System Administrator

Credible resume terms

Terms that should plausibly appear on a real System Administrator resume. “Must-have” marks the ones whose total absence is a genuine red flag.

• Windows ServerMust-have

  Microsoft's operating system for company servers, running services such as logins (Active Directory), file sharing, DNS, DHCP and websites (IIS).

• Linux Administration (RHEL)

  Running Linux servers day to day: installing and patching, managing users, storage and services, hardening security, and troubleshooting when things break.

• Active DirectoryMust-have

  Microsoft's directory for company networks: it holds every user, computer and group, checks logins, and applies settings to machines through Group Policy (GPOs).

• VMware vSphere

  The leading platform for running many virtual servers on each physical server in a company's own data centre.

• Virtualization / HypervisorMust-have

  Running several virtual computers (virtual machines, or VMs) on one physical server, each with its own operating system.

• PowerShell

  Microsoft's scripting language and command line for automating Windows, Active Directory, Microsoft 365 and Azure.

• Bash / Shell Scripting

  Writing scripts in a Unix shell (most commonly Bash) to automate command-line tasks — file processing, deployment steps, cron jobs — often the glue between other tools rather than an application language itself.

• Backup & Recovery (Veeam, Commvault)

  Copying a company's servers, databases and files on a schedule so they can be restored after deletion, corruption, hardware failure or ransomware.

• SAN/NAS Storage

  Shared storage for a company's servers. A SAN (storage area network) gives servers fast disk space over a dedicated network, often Fibre Channel, and suits databases and virtual machines.

• Microsoft 365 / Exchange Online

  Running a company's Microsoft email and collaboration services: Exchange for mailboxes, plus Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive, along with licences and security settings.

• Intune / SCCM (Endpoint Management)

  Managing all of a company's laptops, desktops and phones centrally: installing software, pushing updates, applying security settings, and wiping lost devices.

• ITIL

  The most widely used set of good practices for running IT services: how incidents are logged and resolved, how recurring problems are traced to a root cause, and how changes are approved before they reach live systems.

System Administrator: screening questions

One question per core skill, must-haves first. Each term’s page shows what a junior and a senior answer sound like.

1. Windows Server

   “What's the largest Windows Server upgrade or migration you've done, and what did you automate along the way?”

2. Active Directory

   “Beyond creating users, what have you designed or changed in Active Directory, such as Group Policy, domain structure, or syncing with Entra ID?”

3. Virtualization / Hypervisor

   “Which virtualization platforms have you run in production, and how would you compare them?”

4. Linux Administration (RHEL)

   “Tell me about a Linux server problem in production that you fixed. How did you find the cause?”

5. VMware vSphere

   “How many hosts and virtual machines did you manage, and have you been part of a migration onto or off VMware?”

Adjacent, but not real signal

These read as related, but they don’t tell you this candidate can do this job — they usually belong to one of the roles below.

• L1/L2/L3 Support

  How IT support is split by depth. L1 (the help desk or service desk) takes the first call and fixes common issues from a script; L2 handles problems that need hands-on technical work; L3 is the specialists or developers who fix the root cause in the system or code.

• Kubernetes

  A system for automatically deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications across many machines.

• Terraform

  A popular open-source tool for defining and provisioning cloud infrastructure using code (a leading Infrastructure as Code tool).

Most often confused with

• Network Engineer

  Designs, configures and troubleshoots the networks a company runs on: routers, switches, firewalls, Wi-Fi and the links between offices and data centres. Usually Cisco-certified, and works on the network itself, not on the servers or cloud services that use it.

• DevOps Engineer

  Builds the automation connecting development to deployment — CI/CD, infrastructure as code, release process. Reliability is a byproduct, not the mandate.

System Administrator: search strings