Howard C. Berkowitz wrote: > > I commend people to remember the tale of the Emperor's New > Clothes here. > > It utterly confounds me that people are focusing on the CCIE > number > as the discriminator for a hiring decision, "lower being > better."
I'm just telling you what I've seen. I think anybody who's been looking for work lately knows that this is happening. Whether they agree with it or not is besides the point. It's happening. > > Lower means that one obtained the certification earlier. > Presumably, > since the number was obtained, the individual has been > working. This > can mean that the lower-numbered candidate can present a solid > track > record of CCIE-level work experience to an employer, while the > higher-numbered candidate simply may not have the experience. Which is why I provided the thought exercise of people trading their number. I didn't talk about people trading their experience level - just their number. For example, I'm fairly sure that CCIE #1100 will never willingly trade his number for #11,000. But why not - his experience level will stay the same. It's because that everybody realizes that there is a, dare I say it, a stigma attached to higher numbers - particularly to those guys who passed after the test was changed from 2 days to 1. The fact is, everybody wants to have the lowest number they can get, all other things being equal, and the inescapable reason behind this is that the test has declined in overall quality with time. For example, like I said, the change from 2 days to 1 was probably not a good thing. So was the loss of the dedicated troubleshooting section which was the one truly realistic part of the old exam. The proliferation of super-specialized bootcamps that are geared not to making a person a better overall engineer but geared strictly to help people pass the test and nothing more. Things like that have all chipped away at the rigor of the program. Now, let me point out this. It's not the "fault" of the recent CCIE's that things are like this. They're not the ones who are causing this decline. And it's certainly not my fault - I didn't cause this decline, so why are people jumping down my throat? You don't like it? Take it up with the entity that's responsible. The entity responsible is Cisco itself. It is Cisco that changed the test from 2 days to 1. It is Cisco that removed the troubleshooting section. > > I've never regarded certification, in any field, as more than > an > entry point. Let's put it this way -- when I had to have > open-heart > surgery, I could have chosen among several board-certified > surgeons. > The most important factors, however, were how many procedures > they > had done, and, even more importantly, how frequently they do > them. > Surgical statistics show, without question, that "part-time" > cardiac > surgeons and their teams do not have the good results of > someone that > does such procedures constantly. Let me put it to you this way, Howard. There have been quite a few rather emotional responses in this thread. So, rightly or wrongly, a lot of people seem to regard this particular certification as certainly a lot more than an entry point. If the CCIE wasn't a big deal, then nobody would really care that I'm pointing out problems with it. Therefore obviously some people believe that the stakes are high. > > Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=70312&t=70151 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
