> > Well, even in THIS case it is far more reasonable. Documented > > hours > > of hard testing/working on networking gear in a "lab" by > > Cisco. That > > I would go for. Because, like I said 3 years of router rubbing > > ... > > come on, I am sure you have had assignments which let you > > demolish > > that "knowledge" in a few months! Thing is, you have no idea > > if they > > are actively working on networking for the 3 years. For the > > flying > > case you are directly clocking them for... flying. It is not > > even > > necessarily a "production network" (as in, commercial flying... > > :) ). > > > > I mean come on, hundreds of hours can be conquered within a few > > months for aggressive students. That is reasonable. YEARS of > > router > > rubbing? No thanks. > > Actually, I must disagree. Hundreds of hours of time within a few monmths > can only be accomplished within a lab environment. When we're talking about > production environments, the fact is, most of the time you're not touching > any of the gear. Once it's up, it's up, and you only fiddle with it when > you need to fix something or change some services. But at the same time, > only real live networks will present real-world problems that are provide > you with the valuable experience. Lab networks never can.
Maybe it will, maybe it will not. The case of the network engineer who keeps calling TAC for the most rudimentary issues... like password recovery... again. > Consider the case of the pilot's license. The difficult parts of flying are > taking off and landing, and (maybe), banking. Simply flying straight is not > particularly meaningful. You could simply fulfill your flying hours > requirement just by doing a take-off (difficult) and a land (difficult) > adjoined by hours of straight-ahead flying (easy). So just because you > spent most of your time 'carressing the cockpit' (I think I saw that as a > subject line for a pornmail I got), does that mean that the flying > requirement of a pilot's license should be tossed? I don't think so. Well, good troubleshooting skills may or may not come out of one's experience in any environment. If at least people had BASIC knowledge of networking it would be pretty nice. (the equivalent of landing/taking off). Do you know how many people I have run into who have setup /24s for point to point serial links and they were using EIGRP? Or how many people who just say "ohh... well I have been in the field for a few years, but I never got the hang of this subnetting thing. Can you explain it to me?" > > I do not really want to get into this debate. What if the > > lab-rat is > > not a full rat, but a very good, bright learner? (um... he's a > > mouse!) He might have a stronger aptitude for growth and > > learning > > than the stagnant router carresser. Obviously that is the > > worst case > > for both ends, I just do not think it is always so clear cut. > > What if the caresser is also a very good bright learner? The point is the > carresser has everything the labrat could have and something that the labrat > by definition can never have, namely production experience. Well, that is if we can define all production experience as something useful, in which case I am disputing from what I have seen. > > I dispute your idea that technical merit or great technical > > skill > > learning capacity == instant job. Ask a pile of people on this > > list. > > Some might not be... some I bet are very bright and skilled > > but > > jobless nonetheless. The problem... all the other issues we > > raised > > about finding jobs. (let's not bring that into this > > discussion). > > So, like I said earlier here, let us drop the idea that you can > > instantly get a job if you have great technical skills and > > technical > > skill learning capacity. We both know that is NOT always true. > > By the same token, since we're talking about the CCIE here, everybody knows > that the CCIE is no guarantee in getting a job either. You presume that all > this bright and skilled guy has to do to get a job is get his CCIE, and we > both know that that's false. It helps a lot to have the CCIE. Why hold someone back at all? The exam is just as difficult in either event (unless he learns something in his production network that would be applicable to the exam, which is highly doubtful). This entire debate hinges on whether or not "real production experience" is useful in general or not. I say it "could" be, but not always. The experience is what you get out of it so to speak. I find it akin to going to say college. You only get what you put into it. Let the test judge them alone, not their past "experience". > So I see you're accusing me of unduly frying the young-guns because I'm > preventing them from getting their CCIE and so they might get fried in the > market. When in fact, even if they did get their CCIE, they would probably > get fried anyway because they have no experience. So under my rules, how > many "extra" guys am I really frying? I think the number is low, and when > compared to the benefit of ensuring that all CCIE's have real-world > experience, even if it's not particularly good experience, I believe the net > benefit is positive. Well the issue is not if they will get fried in the market or not. Why perform any level of bias or alienation? Take