Top skills for a System Administrator

Being a system administrator is more than you think.

It’s a role that requires many skills, not just technical ones. Your decision regarding the best person to hire is not dependent on these technical skills. Still what are the best skills you should have as a system administrator?

Customer service skills. As a sys admin you are constantly interacting with people, trying to help them and resolve their problems and issues and always trying to make the customer happy

Pressure is your friend. Worst case scenario the whole system goes down and this can affect more than 3000 people and their work and as unfortunate consequence the company could lose a lot of revenue as long as the system is down. So your abilities to cope under pressure can be a great asset if you ever encounter one of these scenarios.

Disaster planning. Planning ahead is really important for you job as a system administrator, you’ll have to make accurate predictions regarding a lot of negative scenarios and try to think of all the possibilities to fix them and make good time. Always be prepared for anything.

Contacts. You’ll find that in your system administrator arsenal your contacts are mandatory. Encountering different problems that sometimes will be overwhelming or you don’t have the necessary information and knowledge to fix them so your friends/network can come in handy.

Self-learner. Learning new information without guidance and fast is important. Sometimes you will encounter new tasks that you may or you may not be prepared for, whether is installing a new product or troubleshooting a new product.

Technical skills. Your skills have to be up to date, current and in demand because they are called upon daily for a system admin and should be current.

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