1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Interview tomorrow. Still receiving calls from agents after I apply for jobs but often after speaking to them it's clear they dont really understand what the job involves and its not a good fit, presales, server administration, leading a technical team, voice, Citrix etc etc. Suspect they just need another reasonable CV to send to the client. With companies very slow to hire anyone do not expect to be hired before April.

SysAdmin4066

What happened with the police force position? Is that what this interview is for?

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Interview tomorrow. Still receiving calls from agents after I apply for jobs but often after speaking to them it's clear they dont really understand what the job involves

break a leg for the interview, whats it for ?? (Police one?)

and sadly whats new with agents not understanding roles, one of the first things I try to get from them is a job description, at least then I can get a better understanding of the role or at least more so than them lol

I'm sending my CV for jobs but cherry picking as I'm in no real hurry as the role I have while dull\frustrating is safe and allows me plenty of study time As such I dont see much movement for me anytime soon.

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Approaching 100,000 views. No more Cisco for me today. P1ssed off with studying it

Party when it hits 100,000 ? lol

and yeah I think we all get p1ssed off studdying now n then. I know for me when I start to feel sick reading\labbing I know I'm ready to hit the exam.
I think the 'IE lab would make me physically puke lol

Turgon

SysAdmin4066 wrote: »

What happened with the police force position? Is that what this interview is for?

Yeah. Supporting a police network for a few dollars an hour. Better than nothing!

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

break a leg for the interview, whats it for ?? (Police one?)

and sadly whats new with agents not understanding roles, one of the first things I try to get from them is a job description, at least then I can get a better understanding of the role or at least more so than them lol

I'm sending my CV for jobs but cherry picking as I'm in no real hurry as the role I have while dull\frustrating is safe and allows me plenty of study time As such I dont see much movement for me anytime soon.

Very few *live* jobs out there on the infrastructure side. Many phantom jobs. Others the companies are just having a look to see what they can get for certain rates. They don't actually have the budget to hire yet. I had one interview a few weeks back, the guys interviewing me didn't even realise I lived in the same town! Had to remind them of that. I guess they didn't read my CV too closely, but then again, why bother if you are not serious about hiring anyway

Many agents dont understand the roles. They just want to send people forward, anyone that looks good on paper to impress the client that they can find good people and before any other agency gets there first in case they lose the job. Some of them either haven't got the time or the ability to match candidates to jobs properly.

Some of the agents cough up a job description, others dont have anything other than the advertisement itself. Snakes and Ladders really and really tired of talking to the pimps. Im in contact with my peers and they are all finding it hard right now. At least I get interviews, many of them dont. If you lose your job next year expect some time out so hang on to it!

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Very few *live* jobs out there on the infrastructure side. Many phantom jobs. Others the companies are just having a look to see what they can get for certain rates. They don't actually have the budget to hire yet. I had one interview a few weeks back, the guys interviewing me didn't even realise I lived in the same town! Had to remind them of that. I guess they didn't read my CV too closely, but then again, why bother if you are not serious about hiring anyway

Many agents dont understand the roles. They just want to send people forward, anyone that looks good on paper to impress the client that they can find good people and before any other agency gets there first in case they lose the job. Some of them either haven't got the time or the ability to match candidates to jobs properly.

Some of the agents cough up a job description, others dont have anything other than the advertisement itself. Snakes and Ladders really and really tired of talking to the pimps. Im in contact with my peers and they are all finding it hard right now. At least I get interviews, many of them dont. If you lose your job next year expect some time out so hang on to it!

Yep your not wrong about the phantom jobs, I have a couple of rss feeds and you see the same jobs being churned out over and over. Hence the cherry picking on my side, I think I'm picking the right roles lol

Tend to agree with the agents and lack of understanding roles too, back in my early days I found it was worse, but I think that was due to me being niave. These days I'm a lot more certain of the roles I want\can do etc.
lmao Pimps is the perfect description

My job is fairly safe (as much as it can be) so no real worries there, I've said else where I've got a potential lead for a role after xmas, but untill I get that call I wont be counting on anything.
Realistically I can't see me moving before April but it can't hurt to keep an eye open

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

Yep your not wrong about the phantom jobs, I have a couple of rss feeds and you see the same jobs being churned out over and over. Hence the cherry picking on my side, I think I'm picking the right roles lol

Tend to agree with the agents and lack of understanding roles too, back in my early days I found it was worse, but I think that was due to me being niave. These days I'm a lot more certain of the roles I want\can do etc.
lmao Pimps is the perfect description

My job is fairly safe (as much as it can be) so no real worries there, I've said else where I've got a potential lead for a role after xmas, but untill I get that call I wont be counting on anything.
Realistically I can't see me moving before April but it can't hurt to keep an eye open

Good luck with that. If I had a dollar for every potential lead that has been discussed with me I think I could retire. It's just a bad time on the market and there are not many live jobs out at the moment. Nobody's job is safe next year my friend so hang on to it. Im in for just about every advertised role that is a good fit but the hiring process is very, very slow. Most companies will wait until Q1 in April when the new budgets come out. A friend of mine is finding they get no calls returned or interviews and she's also an experienced network engineer. Let's see what happens! As for the interview Im looking forward to it, Im overqualified and they may simply be interviewing external people due to employment regulations when someone internal is already lined up, but who really knows. Tough drive this morning to get there!

