From: David Wolsefer (dwolsefer@totality.com)
Date: Fri Apr 02 2004 - 16:17:29 GMT-3
Yeah, but did the guy who wrote the RFCs and papers, etc have a CCNA. If he
doesn't have a CCNA, then HR says you can't interview him, much less
actually hire him.
Regards,
David Wolsefer, CCIE #5858
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Munzani [mailto:sam@munzani.com]
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 1:35 PM
To: Chris Larson; ccielab@groupstudy.com
Subject: Re: Bad Interview Experience
Wow!!!. If such fresh CCIE with such attitude is judging potential
candidates, I am sure they will not find right person.
Recently I had taken some interviews for potential candidates at my company.
I go through candidate resumes and ask questions based on their projects.
Once I came across a person who had 17 years or real hands on experience in
consulting world. Many impressive Optical & satellite communication
rollouts. I honestly told the guy that he would get bored at my company and
he agreed. Then I utilized rest of interview time listening him on a few of
his best projects and design desicions. I learned a lot from him in that
interview.
One other guy I came across had half page of publication list including 3
RFCs and many technical papers. He knew 12 programming/scripting languages.
I courteously sent him an e-mail that we would hire him in a heartbit but he
will definately get bored at support role. I still keep his resume and try
to use that as my goal.
Sam
> My VistaPrint Electronic Business CardI just thought I would throw out
> an experience I had yesterday. It was very unnerving and I wonder if
> others
have
> had similiar experiences. I have been in networking for better then 12
years
> but only got CCIE certified in the last year. I have had lots of
interviews
> throughout my carreer, most have had a technical aspect but I never
> felt uncomfortable in any of them until yesterday.
>
>
> Yesterday I walked away from an interview for a consulting position
> with a relatively large company that most people would know feeling
> almost as if
I
> had been attacked. The interview started with 2 people. The hiring
> manager
and
> another technical person. The technical person had some kind of
> attitude.
I
> wanted to just stop the interview and tell them that it didn't matter
about
> the job because there was no way in hell I could work with such an ass
> of
a
> person. This guy had an attitude that almost jumps out and rapes you.
> It wasn't until later that I found he was in fact a fresh CCIE (not
> that all
or
> in fact any fresh CCIE's are that way, most I have met are not), but
> it
might
> explain his attitude and his ability to remember all the details of
> those things you might need to know to pass the CCIE but have little
> relevance
in
> the day to day operations or design of a network and certainly the
> type of things that don't require memory retention for immediate
> retrival. Most
were
> the type of things that you can get from the router or lookup on CCO
> if
you
> need to or would get down to using the ? key.
>
>
> Anyway.... As the interview or "interogation" proceeded, 4 other
> network
guys
> came into the room. The focus of the entire interview was not my past
> experiences at all. I was not asked one question about my past
> experiences
or
> the successes listed on my resume. NOT ONE. That is how almost every
interview
> I have been in starts. Kind of an organizational fit, "what have you
> been doing lately" type of thing. Not this interview. From the very
> start it
was 2
> hours of trying to put me back through the CCIE. It was the most
ridiculous
> thing I have ever been through. It was at times unprofessional and
> rude.
It
> was very surprising coming from a company with such a reputation. A
> couple
of
> times the newly minted CCIE guy would make some snide remark or hmph
> or whatever. I really can't believe they perform interviews that way
> or even
let
> guy like that in the interview. I would think it would turn anyone
> away
from a
> job if they had to be working with that guy.
>
>
> The fact that I could not write out a full ios config for VPN on the
> whiteboard or confused some of the ios crypto command syntax with the
> pix
vpn
> command syntax and totally forgot about transform sets or that I could
> not recall where exactly a type 4 lsa was generated off the top my
> head in
front
> of a whiteboard in the middle of an interview was more important then
> the
fact
> that I had successfully rolled out several large VPN implementations,
> had
lead
> several large OSPF integrations and had successes and references to
> back
it up
> going back 12 years.
>
>
> I also was never asked if I had any questions about the job or the
> work environment. I was never asked if I had any questions at all. I
> can't immediatly recall any interview I have ever been in that lasted
> any
reasonable
> amount of time where I was not asked if there were any questions I
> had.
This
> interview, if you could call it that, lasted 2 hours and I was never
> asked
if
> I had any questions for them.....about the company, about the job
> nothing.
>
>
> It was just very wierd and unprofessional and didn't really seem to
> have anything to do with interviewing a job.
>
>
> After, I called the guy who set me up with the interview and he said
> that
the
> response was that I was strong in some areas and weak in others but
> they
all
> agreed I could do the task. I really don't understand how they arrived
> at
that
> conclusion. I don't think I would take the job unless the actual job
location
> is somewhere esle. It was a very unpleasant experience.
>
>
> No point to this really. I just have never really experienced anything
quite
> like that and wanted to tell the story. I have to believe it did have
> something to do with having the CCIE. In fact, toward the end of the
interview
> techy ass guy said something to the effect of "so you claim to be a
> big
Cisco
> guy, you even have the CCIE logo". I was so tired of this guy. My
> response
was
> "no I don't think I claim to be some big Cisco guy, why? Did I say
> that somewhere in my resume". Well, I guess sometimes you have to
> interview to
know
> where you dont want to work.
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> _
> Please help support GroupStudy by purchasing your study materials from:
> http://shop.groupstudy.com
>
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon May 03 2004 - 19:48:41 GMT-3