[lpi-staff] Finding Linux talent

[Scott Lamberton]

Mark:

This is an excellent point but unfortunately one that I fear is based 
largely on FUD.  I am constantly approached by HR firms in Canada 
(because of my volunteer work with our LPI affiliate) on the lack of 
experienced AND certified Linux sysadmins.  In every instance I have 
been able to find a great number of people with the appropriate 
requisites.  Last summer I was contacted by a Canadian HR firm looking 
for 50 Linux sysadmins/developers with minimal Czech/German language 
skills.  I blasted a variety of our lists.  I´m not sure what happened 
but a month later he called me and said thank you VERY much and that he 
was off to the Czech Republic to undertake project management for a 
megaproject with more than a dozen linux professionals.

The real issue here is about experience.  Every day I fear that in our 
Toronto locale we are going to lose the likes of Matt.  Our 
banking/finance sector in this country is throwing skads of money at 
experienced linux sysadmins which has personally effected Matt´s 
business and makes me totally embarassed at his depth of commmitment to 
LPI. I just lost a 10 year UNIX/LINUX veteran on another project I was 
PM on to a brokerage house.  He´s writing his LPIC1 next month! I read 
the salary reviews and just want to laugh (even taking into account 
US-CDN dollars conversion).

There was a time two years ago when I had a rep in Canada in the NPO 
sector as operating the equivalent of a digital ¨sweat shop¨.  I lived 
in a low ¨cost-of-living¨ region, had a whole crew of young idealistic 
people who loved open source, and would work for any NGO with a good 
cause for peanuts.  Today, I can´t even afford to speak to these 
people.  Yet every week on some North American mailing list in the NPO 
sector I find people clamouring for linux sysadmins, open source 
developers, etc. etc.

So there´s FUD, anecdotal evidence, and then a confusion of the two.  I 
also suspect that this FUD is a North American phenomenon. What we have 
to do is a better job of ¨selling¨ the value of our certification.  We 
can never replace the value of experience--and those people are going to 
be in high demand for some time.  However, what we can do is say, and 
deliver on, is that our cert reflects basic to intermediate real world 
needs.

Frankly, I think the talent is out there. Which is why I rant so.  We´re 
just not connecting.  In that regard LPI-US has developed a online job 
matching service that in the coming months we may at LPI International 
promote, develop further, mimic, etc.  I´m not sure if this is amongst 
my many work priorities and I´m still working out the details with the 
LPI-US people.  However it needs help.  Lots of help.  Volunteers are 
welcome.  But I´d love to be able to promote an available talent pool of 
LPI certified people and say to those who call me looking for them: ¨go 
look here--you´ll find what you need¨ ;-)

scott





Mark Miller wrote:

>According to this article http://oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/6732 Microsoft
>is making hay on the fact that the Royal Institute of Chartered
>Surveyors has moved from Linux to Microsoft. Part of the issue was a
>lack of Linux talent (they say). I think that we can help this. Is there
>a way to allow our certified people to post that they are available for
>hire as an employee or consultant? Maybe we could provide an open list
>of people who have our cert? These issues are poorly formed in my mind
>right now but I hope you see the direction I am going in.
>
>Is this a way to make the certs more valuable and to promote Linux
>usage?
>  
>

-- 
Scott Lamberton
Director of Community Relations
Linux Professional Institute
Email: scottl at lpi.org
Web: http://www.lpi.org
Telephone: +1-416-666-1574