Can't get hired as a sysadmin without SAN or VMware experience
Cloud and DevOps engineers trying to fall back into systems administration are being rejected for lacking recent hands-on experience with physical hardware, SANs, or enterprise VMware. Because they have not touched physical infrastructure in a long time, their job searches are getting nowhere. This prevents them from finding work and leaves them feeling like their hard-earned career skills are now obsolete.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Mainly maintaining a home esxi labDid this help you?
- 2Considering switching target roles to security after taking the sec plus examDid this help you?
- 3Applying broadly to lower-level positions like help desk just to secure any incomeDid this help you?
- 4I've been studying like crazy, trying to catch up with everything.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Since then, I've been looking for a job, but I'm getting nowhere.”source ↗
“But looking at the job market today, I feel like my skills are becoming obsolete.”source ↗
“How are you supposed to break into that field when every entry-level position seems to require years of experience?”source ↗
“I gave so much of my life to this career, and now I'm sitting here wondering if any of it is still worth something.”source ↗
“Cloud engineering / devops is jn the fucking toilet right now and it’s been so long since ive been doing physical stuff I’ve been having trouble getting hired as a sysadmin too .”source ↗
“I just don’t wanna end up waiting tables or bagging groceries again.”source ↗
“I had one interview as a sysadmin but didn’t get the role due to not having touched a SAN before or not having used enterprise level VMware products.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 6Why can't I get a job as a generalist?
- 24Why are job boards full of impossible roles and ghost listings?
- 3Why am I getting ghosted after great career fair chats?
- 13Is it normal to have no training or supervision on a new job?
- 11Why can't I even get a job interview with years of experience?
- 9Why am I getting rejected for jobs for being overqualified?