Computer System Administrator

• Size of the company can play a big part in determining your daily routine - larger companies have more defined roles, in smaller companies you do a little of everything.
• Some companies require you to clock in and out, others are more liberal with their timekeeping, adopting a “just get the job done” attitude.
• Unless the company is very small, generally you’ll work in teams to try to keep your company running or help it grow.
• Many companies run 24/7, so if you are in charge of the servers or network, you will likely be put on a rotating on-call schedule.

• Technical knowledge:
  • For desktop support, you should know Windows or Mac OS.  
  • For servers, knowing Microsoft server or Linux/Unix will be necessary, as well as server hardware.  
  • For network jobs, understanding networking and network hardware, as well as specific vendors like Cisco will be needed.
• Creativity and the ability to think outside the box.
• Problem-solving
• Ability to multi-task
• Ability to work under pressure and lots of deadlines.
• Management level: clear communication and organizational skills

• Monitors network to ensure network availability to all system users and may perform necessary maintenance to support network availability.
• May monitor and test Web site performance to ensure Web sites operate correctly and without interruption.
• May assist in network modeling, analysis, planning, and coordination between network and data communications hardware and software. 
• May supervise computer user support specialists and computer network support specialists.

Company 1
IT Director 2 YEARS Upper Level  

• Managed IT department, consisting of a team of consultants, application and desktop support technicians.
• Restructured network to increase speed while saving the company $X per year.
• Rebuilt aging server room with multiple cooling, power, and aesthetic issues into clean room with limited access and sufficient cooling and power.
• Redesigned backup process from individual tape based backups to consolidated reliable D2D backups.
• Built server monitoring system to check system health, availability, storage issues and performance.               

Company 2
Vice President, Information Technology 1 YEAR Upper Level   

• Supported all aspects of IT, including applications, helpdesk support, web services, email, databases, vendor relationships, purchasing, architecture, and development.
• Supervised support technicians, webmasters, engineers and external consultants.
• Analyzed infrastructure and built maps of application data flows, physical hardware, and network connectivity.
• Increased performance for databases, email, and file servers by analyzing performance removing bottlenecks.
• Built redundancy and recovery into infrastructure by repairing failing raid arrays. 

Company 3
IT Manager (Promotion) 2 YEARS Mid/Upper Level  

• Managed 17 admins and desktop techs supporting over X users and Y servers.
• Reported status updates in weekly operations calls attended by executives.

Project Manager (Promotion) 2 YEARS Mid Level        

• Managed new satellite office builds, including facilities, data, phone services and contracted resources; all sites were operational ahead of schedule by up to 14 days allowing sales offices to begin generating revenue earlier than expected.
• Managed the creation and implementation of a new data center that houses all critical software and hardware.

Senior Systems Administrator/Exchange Administrator 4 YEARS – Mid Level     

• Maintained network services including DNS, DHCP, WINS, FTP, File/Print, Exchange, and SNMP for monitoring.
• Performed process analysis on infrastructure resulting in reduced power and space utilization by reallocating resources.

Company 4
Microsoft Administrator 2 YEARS – Entry Level, part time    

• Designed and built Microsoft based infrastructure for a small office using NT Workstation and Server.
• Built a proxy server to speed up internet caching as well as to serve as a router for internet sharing.
• Served as the primary contact for desktop software and hardware troubleshooting and training.

• The first years will be spent doing a lot of support work, which means possibly dealing with irate individuals.
• Once you start moving up, you can potentially be expected to be on call, which can cut into your social time.
• Many companies have a “keep going till the job is done” attitude, which means that if what you’re working on is critical to the company, you can potentially pull an all nighter for work.  Those are generally very rare though, and only for extreme cases.

• More and more companies are realizing the benefit of IT.  Even companies that traditionally were not very technologically savvy are realizing they need to be to remain competitive.  There is really nothing that points to technology tapering off or going away.
• Growth is expected in healthcare industries as their use of information technology increases. More administrators will be required to manage the growing systems and networks found at hospitals and other healthcare institutions.