Ever get a job due to your certs and failed to deliver?

N2IT

I was curious about this, it's not a topic brought up very often.

I recently was working with a graduate from ITT, wrote his resume and went through some coaching sessions with him. We scoped him for a networking position, he focused on this during his college studies. He even went above and beyond and landed a Windows certification and CCNA.

He was very honest on his resume however I believe the CCNA put high expectations on him. He was let go 1 week later. He was upset and really soured on the idea of working the desk. He does have some IT experience, working in a small repair shop for ~ 3 years.

He's a younger fella around 23 so he has a lot going for him, but I was wondering if this happens often?

Maybe he expanded the truth on his skill level a little bit.

shodown

i mean if he got let go in 1 week he must have really had some gaps in his game. I've personally never seen anyone be hired and not deliver as most places I work have pretty insane interviewing requirements or I wouldn't work there in the 1st place.

NetworkNewb

That is why I will never lie in an interview about something I know.

Without knowing what happened, I would definitely put some blame on the person doing the interviewing for not asking the right questions and verifying the graduates ability and knowledge for their position/opening. Sounds like interviewer wasn't thorough and ended up wasting a bunch of people's time. If they were looking for someone with more knowledge they should've figured it out before he was hired.

gc8dc95

I would guess that he was either severely incompetent or had other issues. Dismissed after one week indicates there were some major red flags from the start. I cant imagine that he would have really gotten into that much the first week.

JoJoCal19

N2IT wrote: »

He was upset and really soured on the idea of working the desk. He does have some IT experience, working in a small repair shop for ~ 3 years.

I'm trying to figure out, was he fired in 1 week due to the fact he was incompetent and didn't have the skills he let on, or was he fired due to issues that arose from the fact he soured on working on a help desk?

What I take from that is he was expecting to land higher level systems engineer or networking position and couldn't handle being on the bottom rung of the ladder (help desk).

DigitalZeroOne

Yes, that does seem odd. I don't remember ever doing any real "work" for the first couple of weeks at most of the jobs that I've had, so it sounds like some major files were deleted, or something was reconfigured to the point of it being disastrous. Ironically enough, I've seen many people keep jobs, even though they were clearly lazy, incompetent, or just plain dumb.

NetworkNewb

DigitalZeroOne wrote: »

Yes, that does seem odd. I don't remember ever doing any real "work" for the first couple of weeks at most of the jobs that I've had, so it sounds like some major files were deleted, or something was reconfigured to the point of it being disastrous. Ironically enough, I've seen many people keep jobs, even though they were clearly lazy, incompetent, or just plain dumb.

Definitely this. Have seen companies hang onto a lot of dumb people for awhile before actually letting them go. It usually takes work from HR, Accounting, and a bunch of managers' time to bring someone new on. For them just to throw that all away after one week, something is off.

N2IT

Of course I only get the explanation from him, which I take for the truth. It sounded like it was skill related, not personality. At least that is what he told me.

Like Zero mentioned, that could of happened and I am not getting the full story. He doesn't have to tell me anything really. I do know he comes off a little arrogant and thinks he is really good, so a cowboy type incident wouldn't surprise me. Like maybe taking down a network. The position was a network admin position so that's entirely possible.

He refuses to do help desk or desk side, said he was better than that. Hey I just try to help out where I can not argue.

Justin Weeks

The only time I have seen someone fired in the first week is if they outright lied about their qualifications and/or have some severe personality problems. Like NetworkNewb said, there's so much effort that goes into hiring someone. No one wants to repeat the seemingly endless interview process to fill the position again.

OTOH, during my time working for an understaffed MSP, I did see many borderline hires quit after a couple of days .

Lexluethar

One week is pretty rough, he must have had major gaps or lied IMO.

I'm sure it happens a lot, but at my company we extensively interview not only to get a grasp on if they will be a good fit culturally, but also we get pretty thick in the weeds on technical questions.

Unless we are hiring an entry level engineer / administrator, we expect someone that would come in at a mid or higher level to be able to white board ideas, architecture and how things work. You'd be amazed at some peoples look when you are asking them some technical questions, then ask them to whiteboard a design that would solve for that issue. Or even during the interview if they say 'well we solved x problem by doing this' - we will ask them to draw it out. Show us how you did that. It shows not only that they have the competence to do the work, but understand it as well. Just because someone was involved in a project and took orders doesn't mean they really understand the technology required to implement what they have on their resume.

