> > But then the next problem is "how many years" of experience is > considered valid? > > Honestly, I do not think the number of years of experience > means that > much a fair number of the time. Why? Well, it depends on the > "quality" of the experience, in my book. > > Advanced troubleshooting, initial deployments, fixing broken > deployments, putting out serious fires and network meltdowns, > isn't > that worth a bit more than... ho hum, I see the green light on > the > NMS. Let us talk more about bringing up a new T1 link and > calling in > Cisco TAC to help. Oh... got to recover a password again, let > us > call Cisco TAC again. Hrmp... using this /24 for this serial > link > sure seems to work at my last company. Let us do it again! > (given > the condition they have no valid reason to be using RIPv1 in > this > case either...). What are those pesky summaries used for > again? Why > is traffic being routed through my 56K link instead of the > adjacent > T1? This is the kind of stuff I hear. > > While I know there are plenty of bright guys with plenty of > years of > solid experience (you guys know who you are, this is not about > you > guys), since I work as a consultant, I am constantly seeing a > lot of > "veteran" senior network engineers who surprisingly have "far > more > years of experience" than me, but it is me fixing their > problems and > training them. > > Of course the people I consult for will "need help" or know a > bit > less, or else they would not be calling! ;) Sometimes it is > just > legitimate shortage of man power (I like those, then it is > really > working with people who know what they are doing, instead of > baby > feeding people who keep getting confused with that V-LAN thing). > > Let us just say, I know plenty of people who are NOT hurting > for work > in this department. I can tell you the people they are helping > are > NOT college graduates, but they are quite older and their > resumes > will be stacked with "years of venerable experience". What do > we > call these guys? > > If someone is spending quite some time in a NOC or > management/"watchdog" mode, how much real experience are they > really > acquiring? I would say they are growing at a ridiculously slow > rate. > Are they to blame? Hmmm not necessarily. Sure they could > educate > themselves, but remember, self-education is not worth anything > to > HR... :) > > Most companies are conservative, and by all means they should > be. > That is part of the basics of systems administration. Test the > latest code, do not run bleeding edge, etc. The goal of most > bigger > companies is good maintenance and uptime. This goal is > dichotomous > to the goal of learning which is new deployments, testing > slightly > worn in technology. A smaller company pushes more towards the > new > deployment, but then you lose on the conservative change > control > practices experience. So, HR wants people from "big name > firms", > yet, odds are they were router caressers and not really the > troubleshooters. (Can we say... just call support and let them > bail > for us? Every big company I know of always buys this type of > insurance ANYWAY). Yet, if you come from a small firm and DO > all the > dirty work (yah yah, those guys will buy the spare switch > instead of > the smartnet), the resume looks so much less impressive despite > the > fact that they might have harder technical experience. As for > the > change control experience, who knows? And honestly, that is a > self- > control issue vs something that really has to be "learned". > Okay so > spend the 5 minutes to learn conservative change control. > > So, how do you test for the experience? Manager vouching is > sooo > susceptible to nepotism or good old fashioned old boys > network. > Also, how many managers have we met that know the technical ins > and > outs just as well as their grunts? I am sure there are a > handful > sitting in the cold minority. How can those people vouch > technical > excellence when they themselves are have nots? How are we sure > we > are not going to get the router caresser to enter the lab > instead of > lab-rats? How many legitimate people will we invalidate in the > process?
Look, first of all, I'm obviously not endorsing that anybody with x years of experience are automatically handed a ccie number. They would still have to pass the test just like anybody else. Therefore the idea is simple. You use a minimum number of years of experience to eliminate the labrats. So instead, you get router-caressers (hmmm, sounds like some people enjoy networking a little too much). You then eliminate those guys with the test itself - if that highly experienced person didn't actually learn how to do all those things you mentioned, then it's unlikely that he would pass the test. Now obviously, this is imperfect. You will still have some guys who carress routers (man, that just sounds disgusting) and then bootcamp their way to getting their ccie. I agree. But there is no perfect solution. It's better than what we have today, where labrats bootcamp their way to their ccie. Bottom line - a caresser CCIE is on average more skilled than a labrat CCIE. And you ask about the integrity of the background check procedure. Well, I am proposing using the same procedure that some employers today use for their job candidates, where they hire companies to fact-check your resume. I believe how it works is that those companies then go to who you claim to be your former employers and obtain a signed legal document from their HR departments using official company letterhead attesting to the fact that you worked there from such-and-such dates and held such-and-such a position. It's not just a matter of calling up some old managers who may secretly be your golfing buddy and assessing your skill, it's about using a formal procedure that is subject to legal action if marred. Cisco obviously wouldn't be doing this, but there are dedicated background-check companies who do this as their main business and Cisco would contract with one of them. Or if you really want to get down to it, you can do what the government does before assigning secret clearances, including interviews of random coworkers and so forth. Obviously you wouldn't check every single candidate this way, just like the IRS doesn't audit every single taxpayer. You just do enough checks that people respect the fact that there is a clear-and-present-danger that they might be audited. Now again, could this procedure be corrupted? Of course. It's not perfect, no solution is. But I believe it's still a substantial improvement over what we got right now. Like I said, common sense dicates that a carresser CCIE is on average better than a lab-rat ccie. Both guys have passed the test, but at least the carresser has worked on real network. True, he didn't do much on that real network, but he still did more than the labrat who has, by definition, never worked on a real network. > > > -Carroll Kong > > Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=71420&t=71143 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