the racial argument view on it. Why bother letting have affirmative action benefits, they just blow it anyway. I do not think we can should the slippery slope argument here that just because young CCIEs may have trouble getting jobs (more so on lack of networking contacts), that why bother letting them take the CCIE easily? I think we should allow people who pass the prerequisites (but not a binding number of years of experience) take the exam, and not put any biases especially on "years of experience" when more often than not, I see it not helping at all. If people can have a good discussion with me on topic X, I think they probably have a good understanding of it. I could care less if he had 3 months or 1 year of experience with the said topic. Do not we both agree that ultimately it is the individual that matters and his skill levels that are more important? Not the number of "years of experience" he may have needed merely to catch up to one of them? > > "OBI WAN Is HOLDING ME BACK!" says Doogie... hmm. okay bad > > example. > > Maybe we should have held Anakin back longer. bahaha :) > > Again, see above, what's the difference between me holding them back and > employers holding them back because they don't have any experience and > therefore they don't want to hire them? At the end of the day, they still > get held back. Does it really matter who's doing it? Well, if the debate is to try to force Cisco to make the CCIE more valuable, then sure, put as many barriers as possible, even if they are not very sensible ones. Supply and demand works. :) However, in terms of sensible fairness, I do not see how having years of "production experience" is going to mean crap if you utilize it improperly or got little out of it. (think of the guy who calls TAC every other day, and now thinks that the config registers for password recovery are the same for all routers). Why not test the individuals harder, instead of putting up this "number of years" barrier? > > > Again, I am not proposing that guys be handed their ccie > > simply by virtue of > > > experience only. They still have to go through the test > > which is supposed > > > to weed out the highly experienced know-nthings. > > > > Right, I know you aren't saying experience == instant CCIE, > > but, I > > think you are drawing the wrong conclusion about them being > > filterd > > by the test. > > > > They will not. You have proposed nothing that will stop the > > same > > people from hitting on the exam in a few months. You only > > delayed > > them. > > But that's the point. During the delay, they are not sitting around nothing > because I am forcing them to get experience, even if the experience is not > particularly meaningful. Again, it's like forcing the guy who wants to be a > pilot to actually fly his full allotment of hours, even though he thinks > he's ready for the license exam. Well, perhaps it was a bad analogy then (the pilot bit). I am okay with forcing people to do meaningful experience of sorts. I also think a good lab scenario based off of someone's "real world experience" (eh, just insert disaster scenarios into the lab, not that hard. :) ) and clocking time against that is a good idea. Having them sitting around doing "nothing", seems to be just wasting people's time and money. However, given that everyone is not going to have an even experience in any workplace, it seems to be a very uneven barrier. Furthermore, as I mentioned, in some cases, so little comes out of it at times that to even compare people by the number of years would be ridiculous. > > I am dead positive that even with this filtering in place, what > > is > > going to stop the bootcamps, lab-rats, everything? They are > > going to > > become router carressers, and slam against the exam anyway. > > Does not > > seem too hard to become someone in the NOC for a few years. (No > > offense to anyone who is working in one, a lot of bright guys > > there > > too) > > Nothing is going to stop the bootcamps. I have concluded that they are > inevitable. But that's not an excuse to do nothing. This is a continual > war where there is no silver bullet. Just because you don't have a perfect > solution, are you proposing you do nothing? Well, if anything, make the exam harder. The years of experience seems too hazy to me for quite a few reasons. 1) experience is not equal 2) experience can turn into misinformation I just do not like this "easy" way out to build a quick "filter" that seems like it is not going to build stronger CCIES necessarily. > > The only thing you did was delay them, and delay potentially > > qualified individuals. Are you even sure they will have even a > > SHRED > > more experience after doing carressing for so long? Is that > > shred > > going to really help them when they "study" for the exam by > > going to > > bootcamps, reviewing braindumps, etc? > > A shred is better than nothing. And I am confident that many of them will > have more than a shred. Well, I can give you a list of people who will disappoint you. :) However, I never said a "router carresser" might not be very bright. A good number of them are like that; they too are held back (but this time by their employers). However, let us test them on their merits, not on how long they were carressing. > Look, whatever rules you