Unfortunately, even with the technical knowledge/skills it is exceedingly difficult to hire good technical people for full time positions. Twice now I have been burned by Sys Admin candidates that looked good on paper and interviewed well, but didn't live up to their billing. In the first case the admin was only using us as a stepping stone before taking a job in a web business.

The next time we were a little smarter and went the contract-to-hire route. While this limits the number of candidates you'll see, the safety factor of this "try before you buy" proved to be worth it. My second admin was bright and knowledgable, but couldn't grasp the big picture and had problems taking direction. After I got rid of him we had to re-work almost everything he touched.