Top 12 Systems Administrator Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today's competitive tech landscape, a Systems Administrator's resume has to sing both technical depth and calm operational judgment. Show skills that keep systems humming and people unblocked. Shine a light on the tools you steer, the automations you’ve built, and how you handle fires without feeding them.

Systems Administrator Skills

1. Linux/Unix
2. Windows Server
3. VMware ESXi
4. Active Directory
5. PowerShell/Bash
6. Cisco Networking
7. AWS/Azure
8. Docker/Kubernetes
9. SQL Server
10. Python/Ruby
11. Ansible/Puppet
12. Nagios/Zabbix

1. Linux/Unix

Linux/Unix powers huge swaths of servers and network gear. Stable, secure, scriptable. The command line is a scalpel; the system is yours to shape.

Why It's Important

For a Systems Administrator, Linux/Unix offers reliability, fine-grained control, and a rich ecosystem for automation and observability—core ingredients for scalable, sane operations.

How to Improve Linux/Unix Skills

Build fundamentals, then layer on practice and curiosity.

1. Master the command line: Navigate, filter, compose. Know your pipes, redirection, permissions, processes, and package managers.

   • The Linux Command Line (book by William Shotts)

2. Script like you mean it: Bash for glue and automation; Python when logic grows or data wrangling creeps in.

   • Bash Guide
   • Automate the Boring Stuff with Python

3. Understand the guts: systemd, services, journald, filesystems, memory, scheduling, namespaces, cgroups.

   • Linux Documentation Project Guides

4. Security first: SSH hardening, firewalls (nftables/iptables), PAM, auditd, SELinux/AppArmor, patch cadence.

   • Linux Security for Beginners

5. Network fluency: IP, routing, VLANs, DNS, DHCP, bonding, netfilter, tcpdump, ss.

   • Beginner’s Guide to Networking in Linux

6. Performance and tuning: top/htop/iotop, perf, eBPF tools, sysctl, storage queues. Measure first, then tune.

   • Linux Performance (Brendan Gregg)

7. Version control everything: Git for scripts, configs, and runbooks. Change history is gold.

   • Pro Git (book)

8. Containers and orchestration: Docker basics, Kubernetes building blocks, and the surrounding tooling.

   • Docker Get Started
   • Kubernetes Basics

9. Keep learning: Release notes, distro wikis, kernel news. Small lab experiments, often.

   • Linux Academy course archives / similar curricula

10. Practice relentlessly: Home lab with VirtualBox/VMware, KVM, or small cloud sandboxes (AWS/GCP/Azure).

11. Find your people: Forums, user groups, and sysadmin communities help you shortcut dead ends.

    • Reddit’s r/linuxadmin

Keep poking at the black box until it’s not a box anymore. Curiosity pays.

How to Display Linux/Unix Skills on Your Resume

2. Windows Server

Windows Server underpins identity, files, applications, and virtualization across many enterprises. Mature tooling, deep AD integration, extensive management options.

Why It's Important

It centralizes identity and access, hosts critical apps, and offers robust manageability. When configured well, it’s steady and predictable—exactly what you want.

How to Improve Windows Server Skills

1. Patch and update on schedule: Use WSUS, Windows Update for Business, or your RMM. Track CVEs, test, then roll out.

2. Measure first: Performance Monitor, Resource Monitor, and Windows Admin Center give signal. Baseline your systems.

3. Harden: Windows Defender, firewall profiles, AppLocker or WDAC, Credential Guard, LAPS/LAPS2, secure SMB, TLS defaults, and CIS baselines.

4. Backups that actually restore: Windows Server Backup or enterprise backup, off-site/offline copies, routine restore tests.

5. Lean server roles: Only the roles and features you need. Less noise, smaller attack surface.

6. Active Directory hygiene: Strong password policies, fine-grained policies, proper OU/GPO design, stale object cleanup, tiered admin model.