make, there are always going to be some guys who > will try to skirt them and do the absolute bare minimum. If I say NOT ENOUGH FLAIR, NRF, YOU NEED MORE FLAIR! :) > bare minimum. But the bare minimum is still better than nothing. Yeah but to employ such a method to filter people, and to potentially get very little results. If the goal is to increase value to the CCIE, no matter how many "innocents" you clobber, sure, it is a great idea. If you want a fair sensible way, I think methods ot increase the difficulty of the exam would be the proper path. > > Right, but it does not eliminate those lab-rats either (who > > will have > > a name change). It only delays bright individuals who wanted > > to > > succeed at their own pace. Let the test judge them, not some > > silly 3 > > year requirement which does not necessarily result in anything > > that > > will contribute to the exam experience, or even their real > > world > > experience. > > Uh, experience is experience, tautologically speaking. How does not forcing > them to get real-world experience not actually increase their real-world > experience? What I am saying is not everyone's experience is a very good one. You get those who see one Cisco router crash once due to a bad DIMM, and he thinks Cisco sucks for routers. Experience can be flawed, or it could be overwhelmed by raw knowledge. "From my experience, reinstalling the OS and picking the automatic DHCP will fix my network settings". "Um... you can just change the IP address in the control panel". During the Win9X days and NT days you would run into bozos like those. Or "From my experience a /24 mask is all I need and it works great." Of course, there are some who would argue "if they had experience in a big bad production network they would see the need for it." Well, if you just have any sense of how the networks work, you would already know fairly optimal network partitioning and address allocation. Some people need to "learn by failing" or smashing their head against the wall. Some people just read the manual and realize you do not need to do it that way. Some people keep plugging in different CAT5 cables, some people think about what kind of MDI you need, then plug it in. Others buy the auto XMDI switches and never learn so when they see the legacy setup their get burned. Misinformation creeps in a lot. The thing is, why bother filtering out these details. Just make the exam fit the requirement of the knowledge and experience you desire. > Again, what about those bright individuals? Right now they are being > delayed because companies have no space for guys without experience. So > they get their CCIE's and then they still collect unemployment. What about > that delay? I am sure there are some companies still hiring new employees. I mean by that mentality, why bother with a degree or any any number of certifications? It just means you have to stay even more competitive, and why deny people from getting a chance to even take it? Of course this is all moot if you are okay with an unfair but surefire way to reduce the number of CCIE candidates. Although by how much, I wonder. The same lab rats are the same types who will find their buddy to fudge through or be able to "fast talk" through their manager and become the local guru. I know a guy like that. He still has his job and put down the O so generic "assembly language" on his resume without specifying the architecture and he also wrote how he knew Java and was having problems with basic instantiations of classes. He knows a few Compaq model numbers and can spit them out faster than a computer. :) > > You are assuming someone in the field for three years is > > necessarily > > more intelligent or wiser after the time. I strongly > > disagree. I > > have seen plenty who do have the experience, and, at least in > > terms > > of networking, have not learned much more at all. You could > > further > > argue that if he is so bad, he will get canned. More often > > than not, > > bad employees stalk the companies because their managers do not > > know > > how "bad" their employees really are (As Seen in the Other NRF > > Discussion... when Employees GO BAD!). > > Uh, I'm afraid I don't follow. Obviously there are guys who have lots of > experience out there who are incompetent. I'm not denying that they are. > But obviously back when they had no experience, they were REALLY > incompetent. Therefore it logically follows that somebody is necessarily a > better worker because of experience. That doesn't mean that he's > necessarily good, just better than before (i.e. the difference between bad > and worse). That's the point. Nobody ever got worse because of > experience. If I give you experience, you still may be bad, but you're > going to be better than before. If that is the case, then you see that if you can have a big scale, it would tell you individual A with no buffs is better than individual B even with his "buffs" or years of experience to give him more weight. In that case, test them for how well they perform in a scenario, not because one guy has more years of experience. Also, bad experience does not always make you better than before. It can make you worse. You can learn a lot of misinformation, and spreading that is horrible. You can also acquire a particular bias which is