From: Scott Morris (swm@emanon.com)
Date: Wed Sep 14 2005 - 21:34:34 GMT-3
It may be a silly suggestion, but think of volunteering work.
If nothing else, we just had a fairly decent disaster down in the southern
US. Now, call me silly, but most datacenters while they may have been
designed to withstand SOME water and lack of electricity were likely not
designed for a Category5 hurricane and subsequent demise of the levee
system. You can always try the volunteer organization (The Red Cross as an
example has an IT group for disaster response) or things like that which can
not only lend to experience in short order, but also go a long way for
marketing of "you donated your time".
Now, of course, you need to be able to handle that financial burden of
voluteering time. Perhaps your current employer is cool with that, but it's
an option anyway.
Scott
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Vijay Ramcharan
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 6:41 PM
To: Cisco certification
Subject: Newly minted CCIE travelling the well-beaten path of inexperience
I've been searching for an active networking role since July and I'm slowly
despairing of ever finding something. Seeking some encouragement, I began
searching the GroupStudy archives and found this thread:
http://www.groupstudy.com/archives/ccielab/200404/msg00115.html
This message in the thread sums it up nicely.
http://www.groupstudy.com/archives/ccielab/200404/msg00265.html
If I had taken a better look at my situation and gone searching the archives
2 months ago, I'd be less disappointed than I am now. Since I posted my
resume on Monster and Dice this July, I've been on a number of interviews
but my lack of "large network" experience has been my Achilles heel. That's
not to say that I'm inept or anything like that.
My most recent round of interviews resulted in this, "Everyone that
interviewed you came away very impressed with your knowledge and
presentation abilities. We have however, identified a candidate that has
more practical experience, and are going to pursue him."
Before that it was something along the lines of "we feel you are technically
sound for a level 2 position but you have no practical experience in large
networks so we cannot go forward with you"
And so it has been for pretty much all of the in-person and phone interviews
that I've had.
I'm not even concerned about pay rate as job satisfaction is much more
important to me. Being a great network engineer is my long-term goal but
it's impossible to be great without day-to-day experience. I find that's
what helps to solidify the theory and lab work and keeps what I've learnt on
the journey to CCIE from becoming ephemeral.
I'm willing to put in the time to learn and do more and I've proven that I'm
technically capable but it seems that even with the CCIE, getting a foot in
the door is not that easy. Maybe it's because I live in NY and there's a bit
of a competition for junior level spots but I sure was hoping that my cert
would put me near the top half of a candidate list.
I know there are others on this list in the same plight that I'm in so as a
word of encouragement to myself and those, "hang in there, somewhere,
someone, is willing to give you a chance".
I'm still searching...
Vijay Ramcharan, CCIE #14824, CCDP, MCSE
P.S.
I'm currently employed and have been at the same employer for almost 5 years
now. I don't do much day-to-day networking duties nor is there any future
opportunity for that here or I'd be glad to stay.
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