suggestions on finding experienced sysadmins?

[Richard Pieri]

Bill makes some good points.  These days, the only "perfect" candidate is the guy who left the position open.  Look at your checklist.  Organize the items into 3 categories.  The first category is stuff that needs to be done on a regular, frequent basis.  This is the stuff that the prospective candidate needs to be able to do today, right now.

The second category is stuff that happens infrequently, once or twice a month, say.  Now throw these in the trash bucket as far as what you need.  Your candidate doesn't need these to start.  Make sure that your candidates know that they're going to be expected to learn these things on the job.  Similar experience is a bonus here, so if you have Juniper gear and you see a candidate that has what you need in category one and some Cisco experience then this is your guy.

The third category is everything else: things that the previous sysadmin did once, things that the new sysadmin may need to do once in six months, things that your HR people added for buzzword compliance.  Burn this list with extreme prejudice.  If you require your candidates to have experience with these things then you're never going to hire anyone.  Realistically, if let your sysadmin figure out these things as they come up; that's what you're paying for.

--Rich P.