Well, there are still less than 10,000 CCIE's. So the population hasn't accelerated THAT dramatically.
Having said that, I will say that the CCIE has most likely gotten less rigorous and therefore less valuable over time. I know this is going to greatly annoy some people when I say this, but the truth is, the average quality of the later (read: high-number) CCIE's is probably lower than the average quality of the higher (read: lower-number) CCIE's. Before any of you high-number CCIE's decides to flame me, ask yourself if you were given the opportunity to trade your number for a lower number, would you do it? For example, if you are CCIE #11,000 and you could trade that number for CCIE #1100, would you take it? Be honest with yourself. I'm sure you would concede that you would. By the same token we also know that no low-number CCIE would willingly trade his number for a higher one. The movement is therefore all "one-way". If all CCIE's were really "created equal" then nobody would really care one way or another which number they had. Therefore the CCIE community realizes that all CCIE's are not created equal and that intuitively that the lower number is more desirable and the higher number is less desirable (otherwise, why does everybody want a lower number?). Simply put, the test is not as rigorous as it was in the past, which is why lower numbers are preferred. Or, I'll put it to you another way. Let's say that starting at #12,000 Cisco makes the test ridiculously hard, putting in all kinds of funky technologies, and making the pass rate less than 1% or some other god-awful number. What would happen? Simple. Word would get around that the "new" CCIE was super-rigorous and therefore very prestigious to pass. Eventually, numbers greater than #12000 would be coveted, and everybody would want to trade in their number for one greater than #12000. Recruiters and HR people would start giving preference to CCIE's with numbers greater than #12000. The point is that when rigor increases, prestige and desirability tends to follow. When rigor declines, so does prestige and desirability. And what is the cause of this decline in rigor? Well, you alluded to several factors. While it is still rather controversial exactly how the switch from 2 days to 1 day impacted the program, it is widely conceded that it probably didn't help. Nor does having all these braindumps all over the Internet, and not just for the written, but the lab as well. The CCIE has certain arcane logistical rules that people have figured out how to 'game' - for example, for example, some people who live near test sites just attempt the lab every month over and over again. Finally, there is the consensus that the CCIE program has simply not kept up with the growing amount of study material, bootcamps, lab-guides, and so forth. We all know there's an entire cottage industry devoted just to helping people to pass the lab, and while there's nothing wrong with that per se, it does mean that Cisco needs to keep pace to maintain test rigor. To offer a parallel situation, when the MCSE bootcamps started to proliferate, the value of the MCSE plummeted because Microsoft did not properly maintain the rigor of the cert. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=70184&t=70151 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