Turgon

Interview went quite well I thought.

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Interview went quite well I thought.

Good to hear How was the drive ? Would it be that every day?
And when do you find out ? Did you manage to suss if it was already lined up for an internal canditate?

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

Good to hear How was the drive ? Would it be that every day?
And when do you find out ? Did you manage to suss if it was already lined up for an internal canditate?

I think it might actually be a real job but with more people to interview and then clearance I dont expect it will start until at least February. Still onwards and upwards put forward for another reasonable job today. Nearly two hours each way drive. Will most probably stay in hotel during the week.

Turgon

Had a look at subnetting and IP practice today. Will carry on over the weekend inbetween Christmas shopping, food shopping, Christmas decorations, present wrapping and house cleaning. Actually..thinking about all that..wont get any studying done this weekend.

Got passed over by the cops. Feedback was that they felt I was technically very good but were concerned based on my responses that I would escalate things rather than own a problem. It looks like I over egged my replies to the questions about what would you do if you felt this needed doing or that. My premise was that there would be a lot of procedure and approval required to do things in there by the book and I didn't want to come over as fly by just taking charge and sorting things as I normally do. In hindsight I should have emphased my capabilities in that area much more but caveated that I would adhere to whatever escaltion, reporting procedure was in place.

Ironic. I just got put forward for a Critical Response Engineer job elsewhere today on far better money.

Interviews... They are all different and all a hazard. At least I dont have to tramp out there and stay away from home for a low wage. Im not sure Im a copper type either really. Time for some mince pies now

Bl8ckr0uter

Turgon wrote: »

Had a look at subnetting and IP practice today.

I am just curious..what type of subnetting practice does a CCIE candidate do :lol


Good luck on your coming interviews.

Turgon

knwminus wrote: »

I am just curious..what type of subnetting practice does a CCIE candidate do :lol


Good luck on your coming interviews.

Thanks for that. I think there may be a slew on them in January once companies get back from the holidays and catch up with things.

Subnetting practice? Always worth revisiting that topic and summarisation. One cannot be complacent about the fundamentals!

Bl8ckr0uter

Turgon wrote: »

Thanks for that. I think there may be a slew on them in January once companies get back from the holidays and catch up with things.

Subnetting practice? Always worth revisiting that topic and summarisation. One cannot be complacent about the fundamentals!

I am sure you will do well. Any company would be lucky to have you (just don't tell them that in the interview )
I was just curious about the subnetting thing. I review binary math from time to time because I have to keep it fresh, even though in reality, a lot of engineers use subnet calcs and such.

laidbackfreak

knwminus wrote: »

a lot of engineers use subnet calcs and such.

I use a calc when I'm doing design work, but it's always good to be able to check the calculations, and almost essential in the field

sucks on the police job, but its sometimes hard to know how to pitch for those roles.
keep going summit will turn up, like you say your getting the calls

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

I use a calc when I'm doing design work, but it's always good to be able to check the calculations, and almost essential in the field

sucks on the police job, but its sometimes hard to know how to pitch for those roles.
keep going summit will turn up, like you say your getting the calls

Yes it can be difficult as each interview is different. Having lots of them is helping in some senses. Interviews can be a blunt tool with an over emphasis on screening sometimes and as a consequence you can eliminate perfectly good candidates. I have had a few now and while some of them were not the right role for me, if it's a job I can do well I should really be getting an offer. That bit comes down to the interview really. Closing the deal. I have had two such interviews now. For one of them I would have done a good job for them but I sense they are just looking and not really serious about hiring anyone at the moment. For the recent one I would have done a good job for them and they really should have offered me a job there. So long as I get enough interviews for the *right* job I should get sorted out soon enough! I guess the main thing is to try not to pitch an interview at all, just show an ability to take charge of things while at the same time showing deference to whatever policies, rules, regulations, approval procedures and emergency change control and so on is in place there and it will be absolutely fine!

We have a lot on indoors this weekend so studying will be difficult!

Turgon

A bit of parallel running in the CCIE studies now to prepare for and clear the CCNA as mine expired many moons ago. I have the Boson and Lammle's book is on the way. For the R&S Im going to be talking to IPExpert as I would like the next 100 hours to be spent on the new topics and troubleshooting scenarios. I will see what workbooks and mock exams are available on that front. If I can get a couple of good weeks in on these areas it will set me up nicely for the new year.

mikej412

Turgon wrote: »

For the R&S Im going to be talking to IPExpert as I would like the next 100 hours to be spent on the new topics and troubleshooting scenarios.

