> > 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 > > > > 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... :) > > > > So, how do you test for the experience? Manager vouching is > > sooo > > susceptible to nepotism or good old fashioned old boys > > network. > > 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.
I trimmed down some of my extra fluff in the quote, sorry, just read the older archives with the same thread name. Oh I never suggested that either, I just said this initial "filtering" process is not clear cut, and we might be filtering innocent, bright individuals. > 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. Right. I am saying, it is NOT the number of years that matter, is it the quality of the number of years. One year of hardened fire fighting, troubleshooting, advanced deployment, cut over experience is sure worth a lot more than...three years of "maintaining the network" aka Router Carresser. But who gets to judge the ratio? So, do we 'weight' the one year of hardened experienced more? Or less? I am not talking about the exam yet, just, what about the legitimate people you are filtering out? What if they make it "three years of experience" because that is how long it takes for the "average" IT guy to figure out that Netbios can run over TCP/IP? What about the guy who figured it out in 5 minutes? Surely we do not want to disqualify him just because he figured it out in 5 minutes? Of course not, so how do those guys still benefit? > 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. Perhaps that is true. (I am not going to argue either way, but I think it's debatable. :) ) However, this is akin to the scorched earth tactic. I suppose until we find out how many people passed the CCIE, are considered WORTHWHILE, and find out how many years of experience they had, we will not know how many "innocent" victims we will fry with this tactic. If you are okay with frying X number of "innocent, bright" people (I would be very interested in the statistics myself), then sure, we should do it, just like the CISSP. (which I strongly disagree with myself) My argument is, should we really be frying those innocent people when I see far more 'hardened' experience people worth far more than the router carressers? Odds are those hardened experience people also have faster learning capabilities to keep up. Those are very good people we are potentially filtering out. > 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. Well, the first part is STILL suspect to what I described earlier (trimmed out of this post, sorry), which is some managers do not know how bright individuals are. How can they? They are not technically ultra savvy themselves! It is what I call the "local guru syndrome." The guy who is your friend's sister's cousin's computer expert. The guy who says Mavis Beacon version 10 will corrupt Windows XP because it has "keyboard drivers" in it. The guy who says Netbios is absolutely unrouteable and has 3 years to back it up. The guy who was left unchecked and let his ego make him believe he is the master of all technical computer knowledge! Anyway, (sadly enough only the last example was an exaggeration), so the "local guru" convinces his manager and others that he is good. I am sure he is great, relatively speaking, but put in a pro to compare, and he turns into silly putty. The manager, without seeing the pro, will give this guy the thumbs up because he has won the "local guru" award. As for the random government contact bit, I think that would work a bit better, since colleagues "tend" to have a better view on the technical skills of each other rather than the manager. > 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. Oh no doubt, I understand NO system can be 100% perfect. However, this solution eliminates potentially very bright individuals with less years of experience, but potentially significantly much higher quality of experience. I suppose without statistics here, you could easily argue that sample is too small. If I do see some solid statistics on it, I will agree with you then. If the sample is too small, fine. If it is a fair amount, I think we should reconsider. You are trading one set of "bad apples" (lab rates) for a set of "bad oranges" (router carressers) and demolishing innocent candidates (the people who should be certifying) in the process. -Carroll Kong Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=71465&t=71143 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
