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

Justin Weeks

N2IT wrote: »

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.

Emphasis completely mine. This right here is why he was most likely fired. If he oversold himself and it was a short staffed MSP trying to fill a needed role, I can see him being fired in a week or less if he couldn't work independently. From my experience, a small MSP is a great place to touch everything you can imagine. In 6 months time you will have touched more systems and equipment than most people will touch in a career. Unfortunately, if you don't have solid fundamentals, some experience, and the willingness to spend your nights and weekends catching up on your knowledge gaps, you won't last very long.

I have fond memories from the MSP I worked at. It was hard rewarding work but, you need to understand that you have to solve any and all problems efficiently and correctly. You're lucky if you have someone to call but, that person is also probably extremely busy meeting their billable hours. Hand holding is almost impossible.

N2IT

I managed a service desk, deskside support and infrastructure team MSP, co locating with our customers. Pay was great and always running into challenges. It was nothing short of chaotic. Like you said for some people it's a great place to learn, but not always. And you are right those environments can chew you up and spit you out.

pramin

For those wondering how a person can be let go after 1 week. Here is a story for you at the place I work at.

No issues performance wise. He didn't do much besides put together a few router configurations and do some router/circuit turnups.
But in 7 work days; he didn't show up to work two days and didn't call in to say he wasn't coming in to work.

-hype

Real production networks are far more complex than what the CCNA studies teach. Even cisco states it is an entry-level cert. Also not everyone uses cisco gear...

twodogs62

In reality the learning doesn't stop after you get certification.

From the sound of it, he is trying to fast track into a advanced or senior position.

you have to start at ground level and work your way up.
his arrogance doesn't seem to help him either.

jibbajabba

I failed to deliver once. That however had nothing to do with me lying on my CV. I applied for a job as VMWare Engineer and the company hired me because of my Exchange certs and Linux knowledge (which of course they didn't tell me). By the time I started I was suddenly responsible for a global Exchange migration across different countries and creating oracle servers on red hat. They were somewhat confused that I didn't know as much as they thought I do.

Lessons learned

a. Remove certs from your CV if you haven't worked with the technology for years and uncomfortable / unwilling to work with

b. Don't believe any job description and ask tons of questions prior signing anything.

dave330i

jibbajabba wrote: »

I failed to deliver once. That however had nothing to do with me lying on my CV. I applied for a job as VMWare Engineer and the company hired me because of my Exchange certs and Linux knowledge (which of course they didn't tell me). By the time I started I was suddenly responsible for a global Exchange migration across different countries and creating oracle servers on red hat. They were somewhat confused that I didn't know as much as they thought I do.

Lessons learned

a. Remove certs from your CV if you haven't worked with the technology for years and uncomfortable / unwilling to work with

b. Don't believe any job description and ask tons of questions prior signing anything.

Aren't you working in IT? Shouldn't you know everything IT related?

cyberguypr

dave330i, please change your title from "IT n00b" to "Typical User" ASAP.

N2IT

This has been an interesting thread. Thanks for participating.

IIIMaster

I learn on my first IT job to never get swamp again. I have never lied on my resume and never plan to. Im sure the company that hired him was aware of his experience and was willing to coach him up. I think the over load got to him or as others said before he must did a cowboy move.

N2IT

The cowboy theory is not out of the realm of possibility.

I'm dead serious he would rather work at Verizon selling phones than do help desk.

olaHalo

Crazy story
Ive never seen anyone fired at any IT job Ive had no matter how bad they were.

karthikheb

Justin Weeks wrote: »

Emphasis completely mine. This right here is why he was most likely fired. If he oversold himself and it was a short staffed MSP trying to fill a needed role, I can see him being fired in a week or less if he couldn't work independently. From my experience, a small MSP is a great place to touch everything you can imagine. In 6 months time you will have touched more systems and equipment than most people will touch in a career. Unfortunately, if you don't have solid fundamentals, some experience, and the willingness to spend your nights and weekends catching up on your knowledge gaps, you won't last very long.

I have fond memories from the MSP I worked at. It was hard rewarding work but, you need to understand that you have to solve any and all problems efficiently and correctly. You're lucky if you have someone to call but, that person is also probably extremely busy meeting their billable hours. Hand holding is almost impossible.

