not unheard of for a good L2 candidate to command $120K.
> 
> However I do think, if you widened your field i.e not stating a position, not stating salary and doing more of a 'catch all' advertisement, you will likely find the right candidate if you are prepared to negotiate salary to their skillset, who knows you might even find the awesome L1 or L3 candidate you didn't expect...
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> David McIntosh
> Principal Solutions Architect | ICITA
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> On Behalf Of ausnog-request at lists.ausnog.net
> Sent: Saturday, 16 March 2024 2:12 PM
> To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
> Subject: AusNOG Digest, Vol 145, Issue 3
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Re: Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support person
>       (Rhys Hanrahan)
>    2. Re: Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support person
>       (Jennifer Sims)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2024 02:51:56 +0000
> From: Rhys Hanrahan <rhys at nexusone.com.au>
> To: Elliott Willink <elliott at willink.net.au>,
> "ausnog at lists.ausnog.net" <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support
> person
> Message-ID: <013766E2-C2B8-472F-B866-5C75D249F2AB at nexusone.com.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Hi Elliot,
> 
> Thanks for the feedback! I didn?t post the job ad myself, but I?m surprised it?s being filtered in that way as I thought we?d left things more open ended than that ? we?ve said ?put your preferred salary? and had multiple applications requesting even well over 120K ? all of them with very low skill/experience to be honest. Do you really deserve 100-120K+ when you can?t explain clearly what a router vs a switch is (typically a L1 question for us)? And don?t know what type of NBN you have at home? Or can?t explain what a 169.x.x.x IP address is and what it means when you see it? These are the kinds of candidates asking for 100-120K+ and expect to be called senior techs. Is this really where the job market is at?
> 
> I?m sure you?re right and we?ve hopefully messed something up with the Seek posting (I hope!). Suffice it to say we?re happy to look at higher salaries for the right person. But maybe there?s something wrong with how the ad has been posted that we?re somehow attracting lower quality candidates that still expect high salaries. I am going to review this!
> 
> Perhaps we need to adjust the wording as I wouldn?t ever expect someone to have experience in _all_ those areas (they were listed as desirable and not essential) ? but want someone who is willing to learn, and has experience in a few of those areas. So perhaps the expectation level is coming across as too high. Really we just want someone reasonably well rounded who can handle small business IT, do site visits, help with escalations, etc. Really appreciate the feedback on this, it?s super helpful.
> 
> The 4 years experience I understand, it?s getting up there (where did you see 5+ as we need to remove that?) ? it?s interesting because when we last hired someone from an existing MSP with 3 years, it seems all they knew fairly well was Office 365, and not much else so I was left wondering if 3 years is enough these days. I wonder if this was not representative of a typical 3 years of experience ? but I was surprised at how low the fundamentals were. E.g. Having to explain that with structured cabling there is a patch panel involved when re-patching ethernet cables, or what a UPS does ? pretty basic stuff. Maybe we just haven?t been finding the right people recently (we have got lots of great very capable people on the team, to be clear), but it?s surprising the skill levels we?ve seen when interviewing recently with even multiple years of MSP or IT experience.
> 
> Certainly I get your point about the benefits of working for a big corporate ? to be honest, I agree ? we?re not a good fit for someone who wants to work for a big corporate, it?s a totally different culture and I understand a lot will prefer that. I guess all I can say is that the people that work here love that they get a wide range of exposure and mix things up regularly, vs a larger company where you would tend to get stuck in a narrower skillset. To me ? why would you want to get stuck in a very narrow area when you can get exposure to lots more and have influence on lots more things? I think there?s lots of like minded people out there, but appreciate not everyone wants to take this path. Each to their own for sure, and get your point that we are still competing with these companies when hiring, either way.
> 
> Clearly I have some things to look at and think about. Really appreciate you taking the time to give some feedback, it helps a lot.
> Thanks!
> Rhys Hanrahan | General Manager / CTO
> m: 0414 83 83 43 | e: rhys at nexusone.com.au<mailto:rhys at nexusone.com.au>
> ?Ask us about how our Channel Partnership and Referral Program can earn you passive income?
