So You Wanna Be An Admin, Part 1: Deciphering a Job Description

A few months ago, Spongebob (Obviously not their name) requested advice, re: his current job description for his new role as administrator. To provide him with feedback, I read over and broke down his job description.

By the time I was halfway through the job description, it became clear that it wasn’t really a job description for a single administrator’s job. Unfortunately, this kind of issue isn’t uncommon. Many postings for administrator jobs include duties that really don’t fall under the admin role.

In order to help others understand what they might be in for when they apply for an admin position, I’m posting my notes for Spongebob below.

Excerpts from the job description are in gray boxes, with my responses below each box.

Pictured: Probably what Spongebob looked like while reading my original response.

Basically, Spongebob, this job description is telling me you are probably their first admin ever and they don’t have experience with ServiceNow as a system. Often, SN customers think they can get one admin to do all of the stuff in this job description, but I’ve honestly never seen a new admin be able to juggle this much admin and random non-admin work and not burn themselves out.

SERVICE NOW ADMIN - OBJECTIVES

The ServiceNow Administrator is responsible for the operational 
integrity of Service Now. This includes the administration, configuration, management, and support on the company ServiceNow instances. 

They work closely with the Service Manager and the IT Manager to analyze and work out the needs of (end) users and to continuously improve the operation and functionality of the platform.

OK, to start, what does “operational integrity” mean?

What does configuration mean? Are you going to be doing development stuff? Are you purely just an administrator?

The last sentence sounds more like something a product manager would be doing. It sounds like you are expected to have a roadmap, future planning, and a backlog of things that you need to maintain to “improve the operation and functionality of the platform.”

This sounds like a lot to expect of a brand new admin.

Some factors to consider:

• How many employees does the company have?

• How many departments are going to use the system?

• How many are they gonna try to shoehorn in?

• Are they going to have implementation partners help you implement the different parts of the system, or will they expect you to implement everything? (i.e., if HR wants to do HR in SN, are you expected to do this?)

• Will they pay for your education to learn how to do those things if they expect you to do them?

• How many people will be on your team administering the system?

SERVICE NOW ADMIN - RESULT AREAS

System administration

- Ensuring stability, availability, security, and maintenance of the platform

You can’t control the stability or availability of ServiceNow. It’s a cloud system. Unless this means you are responsible for people not putting dumb things into the system, I’d contest this.

One could argue that you can take steps to increase the security of ServiceNow, but you should figure out what exactly is expected of you here.

• Re: Stability - do they expect anyone other than you to be developing in the development instance?

• If that is the case - are you expected to be the one pushing releases into production?

• Are you expected to be the one running the CAB/maintaining the changes for SN?

• Will these changes live in any form of KB? Are you expected to maintain that?

- maintaining both the production and the development environment

• What does “maintenance” involve exactly?

• How many upgrades do they expect per year?

• Are you the one who will be running the upgrades?

• How much do they expect out of you if that is the case?

• Do they want weeks of UAT and for you to test everything in the release by yourself?

- monitoring roadmap and ensuring future operation

This doesn’t sound like an administrator’s responsibility. If they really expect this, they need to up your pay and your title.

- Identifying and following up incidents, problems & changes to the platform

This shouldn’t be done by the sole administrator on a platform. This leads to one of two scenarios:

1. Either you can be the tier 2 or 3 escalation point for the regular helpdesk team your company already employs…

2. …or they should expect you to be flooded by tickets nonstop from people who aren’t used to the platform.

Identifying problems, incidents, and changes to the platform are different functions entirely separate from each other. Depending on the maturity and size of your company, you will likely be flooded with this and barely have time to do the roadmapping, much less any actual “administrator” work.

- Verify Service Now operational integrity and take corrective measures after Service Now upgrades

Once again, what does “operational integrity” mean? What are “corrective measures”?

Project and process management

- providing specific input and analyses for projects and processes

Not admin work; this is what a business analyst does.

- quality control of the (meta)data involved

What does this mean? Once again, not admin work.

- Elaboration of technical requirements

Lmfao what? Not admin work.

Knowledge management and quality control

This should be its OWN team/process.

- suggesting and following up improvement proposals

- regular and systematic verification and auditing of data (quality)

- (Help with) training (end) users

No.

Legitimately. They are asking so much from you just off this job description. This is terrifying. This isn’t what one person can do.

This type of stuff is what a business analyst does. Or a dedicated training team.

Communication and consultation

- transferring analyses and advice to management incl but not limited to the Service Manager, ITIL process managers, Run IT Manager or project teams

What analyses and advice are they actually expecting? What advice can you provide? (IDK your level of experience yet.)

This isn’t what an admin does. This is what a platform owner does. This is what a business analyst does.

- communicating about existing needs, blind spots, and possibilities for improvement, etc.

This is what a product manager or platform owner does.

This is what a business analyst does.

- explaining procedures, processes, and analysis documents

Do you have any experience to support them expecting this from you? Don’t fall into the trap that I fell in to. I legit tried to do this as a newer administrator and it felt awful. I felt inadequate, and I only survived thanks to all the help I got in the ServiceNow slack.

Reports 

- Collecting and analyzing relevant data for performance, SLA, reports

- supplying standard and ad hoc information

What does “standard” and “ad hoc” information mean? This stuff is what a business analyst does. You need to quantify everything in this job description, or it can be weaponized against you in a yearly review.

~ ~ ~

Spongebob’s job description is a good example of a job that could potentially turn into a nightmare just because the employer doesn’t know what an admin actually does or how ServiceNow works. You need to ask the questions above, in a much nicer tone, during your interviews and get clarification for anything you might be confused about.

If you’re new to admin work, be on the lookout for red flags in a job description. Using Spongebob’s example above, we can see a number of red flags, including:

• Vague wording and/or unclarified terms (“operational integrity,” “corrective measures,” “standard and ad hoc information,” etc.)

• Responsibilities that are not related to admin work, signaling that the employer might try to get away with hiring just one person to do the work of two, three, or more employees

• Unquantifiable expectations that make it impossible for you to prove your hard work in an annual review

In Part 2 of this mini series, I’m going to share some information I’ve collected over the years regarding what the community expects from an actual ServiceNow administrator. So be sure to come back!