Forgive my ignorance , but what is an MSP ?

hurricane1091

karthikheb wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance , but what is an MSP ?

Managed Service Provider. Outsourced IT company basically. Instead of a company doing the work internally, they hire an MSP to do some or all of their IT work.

karthikheb

hurricane1091 wrote: »

Managed Service Provider. Outsourced IT company basically. Instead of a company doing the work internally, they hire an MSP to do some or all of their IT work.

Thanks !

UnixGuy

olaHalo wrote: »

Crazy story
Ive never seen anyone fired at any IT job Ive had no matter how bad they were.

I haven't seen anyone either, but I heard of people getting fired because some manager 'didn't like them'

olaHalo

UnixGuy wrote: »

I haven't seen anyone either, but I heard of people getting fired because some manager 'didn't like them'

Yeah seems very odd. Mustve really messed something up or they found some lies on his resume

NetworkNewb

olaHalo wrote: »

Yeah seems very odd. Mustve really messed something up or they found some lies on his resume

I've seen one person let go, it was pretty much a call center and the guy just didn't perform very well. Was always asking questions on a lot of simple things. Asking questions is fine if you don't know something, but he would ask about the same problem over and over. He did work there for about 3 months til they let him go though.

N2IT

I'm not a network guy, but if someone asked you to log into a router and review the logs for instance (I am trying to come up with a smart sounding example) and you couldn't do that, would that prompt you to get canned? If it was a network admin position for a MSP?

I would think there would be some basics that you must have.

Basic sh all commands for logging into routers and switches. We did that on the help desk to see if protocols were down etc.

@ Some others

I think some of these companies think if you have the CCNA you need to be really good at networking. I don't think they differiate the difference between the IE NP or NA Cisco is Cisco

Deathmage

Jon_Cisco wrote: »

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.

Hence why home labs are so crucial, you can learn so much better on how to do sh*t at home in a controlled lab. Hence why myself and many others on here have ludicrously insane home-labs. It's one thing to mess up a home-lab environment it's a whole different scenario in a live environment, as my former co-worker and CFO said "a 1 second career change".

Jon_Cisco wrote: »

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.

This one of the reasons why I think getting a Network + and CCNA are paramount doing them together since you learn early on in IT, especially in a JOAT position that vendors aren't really the driving effect in IT, it's cost, so it's not uncommon for you to find Cisco Routers with HP switches, with Dell switches for iSCSI Fabric with Linksys AP's for wireless. I think the one thing that CCNA does at it's core is teach your principles of networking and then reverse engineering them to other platforms is allot easier once you understand the CLi syntax.


Like I know exacly what you mean Jon, with HP's, the CLi stucture is completely different, but once you understand the whole untagged, tagged crap (it confused the **** out of me at 1st) it's a very easily CLI to configure. This is why my home lab has Dell, HP, and Cisco switches, since those are pretty much what most companies use these days (I'm sure I'm leaving out a few) - again, I know a ton of people on here sometimes speak lightly of CompTIA but it really does start with A+ and onward up the Trifecta tree that troubleshooting is probably one the biggest technical skillset's IT people really need and understanding the basics. Certifications at there core just validate you can put your money where your mouth is...

N2IT wrote: »

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.

Geee, this sounds like me 5 months ago .... I was hired as a Network Engineer and then thrown into a Help Desk role with nearly no networking skills being used. I had done help desk at my prior job as a JOAT's but it wasn't my cup of tea. Sometimes MSP's aren't for everyone, especially if you come into a IT based MSP, you get tons of people that are also in IT and they expect you to hit the ground running and if your new to IT with no communication skills just techno nerd talk it can be hard for some to adapt. I personally adapted but didn't like the job 1 month in... From the sounds of it, he'll do fine in the future, MSP's just aren't for everyone...

-hype wrote: »

Real production networks are far more complex than what the CCNA studies teach. Even cisco states it is an entry-level cert. Also not everyone uses cisco gear...

I completely agree, my above remarks on the topic from Jon is a fine example of this, CCENT/CCNA are merely building blocks to me; they can all for the most part with the exception of the proprietary stuff be reverse engineered to other vendors. I really think the foundation level stuff is what people need to understand at the core to be a truly vendor-neutral network engineer; in today's IT landscape that is pretty much all of us....

