Job posting for a sysadmin at Red Hat

[jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org (Jarod Wilson)]

On Dec 10, 2010, at 1:07 PM, Dan Kressin wrote:

> --- On Fri, 12/10/10, Jim Gasek <jim-ESJ+pY3k0/ZeoWH0uzbU5w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> Show of hands please, 
>> how many RHCEs on this list?
>> RHCTs?
>> 
>> What do people think about this certification?
> 
> [raises hand]

[also raises hand]

> I had (and I suppose still have) similar feelings to those who have already responded to certifications in general, but here's my experience with the RHCE specifically. 
> 
> My motivation for getting the cert was my boss' desire to have it as a marketing trait for our team.  I've been a Linux (and to a lesser extent Solaris) admin since 1999.  I took the exam as part of the 4-day RH300 rapid track course.  RH300 basically provided an quick overview of test topics, but mostly served as a refresher.  If you didn't have prior experience with the topics, you wouldn't learn too much about them all in 4 days.  There were 6 people in my class and one of them dropped out after the first day.  Of the 4 remaining besides myself, 3 actively participated in the discussions and I got the impression they each had a fair amount of experience.
> 
> We later shared the results of our exams via email and I was surprised to learn that I was the only one to achieve the RHCE.  I believe only 1 or 2 others managed to even eek out the lesser RHCT.
> 
> So what does this mean?  I felt the exam did a good job of testing a wide variety of Linux skills.  While I wouldn't turn someone away for /not/ having it, I'm convinced that /having/ it is a sign that they've had decent exposure to a wide range of topics.

In my experience, the RHCE exam actually does a very good job of
weeding out the folks who aren't actually terribly capable. The exam
had a good portion of problems that were hands-on, and required you
to actually *fix* a broken system. And it wasn't dead-simple things
that you had to fix, they required investigation, trouble-shooting,
etc. You can NOT just study for the exam and hope to pass, you really
need to have actual experience and capability, covering a fairly wide
range of daemons, system configuration details, etc.

Note, however, that my experience was way back in 2002 and Red Hat
Linux 7.3 the latest release, but I've seen numerous bits and pieces
on the 'tubes about how the RHCE (and now RHCA) remain as some of 
the few certifications that *do* actually mean something about a
person's technical ability with respect to Red Hat's Linux offerings.

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org