Now, formal education does not mean you're going to learn these types of things, but what it does tell me is that you can learn in a formal environment, and if need be, I can put you in training and expect you to absorb the material in a meaningful way.
You can gauge an individuals ability to learn in an interview, it is a cop out to say that just because someone received some sort of degree that they can learn through a 2 week course - it could have taken 8 years at a full load to get that 4 year degree, the paper makes no distinction. From a business perspective why pay for courses when the individual will learn the same or more with a book and/or community involvement. I have learned far more by getting drunk with really smart people than by taking any courses.
-matt
KVM and LVM are pretty darn good, but work only with Linux (a good or bad thing depending on your choice).
Not sure what you mean by this... Linux-KVM works fantastic with Windows Guests. I haven't had the need to test the BSD's on it but I can't see why it wouldn't work. I am of course assuming that you are talking about guest support, since it really doesn't matter what a hypervisor runs when you are talking about type 1 hypervisors.
Now fact of the matter is that VMWare does have a proven history, and that history is only compounded by their acquisition into EMC. Both of those companies are horrendously expensive, and frankly abuse their customers with the constant licensing changes. Frankly Microsoft at least has the licensing portion of their hypervisor free, and honestly they are closing the gap when it comes to features and performance. Though they still can't properly support Linux Guests, which is a shame.
-matt
Fast, cheap, good: pick two.