So to answer your question, yes i've run into a lot of people during the interview process that had a half dozen or more certifications on their resume, but we never hired them. Why? Because we can easily call BS on stuff by just knowing what questions to ask (b/c we do technical interviews) and if they really did pass their CCNA (WITHOUT CHEATING) they should be able to easily whiteboard some ideas.

I ran into someone who had like 12 certs, their CCNP, MCSE, VCP ect and when we got into technical questions they were really weak. Shows me that they probably either cheated to pass the exams or don't really understand the technology.

Mooseboost

Something more than a knowledge gap to not even last a week. Within a week you shouldn't be doing anything too critical unless it is the type of company where everyone hits the ground running. For him to go that quickly something had to be very wrong. It takes a lot of effort to hire and fire, generally they will give you time to come up to par if it is just a knowledge gap. If he is fresh out of college and thinks he is better than help desk then maybe he made it so he would get fired. Or he refused to do that component of his job and they decided to find someone who would.

dave330i

I would guess major issue with upper management or major company policy violation.

Kai123

Being kicked after a week, either that company was brutal or he must of done or said something to upset someone. If they knew he was lacking experience, then its pretty suspicious. It would take alot longer then that to at least orientate yourself in a new job.

I was hired on the back of studying towards the CCNA for a big telco doing NOC Technician work. I was given a week to observe and thrown into the fire the following week. The CCNA has NOTHING to do with telco work, and I stumbled extremely hard having senior IT admins phoning me, explaining in detail issues that were way above me and expecting quick responses. I'm lucky that the first priority is to log the ticket and go from there, its allowed me to learn on the job and slowly gain more knowledge, troubleshoot deeper before passing it onto a NOC Engineer.

I think if I was certed, I would of felt like a fraud. They ask for a CCNA for a NOC Engineer position but it really has nothing to do with the job. Anyone coming in with no experience but with the CCNA into the role are going to have to learn very fast, but again the company has a 3-month training period.

N2IT

dave330i wrote: »

I would guess major issue with upper management or major company policy violation.

He was rough and young, so this is entirely possible. Very long winded and a big talker, like I mentioned earlier. He could of easily struck a nerve with senior leadership, that is possible. However, I think he might of sold them something they weren't getting to be honest. Maybe it was the combination of the two?

Russell77

N2IT wrote: »

He refuses to do help desk or desk side, said he was better than that. Hey I just try to help out where I can not argue.

There is your answer. If you are 23 years old ad refuse to do something your first week on the job you are not going to be of much help to anyone.

N2IT

The position was a network administrator. I don't know if they asked him or not, I just know he refuses to apply for help desk jobs and desk top jobs because he feels they are inferior and honestly only has interest in back end systems.

As he words it, I am not into answering calls like a telemarketer. Whatever, he's young and will figure it out.

Mooseboost

N2IT wrote: »

The position was a network administrator. I don't know if they asked him or not, I just know he refuses to apply for help desk jobs and desk top jobs because he feels they are inferior and honestly only has interest in back end systems.

As he words it, I am not into answering calls like a telemarketer. Whatever, he's young and will figure it out.

Can't build a dream home without first laying the foundation. He will eventually figure it out the hard way.

emerald_octane

Man, after one week? He must have brought down part of the network or just flat out refused to follow orders.

Lexluethar

Ya not the best attitude to have.

N2IT

It was a MSP type company. Not exactly sure, but it was contracted for sure. It did seem like a hit the ground running type of environment. The proverbial drinking water out of a fire hose, but like I said earlier not really sure, just making some assumptions. I realize banging out phone calls isn't much fun, but you have to start somewhere.

markulous

N2IT wrote: »

The position was a network administrator. I don't know if they asked him or not, I just know he refuses to apply for help desk jobs and desk top jobs because he feels they are inferior and honestly only has interest in back end systems.

As he words it, I am not into answering calls like a telemarketer. Whatever, he's young and will figure it out.

