From: Gary Duncanson (gary.duncanson@googlemail.com)
Date: Sun Oct 14 2007 - 07:08:25 ART
There are bad practices but let's not be too quick to jump to conclusions
about people.
I can assure you my friend was not cynically taking slots away from others,
he was as well prepared as anyone could be regularly working hard after
hours to cover the syllabus while holding down a demanding job before
passing on his fifth attempt in 2004. That's five labs spread out across
three - four years of studying. Many of our CCIE's have failed the exam
three or more times. That's common for many guys in fulltime work. It
doesn't necessarily mean they are all taking labs for recon. Add to which we
are all warned at the beginning of our studies how slippery the lab exam is
and that many timeserved engineers have walked away from it shaking their
heads (I think I read that statement in a book in 2000).
One must be careful of stigmatising any CCIE who does not pass first time.
It's unfair and will alienate most of the people on the list. I shall be
taking my first attempt next year when I am fully prepared, at the same time
I learn a good deal from the many CCIEs on the list and most of them are
multiple attempt people.
The field is a great leveler anyway. That is the true test of a network
professional regardless of how many certifications they possess. If you
'fluff' your way through something as prestigous as the CCIE and then find
yourself working alongside capable people and you are handed demanding
technical requirements then sooner or later you will have a very bad day at
the office.
----- Original Message -----
From: "nrf" <noglikirf@hotmail.com>
To: "Guyler, Rik" <rguyler@shp-dayton.org>; "'Gary Duncanson'"
<gary.duncanson@googlemail.com>
Cc: "Scott Morris" <smorris@ipexpert.com>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>; "Darby
Weaver" <darbyweaver@yahoo.com>; "Usankin, Andrew"
<Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard F."
<Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>; <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Burkett, Michael"
<Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>; "Brad Ellis" <brad@ccbootcamp.com>;
<cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Brian Dennis"
<bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>; <security@groupstudy.com>;
<comserv@groupstudy.com>; "Eric Dobyns" <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 7:32 AM
Subject: Re: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Guyler, Rik" <rguyler@shp-dayton.org>
> To: "'Gary Duncanson'" <gary.duncanson@googlemail.com>; "nrf"
> <noglikirf@hotmail.com>
> Cc: "Scott Morris" <smorris@ipexpert.com>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>;
> "Darby Weaver" <darbyweaver@yahoo.com>; "Usankin, Andrew"
> <Andrew.Usankin@twtelecom.com>; "Rahmlow, Howard F."
> <Howard.F.Rahmlow@unisys.com>; <sheherezada@gmail.com>; "Burkett, Michael"
> <Michael.Burkett@c-a-m.com>; "Brad Ellis" <brad@ccbootcamp.com>;
> <cheffner@certified-labs.com>; "Brian Dennis"
> <bdennis@internetworkexpert.com>; <security@groupstudy.com>;
> <comserv@groupstudy.com>; "Eric Dobyns" <eric_dobyns@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 12, 2007 12:26 PM
> Subject: RE: CCIE Lab Price Increase
>
>
>> Great story Gary and describes very closely what I went through during my
>> first two attempts. In fact, I told my employer (who paid for both labs)
>> that I wasn't ready for my first one and wanted to reschedule and my boss
>> told me to just go take it for the experience. Let he who is without sin
>> cast the first stone. Let he who is without lab experience STFU about
>> how
>> we should change the way we do lab business.
>
> See, this is precisely what I'm talking about. You guys were taking away
> spots from others.
>
> Now, I can agree that if there are extra spots that nobody was using
> anyway, then sure, by all means, use the seat for experience or for
> practice. Fine. But, come on, if somebody else is out there who actually
> wanted to use it to make a bonafide attempt at passing the exam, why
> shouldn't that seat go to him? Why should you get it? He can't get the
> seat because some other people just want to use that seat for practice?
> Is that fair?
>
> Now, don't get me wrong. I am cetainly not blaming you. You didn't do
> anything that was against the rules. The problem is with the RULES.
> Cisco allows this to happen, hence Cisco is to blame.
>
>
>>
>> And about having more information not being a bad thing? I'll say it's
>> almost always bad if it's being misunderstood and not put into the proper
>> context. If I failed 5 times and HR or even most technical managers saw
>> that, surely they would believe me to be less of an engineer than the
>> person
>> that passed first try. Because these people have no concept of the lab
>> experience they cannot possibly put the pass/fail rate into proper
>> context.
>> I don't want any part of my lab scores in the hands of people like that.
>> I
>> trust most of you to understand what a fail means (nothing for the most
>> part) but not them.
>
> Labor markets are far smarter and flexibe than that. After all, like I
> said previously, plenty of companies don't care if you have a terrible
> college GPA, or even whether you went to college at all. That's
> information right there that companies could use, but not all of them care
> to use it.
>
> Furthermore, more importantly, you seem concerned about what information
> regarding test attempts might be signalling, but we also have to consider
> what the LACK of information is currently signalling. For example, you
> talk about some companies that might discriminate against a CCIE if they
> knew that the CCIE failed 5 times. Ok, sure. But at the same time, those
> same companies are probably discriminating against ALL CCIE's RIGHT NOW.
> Why? Because right now, they don't know how many times any particular CCIE
> failed. He might have passed on the first time. He might have failed 20
> times. The company doesn't know. Hence, the "safe" thing for the company
> to do is to discriminate against ALL CCIE's by just not relying on the
> certification at all for hiring. For example, the company might simply
> decide that they will never hire any IT people through public job
> postings, but instead only hire through referrals from current employees
> (I think that something like 90+% of all hiring is done this way).
>
> The upshot is that those companies who would choose to discriminate
> against perpetual CCIE test takers are the same companies who, right now,
> probably don't have confidence in the CCIE. Economists would deem this to
> be a market failure due to incomplete information. When faced with
> incomplete information, many market actors will simply choose not to
> transact at all, and markets therefore break down entirely.
>
> What that means is that the guy who failed 5 times and now can't get a job
> from some company (because the company prefers 1st-time passers) were,
> frankly, not going to get a job with that company anyway (again, because
> that company was probably previously hiring through referrals because it
> didn't know what kind of CCIE it was getting, so it instead chose not to
> transact through that market at all).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Nov 16 2007 - 13:11:14 ART