> 
> [www.nexusone.com.au]<http://www.nexusone.com.au/>   [signature_1237010360] <http://www.fusiontech.com.au/>
> 
> NEXUS ONE | FUSION TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
> p: 1800 NEXUS1 (1800 639 871) or 1800 565 845 | a: Suite 12.03 Level 12, 227 Elizabeth Street, Sydney NSW 2000 www.nexusone.com.au<http://www.nexusone.com.au/> | www.fusiontech.com.au<http://www.fusiontech.com.au/>
> 
> The information in this email and any accompanying attachments may contain; a. Confidential information of Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties; b. Legally privileged information of Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties; and or c. Copyright material Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd does not accept any responsibility for loss or damage arising from the use or distribution of this email.
> 
> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
> 
> From: Elliott Willink <elliott at willink.net.au>
> Date: Friday, 15 March 2024 at 11:35 pm
> To: Rhys Hanrahan <rhys at nexusone.com.au>, "ausnog at lists.ausnog.net" <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
> Subject: Re: Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support person
> 
> Doing a quick salary filter on Seek your mid-range salary is 80k & chasing someone with 5+ years experience  sysadmin/AD/Exchange/M365/Cisco/Junos/VoIP/Linux/Hosting.
> 
> We had a similar issue tracking down staff but a reality check for us was finding out Australian ISPs were paying close to $80k for L1 business support.
> 
> Once we adjusted our expectations we found there were plenty of excellent people out there.
> 
> It's hard as a small business to attract good techs, why would someone work for you (MSPs don't have a great rep) when they could make the same working for a big, well known corporate?
> 
> As an absolute shot in the dark I'd say you're looking at $120k+ for someone good based on that JD. Anyone who disagrees please send me your resume :)
> 
> Elliott
> ________________________________
> From: AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> on behalf of Rhys Hanrahan <rhys at nexusone.com.au>
> Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 4:12:00 PM
> To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net <ausnog at lists.ausnog.net>
> Subject: [AusNOG] Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support person
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry for the noise ? just wanted to post this as we?re not having much luck finding the right candidates for a role. I was hoping that some people on this list either might be interested or know someone who might be interested in the role. Of course appreciate any feedback on the job ad too ?
> 
> 
> 
> We are looking for someone for a Senior service desk/L2+ role ? need to be comfortable acting as an escalation point for help desk and getting involved in Windows desktop support and helping guide the service desk team. Hoping to find someone who has a passion for technology and is quite well rounded across a variety of small business IT areas, and has solid troubleshooting skills and fundamentals.
> 
> 
> 
> There is a massive opportunity for increasing your knowledge as we do a lot more than a typical MSP ? and of course there?s the ISP and engineering side of things - the person would be interfacing with our engineering team a lot, and there would be future ability to grow into an engineering role, as you?d be exposed to all areas of the business from the start.
> 
> 
> 
> The job ad is here: https://www.seek.com.au/job/73897923.  Anyone who is interested is welcome to send an email to myself or to recruitment at fusiontech.com.au<mailto:recruitment at fusiontech.com.au>
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks all! Have a great weekend.
> 
> Rhys Hanrahan | General Manager / CTO
> m: 0414 83 83 43 | e: rhys at nexusone.com.au<mailto:rhys at nexusone.com.au>
> 
> ?Ask us about how our Channel Partnership and Referral Program can earn you passive income?
> 
> [www.nexusone.com.au]<http://www.nexusone.com.au/>   [signature_1237010360] <http://www.fusiontech.com.au/>
> 
> NEXUS ONE | FUSION TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
> p: 1800 NEXUS1 (1800 639 871) or 1800 565 845 | a: Suite 12.03 Level 12, 227 Elizabeth Street, Sydney NSW 2000 www.nexusone.com.au<http://www.nexusone.com.au/> | www.fusiontech.com.au<http://www.fusiontech.com.au/>
> 
> The information in this email and any accompanying attachments may contain; a. Confidential information of Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties; b. Legally privileged information of Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties; and or c. Copyright material Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd or third parties. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. Fusion Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Nexus One Pty Ltd does not accept any responsibility for loss or damage arising from the use or distribution of this email.
> 
> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2024 15:11:43 +1100
> From: Jennifer Sims <jenn at jenn.id.au>
> To: Rhys Hanrahan <rhys at nexusone.com.au>
> Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Looking for a senior service desk / L2+ support
> person
> Message-ID: <9D5599AD-DF44-490D-BE95-1683797D044C at jenn.id.au>
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