Eek. I get not many people want to stay at a help desk but we all gotta pay our dues and learn. Some help desks can be amazing platforms to get you onto servers, routers, etc. to be able to transition to that role. Just sounds like he's way overvaluing himself which is probably the reason they let him go. Job may have been 25-50% help desk work or something and he flat out refused, who knows...

mackenzae

I actually can relate to the guy somewhat. Not exactly sure if its the same situation but I once interviewed and was hired on as a "Network Engineer" for a consulting company. Again this was maybe when i was 2-3 years into my working experience and didn't have much interview experience as well but I was offered the position and once I started after about a week i realized that it was mostly a sit here and answer the phone and do helpdesk work.. Yeah.. I didn't take it well and apparently they noticed that I wasn't happy about that and lets just say that we mutually agreed after a week or so that it wasn't a good fit for me.

I can say i take some of the blame but there was definitely some misleading in the type of work that I was expected to perform.

markulous

mackenzae wrote: »

I actually can relate to the guy somewhat. Not exactly sure if its the same situation but I once interviewed and was hired on as a "Network Engineer" for a consulting company. Again this was maybe when i was 2-3 years into my working experience and didn't have much interview experience as well but I was offered the position and once I started after about a week i realized that it was mostly a sit here and answer the phone and do helpdesk work.. Yeah.. I didn't take it well and apparently they noticed that I wasn't happy about that and lets just say that we mutually agreed after a week or so that it wasn't a good fit for me.

I can say i take some of the blame but there was definitely some misleading in the type of work that I was expected to perform.

It's one thing to have experience and not want to do help desk anymore, it's another to think you're too good for it and refuse to ever do it in order to further your career.

N2IT

He was upset after being termed, so I don't think it was refusing to do help desk, he refuses to apply for help desk jobs. I honestly think the root cause was the job was too much for him. It was heavy routing and switching and he had worked at a small computer repair shop before. He is the over confident type (and that's putting it lightly).

I think he got in there and just started failing hard. Just my opinion.

Jon_Cisco

I can see this happening easily. I feel like certifications only show that your are familiar with a technology and will be teachable. You need someone with experience to show you how to apply it.

Hopefully it's a good learning experience for him.

N2IT

Jon glad you followed up.

The job description was very network heavy I was concerned when he applied but he was adamant. I'm not a network guy at ALL, if he was only school taught in theory could he struggle with just the basic networking task? Such as logging into routers etc?

Keep in mind I don't tech interview I just take what I am given and spin it

nster

Even school taught only should easily be able to do basic tasks and TBH, with a valid CCNA you should be able to learn Cisco stuff pretty quick.

I think the best way for him to tackle this is to accept the experience (instead of trying to find out if he was in the wrong or not) and focus on improving on what went wrong.

I've done basic tasks pretty easily with a few classes from college and I would miserably fail a CCNA if I tried right now. A few hours of practicing with Putty, GNS3 and the like gives a surprising amount of understanding if you've had college classes already

Jon_Cisco

I agree you should be able to learn stuff pretty quickly. It's hard to say what was expected of him. I recently spent two entire days setting up a Juniper and HP switch with maybe 10 vlans. Certainly not an acceptable production speed but without real world experience I had to rely an awful lot on goggle to figure it out.

We can not know why he was not a good fit but hopefully he does. Just don't let him get discouraged.

E Double U

Before I was granted an interview with my current CISO, I was upfront with HR about not meeting all of the qualifications in the job description. When I had the interview, the CISO focused on the things that I did say that I could do. I was able to deliver on those things while I picked up the skills that I was lacking prior to the position.

Being let go within a week is difficult for me to wrap my head around. I've yet to have any job that gave me any duties in the first week that I could've screwed up so bad to get fired. It was usually training, reading, signing stuff, meeting people, getting access to systems, etc.

N2IT

I agree a week is crazy and like Dave had mentioned maybe it was one of those one off type things that got him in trouble, eg in approrpriate behavior etc. Unless he came clean and stated he had lied etc, due to buyers remorse or anxiety.

Thanks again for the feedback. I appreciate it.

hurricane1091

I hope it was something he did that caused his dismissal. I'm the same age and have yet to have my first networking job related to Cisco, and I would need to learn on the job a bit. I hope that day comes and someone is understanding. It's one thing to be rough on the commands I guess and another to not have any understanding at all, maybe that was his case.