7. Network access control: NPS, segmentation, and sensible DNS/DHCP design.

8. Automate with PowerShell: Idempotent scripts, DSC where it fits, consistent configuration.

9. Audit and observe: Centralized logging, security auditing, and regular reviews. Know what “normal” looks like.

10. Use modern tooling: Windows Admin Center, Azure Arc, hybrid benefits where appropriate. Windows Server 2022 and 2025 bring security and SMB improvements worth adopting.

How to Display Windows Server Skills on Your Resume

3. VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor that slices one server into many VMs. Resource control, isolation, resilience—the virtualization backbone.

Why It's Important

Virtualization reduces sprawl, increases availability, and standardizes recovery. ESXi with vSphere lets you pack more reliability into fewer boxes.

How to Improve VMware ESXi Skills

1. Stay current: Apply patches and plan upgrades across hosts with Lifecycle Manager. Track hardware compatibility and firmware.

2. Right-size VMs: Allocate CPU/memory by evidence, not habit. Monitor contention, ballooning, co-stop, and NUMA alignment.

3. High availability by design: Enable HA and DRS, test host isolation behavior, keep admission control honest.

4. Solid storage: vSAN or well-tuned external arrays. Mind queue depths, paths, multipathing, and datastore placement.

5. Harden hosts: Lockdown mode, reduce shell access, firewall rules, secure boot, and consistent host profiles.

6. Observe everything: vCenter alarms, vRealize Ops or similar. Capacity planning beats crisis scaling.

7. Network sanity: vDS where possible, NIOC/QoS, redundant uplinks, and clear VLAN mapping end-to-end.

8. VM hardware versions: Keep tools and hardware versions modern—new performance features hide there.

How to Display VMware ESXi Skills on Your Resume

4. Active Directory

Active Directory centralizes identity, policy, and access across Windows domains. It anchors authentication and authorization for countless services.

Why It's Important

It’s the gatekeeper. Get AD right and you reduce friction, strengthen security, and make access predictable.

How to Improve Active Directory Skills

1. Patch and protect DCs: Update regularly, use read-only DCs where appropriate, and limit interactive logons on domain controllers.

2. Harden credentials: Strong password policies, smart lockout thresholds, MFA for admins, Protected Users, and constrained delegation.

3. Tiered admin model: Separate admin tiers, use Privileged Access Workstations, and time-bound privileged roles.

4. Audit and monitor: Advanced auditing, normalized logs, and alerting for sensitive changes (e.g., DC shadow, KRBTGT reset, GPO edits).

5. Backups you can trust: System state backups, authoritative/non-authoritative restore practice, multi-DC restore drills.

6. Clean directory health: Remove stale users/computers, review group nesting, fix lingering objects, validate replication.

7. Hybrid clarity: If integrated with Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), document sync flows, writeback, identity governance, and SSO boundaries.

How to Display Active Directory Skills on Your Resume

5. PowerShell/Bash

PowerShell and Bash are the admin’s accelerators. Scripting turns toil into buttons you press once.

Why It's Important

These shells unlock automation, repeatability, and scale. One script can do the careful work of a hundred hands, without typos.

How to Improve PowerShell/Bash Skills

PowerShell

1. Think objects, not text: Cmdlets, pipelines, formatting, filtering—compose results, don’t scrape them.
2. Structure your code: Functions, modules, parameters, and comment-based help. Reuse beats copy-paste.
3. Expand with modules: Explore built-ins and community modules. DSC where configuration drift hurts.
4. Handle errors deliberately: try/catch/finally, $ErrorActionPreference, and robust logging.
5. Keep pace: PowerShell 7+ brings cross-platform and speed; adopt it where practical.

Bash

1. Core command fluency: grep, awk, sed, xargs, find, sort, uniq. Tiny tools, big impact.
2. Script safely: set -euo pipefail, quoting discipline, functions, traps, and exit codes.
3. Environment awareness: PATH, locales, shells, user profiles. Consistency matters.
4. Remote work: SSH basics, keys, multiplexing, ProxyJump, and rsync tricks.
5. Regex sense: Fast text surgery when data gets messy.

How to Display PowerShell/Bash Skills on Your Resume

6. Cisco Networking

Cisco gear and software stitch networks together. Routing, switching, wireless, security—the backbone and the edges.

