On Jun 1, 11:45am, Furmanek, Greg wrote:

> I know exactly what you guy are going through.
> It is a vicious circle:
> 
> This is what I have heard on all my interviews:
> 1. You need a degree.
> 2. You need 2 years of experience.
> 3. We do not want to put time or money into training you.
> 
> I got lucky.  I got a job in one of those
> mom & pap computer shops which jumpstarted the 
> interest of others.
> 
> If you want to do the development itself it is 
> good to start in some QA department and then 
> move towards programming.
> 
> If you want sysdamin position it seems the easiest
> way to do it is to work in one of the hardware
> shops and take a lot of Unix/NT classes.
> Volunteering your time to some places as a sysadmin
> will bring experience you can put on the resume.
> 
> Sometimes it is good to go to a company which
> has a development / support department in them 
> and get a different position and then advance.
> (This is not easy but possible.)

Here's another approach for people who lack job experience or who have
experience, but would like a linux related job...

I know from first hand experience that companies like Red Hat attempt
to recruit people who have a proven track record of working on open
source software.  The way to do that is to become actively involved in
an open source project which interests you.  Get on the project
mailing list.  Read the code.  Attempt to find bugs and report them. 
Better yet, *fix* the bugs and send in patches.  If you're not an
expert coder, then work on the documentation.  If you keep this up for
a while, and you're good, you will be noticed.  If, for some reason,
you're not noticed (maybe you picked a low profile project), you can
still list this sort of thing on your resume.  Plus, when you go for a
job interview and someone wants to see a sample of your work, you can
tell them, go to http://www.gnome.org/...  (or whatever) and take a
look at the _____ module.  I was the one who rewrote the ______ .  (Fill
in the blanks when the time comes.)

This is real experience and shows a potential employer that 1) you are
able to work well with others on a team project, 2) you're motivated and
are able to work on your own, and 3) will give them an idea of how good
you are at your craft.

Kevin