completely unfounded. That is why sometimes companies will refuse to hire someone with too many years of experience. If they get bullheaded, he'll want to use his ancient technology that he is so good with instead of something that makes more sense, more scalable, and well supported in the future. You can also gain a false sense of "skills". Remember the guy who said "I have three years of experience in an ISP, I think I know what I am doing" when he claimed you needed NetBeui to "route Windows file sharing" over two Layer 3 networks? See, he insisted he was right and refused to listen to me, no matter how reasonable I sounded. If he did not use his experience as a shield for his incompetence, we could have avoided his bullheaded statement. But he did, so he did the wrong thing and all because of his "experience". > > So, you are going to get... some "less" rotten oranges, > > Aha, so you admit as much. I hope you did not take it that I felt people with experience are instantly bad. I am just saying by no means does it give any real qualification or verify anything to me nor many of the clients I have worked with. > OK, so Obi-Wan isn't holding you back, but the Jedi Council is holding you > back (because the employers won't give you a job because you're a CCIE that > doesn't have any experience). What's the diff? The CCIE without any experience is still more marketable than the guy without any experience and just a CCNA. (given that all other things are equal). If it is his own preogative, why hold him back at all? The poor job market is like a tidal wave that holds down the people who do not have an extremely good skillset. However, that does not mean the all the people who do not have jobs are to be thrown in as the same level of marketabilty. > Look, I freely admit that my proposal is a compromise solution, and > proposals from Howard are better. In fact, I have waxed poetically on just > such changes on alt.certification.cisco numerous times. However, I'm a > political pragmatist and I realize there's no point in proposing solutions > that Cisco would never implement because they're simply too lazy to do it. > Anything that is proposed has to be easy for them. You can't fairly compare > a compromise solution that gives you some (but not all) of what you want > against a perfect solution that gives you everything you want but that will > never be implemented. Getting something not as good as getting everything > but is clearly better than getting nothing. > > Or how about this. Instead of going around shredding other people's > arguments, how about if you propose something that would improve the > program, and more importantly, might actually be implemented by Cisco? Hm, not sure if I should take that as somewhat of a personal attack. In any event, I had no intention of turning this into some sort of personal attack on you or your ideas. While you may feel I am not contributing, (I always hated when people in the open source community said "don't complain write a patch!", because there are some merits to just supposedly "complaining), I feel I am giving constructive feedback to your solution. An experience barrier seems like it will do little to nothing to improve the CCIEs for the reasons I described 1) experience is not even 2) individuals with more "experience" are sometimes far worse than individuals with less "experience" The one idea I did like is possibly a strong Lab to at least learn minimum basics. The number of network administrators out there who do not know what subnet masks are or CIDR style notation is mind boggling. I even ran into one who was not sure on VLANs, he dared to say "Yeah I know the theory but what exactly are they?". Sheesh, do not say you know the theory if you do not know it... because if you did you would know it! ;) Some notes I think that came out of this entire discussion - Strong pre-Lab with minimum hours/requirements. Perhaps some Cisco standards to be implemented and taught. - A more difficult or dynamic exam, perhaps with some open ended elements. - If Cisco kept a log of the performance of the individual, such as number of retakes, the quality of their feedback, then at least employers could call Cisco to get a better feel. Of course, not even medical schools do this though if I remember correctly. I am just very strong against the instant filter due to "number of years of experience" since that means so little to me and from what my clients have experienced. From what I see, the CISSP does that to just mask the fact that their written exam is just a bookworm exam of little practicality. (from what I have heard). If anything, I would rather see Cisco improve the difficulty of the exam itself, rather than employ such filters. I feel that such a filter would not really affect the quality in a positive manner as greatly as you think, but would decrease the "supply" which is beneficial to existing CCIEs. If that is the end goal, let's do it! :) I just think it is grossly unfair and slows down individuals. For the CCIE, we should be putting up signs "you have to be this height" (you need these skills), not "you have to be this age". (you need to be this old) -Carroll Kong Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=71837&t=71143 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