Why It's Important

Solid networking makes everything else feel fast and reliable. Misconfigure one VLAN or ACL and you’ll feel it everywhere.

How to Improve Cisco Networking Skills

1. Certification paths help: CCNA for essentials; CCNP and beyond for design, security, and complex architectures.

2. Simulate, then lab: Packet Tracer, GNS3, or a home rack. Repetition burns in the muscle memory.

3. Intent and consistency: Standardize configs, use templates, and commit to source control.

4. Get chatty with communities: Ask, answer, and learn from real incidents others have already solved.

5. Stay current: New IOS-XE features, telemetry, model-driven programmability, and zero-touch provisioning are worth your time.

How to Display Cisco Networking Skills on Your Resume

7. AWS/Azure

AWS and Azure provide elastic compute, storage, databases, identity, and a sprawling toolkit for building and operating at speed.

Why It's Important

Cloud platforms turn capital expense into on-demand capacity. With the right guardrails, you gain speed without chaos.

How to Improve AWS/Azure Skills

AWS

1. Foundations first: IAM least privilege, accounts and orgs, tagging strategy, CloudTrail/Config, backups, and cost guardrails.
2. Architecture sense: Well-Architected pillars—reliability, security, cost, performance, sustainability, operations.
3. Hands-on: Free tiers and sandboxes. Build, break, rebuild.
4. Automate: Infrastructure as Code with CloudFormation or Terraform; pipelines with CodeBuild/CodePipeline or your CI of choice.

Azure

1. Identity up front: Microsoft Entra ID, Privileged Identity Management, Conditional Access, and Role-Based Access Control.
2. Landing zones: Management groups, policy, blueprints, and clear subscription boundaries.
3. IaC and pipelines: Bicep or Terraform, plus Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions for CI/CD.
4. Watch costs: Budgets, alerts, reservations, savings plans, and right-sizing.

How to Display AWS/Azure Skills on Your Resume

8. Docker/Kubernetes

Docker packages apps into portable containers. Kubernetes orchestrates them across nodes with self-healing and scale in mind.

Why It's Important

Consistency from laptop to production, fast rollouts, safer rollbacks. Resource efficiency without asking teams to rewrite everything at once.

How to Improve Docker/Kubernetes Skills

1. Build lean images: Small base images, multi-stage builds, pinned versions, health checks, and SBOMs.

2. Probe and protect: Liveness/readiness/startup probes, resource requests and limits, and Pod Security Standards. NetworkPolicies to fence traffic.

3. Supply chain sanity: Scan images, sign artifacts, track provenance. Keep registries tidy and private.

4. Autoscale with evidence: HPA/VPA, cluster autoscaler, and metrics that reflect real user demand.

5. Observe everything: Structured logs, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus-style metrics, and clear SLOs.

6. Keep clusters current: Regular minor upgrades, CNI/CNI plugin health, and etcd backups you’ve tested.

How to Display Docker/Kubernetes Skills on Your Resume

9. SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server stores and serves data for applications small to massive. Security, performance, and resilience depend on good care and feeding.

Why It's Important

Databases are the heartbeat. When they’re fast and protected, everything built on them feels smooth and safe.

How to Improve SQL Server Skills

1. Tune queries: Index with intent, scrutinize execution plans, avoid SELECT *, and parameterize wisely.

2. Index upkeep: Rebuild or reorganize as needed, purge duplicates, and watch write amplification.

3. Statistics matter: Keep them fresh so the optimizer chooses well.

4. TempDB care: Fast storage, multiple data files, sensible trace flags when appropriate.

5. Thoughtful configuration: MAXDOP, Cost Threshold for Parallelism, memory caps, and instant file initialization.

6. Maintenance you can trust: Backups (full/diff/log), DBCC CHECKDB, and regular restore testing.

7. Use the toolbox: SSMS, DMVs, Extended Events, Query Store (SQL Server 2016+), and Activity Monitor sparingly.

8. Right-size hardware: Adequate RAM, modern CPUs, SSD/NVMe for I/O, and storage separation for logs and data where applicable.