AverageJoe

One week is quick, but not outlandish, especially for advanced positions. Part of the equation might be still having your stack of resumes, and maybe being able to immediately make an offer to your #2 pick.

N2IT

@ AvgJoe

That is a good point. If you were really stinking it up and you had 2 or 3 candidates available with similiar or more experience you could **** them and call those guys back.

That makes a lot of sense actually!

hurricane1091

Many many many IT people without certs and home labs (way more without than with) and those people seem to end up not getting canned. Either he had zero idea or said/did something stupid. Like, if you have an MCSA in Server 2012, you should have an understanding before taking a Jr Systems Admin job. Might not remember how to set up everything or do a lot of things, but have an understanding at least.

abelamorales

I've seen a lot of candidates that are good on paper and have great interviewing skills, however there technical aptitutde wasn't there when questioned. I always have a three step approached to interviewing:

1. Learn about the highlights of their last 2 or 3 positions
2. Challenge their technical aptitude (impossible fix scenario, critical thinking, etc.)
3. Soft skills

The interviewer is usually the one to blame when a certification warrior is hired but can't meet expectations.

Thacker

It's kind of mind blowing that companies have such a "he needs to know everything before we hire him" attitude. We invest a ridiculous amount of time getting these certs and pursuing education on our own dime and time and while it benefits us and our careers... it benefits the companies we end up at much... much more. It's just not possible in technology to stay ontop of everything that is expected of you to be known and still have any sort of a work life balance.
You can be able to ace a cert but get into an environment and well... everyone of them is different even if they are using the same tech. Companies really need to be more willing to invest in their employees... send for formal training on what benefits their business the most instead of hiring from the outside and expecting even a senior level tech to come up to speed on their systems within a very short amount of time.

Raisin

Attitude goes a long way. I absolutely hate dealing with arrogant new hires. If someone comes along acting like they know everything and interrupts me when I'm trying to show them something, then I'm done with them. I won't show or task them with anything. I've got more productive things to do with my time. While it's possible that someone could learn what they need to do on their own, in practice they just sit around until management transfers or fires them.

If someone doesn't know anything it sucks, but I can work with them as long as they follow directions and take notes.

abelamorales

Thacker wrote: »

It's kind of mind blowing that companies have such a "he needs to know everything before we hire him" attitude. We invest a ridiculous amount of time getting these certs and pursuing education on our own dime and time and while it benefits us and our careers... it benefits the companies we end up at much... much more. It's just not possible in technology to stay ontop of everything that is expected of you to be known and still have any sort of a work life balance.
You can be able to ace a cert but get into an environment and well... everyone of them is different even if they are using the same tech. Companies really need to be more willing to invest in their employees... send for formal training on what benefits their business the most instead of hiring from the outside and expecting even a senior level tech to come up to speed on their systems within a very short amount of time.

Thacker, you've made an interesting point and agree with you to a certain extent. The gap exists when there are tasks that they should be able to do and are unable to perform. That is why the interview process is crucial because it's an opportunity for both the employer and employee to evaluate if it's a good fit or not. The business decides what kind of candidate they are looking for... if they're looking for someone to build a road map they need someone with experience. If they're looking more for a tactical team member, then someone with good analytic skills and a certification should do.

I agree there is a misconception about those that hold certifications. They do not know everything, but have shown interest in honing their skills and validating it by obtaining the cert. However, this does not hold true for those who **** and use braindumps to obtain certs which is sometimes the case. I knew a guy that had about 5 certs in a specific technology, however his knowledge did not match the skill set he was expected to have based on his credentials. Quite disappointing.

techfiend

Most industries still do the training and invest in their employees. I've heard a lot of IT companies used to do it as well. These days a lot of IT employees change jobs regularly to gain more knowledge and climb the ladder. This leads to companies looking for and often finding employees with broad experience.

cowill

This tends to happen in the contracting side of IT...........A LOT!!

hurricane1091

I just started here this week, but was informed that a guy in a bit of a senior role being compensated extremely well was fired, and they think he oversold (or lied) on his resume. Made a few mistakes, like deleting some sort of exchange folder (not sure what this really means) but no one could receive fax. Wasn't his first mistake, and it was really how he handled it that caused uproar. So I would say if you are in a senior position, you better be the real deal.