Gokhan,

I just moved from the DC area.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but since 
the majority of work out there is with the Federal Gov, specifically the 
Defense industry, it maybe be extremely difficult to find a job in the area as 
a foreign national - especially with the economy in the toilet.  92% of the 
engineers of the staff at my last gig had Top Secret clearances or higher.  

Are you locked into the DC area?  If not, I would look at New York, Boston, 
Chicago, etc.  They are large multi-national, multi-cultural cities that would 
be more amiable to hiring foreigners.  I would stay away from the South :)

Honestly, if you get your CCIE, I don't think you will have trouble finding 
work anywhere (IMO).  Many smaller companies need CCIEs on staff to 
obtain/preserve their partnership levels with Cisco.  This is one "benefit" of 
being a CCIE that is rarely mentioned...  Even if they couldn't put you at a 
customer's site due to Clearance issues, they could probably use you in-house.  
The last company I worked for offered me quite a bit of money in incentives to 
get my IE; i.e. training, the lab fee, etc.  They also said whatever I didn't 
use, I could keep.  Not too bad of a deal...  I later found out that they were 
"down" an IE and were in jeopardy of loosing their partnership status.  It may 
cost them a $40k premium (or whatever) to keep an IE on staff, but they make it 
up in deeper discounts with Cisco, which make them more competitive with the 
larger resellers out there.  

I know the beginning of my email contradicts the end, but I wanted to paint a 
full picture for you.  How far are you from getting your IE?  Feel free to 
email me directly if you would like more specific information that doesn't need 
to be flooded to the rest of the group.

-Erik


-----Original Message-----
From: ccie_rs-boun...@onlinestudylist.com 
[mailto:ccie_rs-boun...@onlinestudylist.com] On Behalf Of gökhan duymaz
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 12:20 AM
To: ccie_rs@onlinestudylist.com
Subject: [OSL | CCIE_RS] Career in USA

Hi guys,
I arrived to USA (DC) a few days ago. Can anyone advice me about jobs in USA. 
As far as I see secret clearance is a big issue. Is monster, dice etc. the only 
way to find a job?                                                             
My conditions,                                                         Green 
Card Holder.                                                                 
Currently have CCNP and just started studying CCIE.  No serious hands-on cisco 
experience. (Dynagen).        3 years Nortel employee (career data dept) in 
Turkey. Thanks in advance.                                                
Gokhan                                                

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