9. Modern features: If on SQL Server 2022, explore Intelligent Query Processing and security enhancements.

How to Display SQL Server Skills on Your Resume

10. Python/Ruby

Python and Ruby are approachable languages that make automation and tooling pleasant. Readable, expressive, and quick to deliver value.

Why It's Important

Automation shrinks toil. These languages help stitch systems together, parse logs, hit APIs, and build small services that save big time.

How to Improve Python/Ruby Skills

For Python:

1. Grasp the basics: Syntax, data structures, virtual environments, packaging.

2. Automate admin tasks: User management, log parsing, backups, API calls, and cloud SDKs.

3. Standard libraries first: subprocess, pathlib, logging, argparse, threading/asyncio when needed.

4. Projects, not just snippets: Build small tools with tests and docs. Treat them like products.

5. Keep current: Follow release notes and community tips to avoid stale patterns.

For Ruby:

1. Core Ruby fluency: Objects, blocks, enumerables, and exceptions.

2. Scripting focus: System tasks, file manipulation, and API integrations.

3. Gems that help: capistrano for deployments, and configuration tools where they fit your stack.

4. Practice with purpose: Automate one annoying task each week; commit the result.

5. Learn continuously: Read other people’s code; steal good ideas.

How to Display Python/Ruby Skills on Your Resume

11. Ansible/Puppet

Ansible and Puppet bring order to configuration. Define the desired state and let the tooling chase it relentlessly.

• Ansible uses YAML playbooks over SSH, agentless and approachable. Great for fast wins and clear workflows.

• Puppet uses a declarative model and typically agents, very strong in complex, policy-heavy environments.

Why It's Important

Configuration management slashes drift, reduces manual work, and scales your influence across fleets of machines.

How to Improve Ansible/Puppet Skills

Ansible:

1. Playbook craftsmanship: Idempotent tasks, handlers, and clear variable hierarchies. Fail loudly when needed.

2. Roles and Collections: Reusable roles, shared Collections, and a predictable project layout.

3. Dynamic inventory: Cloud inventories, CMDB integrations, and environment-specific targeting.

4. Secrets and safety: Ansible Vault, least privilege, and dry runs (check mode) before wide rollouts.

5. CI for infra: Lint, test (molecule), and gate changes like you would application code.

Puppet:

1. Language fluency: Classes, defined types, and templates that are easy to read later.

2. Modules and Forge: Use vetted modules; write your own where necessary, with proper testing.

3. Hiera for data: Keep data out of code. Clear precedence and environments.

4. Code management: r10k or similar for environments, branching, and promotion workflows.

5. Continuous checks: Linting, rspec-puppet, and canary nodes before broad releases.

How to Display Ansible/Puppet Skills on Your Resume

12. Nagios/Zabbix

Nagios and Zabbix keep watch. They collect, alert, visualize, and give you time to respond before users notice.

• Nagios offers a lean core with a sprawling plugin ecosystem, powerful for bespoke checks and event handlers.

• Zabbix provides an integrated platform with templates, auto-discovery, proxies for scale, and rich dashboards.

Together or separately, they anchor proactive operations.

Why It's Important

Monitoring turns unknowns into data and data into action. High availability starts with early warnings and good runbooks.

How to Improve Nagios/Zabbix Skills

Nagios

1. Configuration hygiene: Use templates and inheritance. Keep hostgroups/servicegroups tidy.

2. Plugins everywhere: Extend coverage with community plugins or write light wrappers for your systems.

3. Performance tuning: Balance active vs. passive checks, adjust intervals, and scale workers sensibly.

4. Event handlers: Auto-remediate the common stuff; page humans for the weird stuff.

Zabbix

1. Templates win: Standardize items, triggers, and graphs across similar assets.

2. Agent choices: Active vs. passive checks chosen by topology and scale.

3. Proxies for reach: Distribute load, monitor remote sites, and survive links going down.

4. Database care: History/trend housekeeping and partitioning for big environments.

How to Display Nagios/Zabbix Skills on Your Resume