I just tried to login to IPExpert to see if they've added any more of their v11 workbook labs and I'm getting a wrong username/password message. And the existing downloaded PDFs are giving me a "FileOpen" document expired 2009/11/29 Please connect to the internet to get updated permissions message

I hope they are just having a bad website day (because of the redesign/relaunch) and maybe are doing something with their workbook PDF security.... or they just screwed up my account. I won't get worried until Monday, and then only if IPExpert isn't answering their phones. The rest of the Volume 2 labs were supposed to be out yesterday, and their last email mentioned the Volume 3 multiprotocol labs with the OEQs and Troubleshooting.....

I do have the InternetworkExpert Volume 4 troubleshooting labs to keep me busy. And I guess I'll check with them Monday to make sure the Troubleshooting COD already exists (and is not another pre-sale posting) before I order it. Narbik's Troubleshooting Workbook is supposed to be out in "early January" -- or so I was informed after I ordered it.

The Cisco360 Troubleshooting VOD was interesting, but I'll be upset if I need to know an undocumented command and undocumented command output format they mentioned in it for the actual lab.... The Cisco360 workbook (NMC?) doesn't seem to have any troubleshooting section -- so the Troubleshooting VOD labs seem to be it for troubleshooting in the official self-study material.

mikej412

mikej412 wrote: »

The Cisco360 workbook (NMC?) doesn't seem to have any troubleshooting section

I poked ahead and found the Cisco360 Workbook Labs 26 to 35 have troubleshooting labs.

I still haven't decided if it's worth dusting off the old CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide -- or if I should just stick with Troubleshooting IP Routing Protocols and Doyle for my "fun reading."

Turgon

mikej412 wrote: »

I poked ahead and found the Cisco360 Workbook Labs 26 to 35 have troubleshooting labs.

I still haven't decided if it's worth dusting off the old CCNP CIT Exam Certification Guide -- or if I should just stick with Troubleshooting IP Routing Protocols and Doyle for my "fun reading."

I wont be using 360, too expensive. Will just have to suck it up and use IPexpert and see how their stuff goes! Funny you mentioned CIT. I was thinking of reading whatever Cisco Press book goes with that and taking the exam for laughs in the New Year sometime. Whatever will give me an edge on Troubleshooting really!

mikej412

Not sure how "successful" the IPExpert website migration/relaunch was since they didn't send out the "instructions" for the new site. But the good news is they seem to still be in business -- and support got back to my web message and told me what I should do.

I was able to "migrate" my old account to my new account -- once I shifted to using IE -- but I don't see any of the "new stuff" that was supposed to be there (the rest of the Volume 2 labs and the new Volume 3). And I'm getting "web page errors" down in the status bar and so far have only gotten one successful download of the "old stuff" -- but at least that opened with my new user credentials....

It will be interesting to compare the troubleshooting labs between the vendors. So far the troubleshooting seems to be more like cleaning up after a moron tried configuring the routers -- and failed.

Turgon

mikej412 wrote: »

Not sure how "successful" the IPExpert website migration/relaunch was since they didn't send out the "instructions" for the new site. But the good news is they seem to still be in business -- and support got back to my web message and told me what I should do.

I was able to "migrate" my old account to my new account -- once I shifted to using IE -- but I don't see any of the "new stuff" that was supposed to be there (the rest of the Volume 2 labs and the new Volume 3). And I'm getting "web page errors" down in the status bar and so far have only gotten one successful download of the "old stuff" -- but at least that opened with my new user credentials....

It will be interesting to compare the troubleshooting labs between the vendors. So far the troubleshooting seems to be more like cleaning up after a moron tried configuring the routers -- and failed.

hehehe..well I suppose we will have to compare notes on that Mike. I will look at IPexpert for starters. With elapsed time I will become more competent at the configuration section in the v4 lab. I need to work on the new topics and keep practicing variations of doing things. But it's just a matter of time to get good enough in that part of the exercise. Im more concerned about OEQ and TS practice at this stage so Im keen to rattle on with that sort of stuff the next few months. If you can go in to your lab ready to smoke those sections I think you have a decent chance of doing something. It will be interesting to see if any of the training shops have tanked this time next year because if we dont get any CCIE passers by Easter I think a lot of decent people will drop out as well as the lightweights

Turgon

No studies yesterday as too busy doing house stuff. Got the food shopping and some house cleaning done, put the tree up and decorated the place for Christmas. Just did a quick pass this morning on the IP addressing section on the CCNA Boson test. Dropped marks all over the place so I do need the practice on subnetting! Will most likely not get much done today as the rest of the house needs cleaning and there are bills to attend to. Lammle's book arrived. Fifth edition these days. When I had my hands on it's predecessor in 1999 it was the second edition. Much more content to master on this exam these days but I think the level is about the same. I will certainly need to be careful that I dont gloss over any of the minutia that may trip me up and cause me to fail an otherwise doable test. Finish the Boson and Lammle tests then read the book carefully. That should do it.

Turgon

Boson tests today, then a call to IPexpert to go over the latest workbook offerings.

ncsugrad2002

It's interesting to me to see someone go who is close to the CCIE level going back to do CCNA stuff and actually having to practice some of the basics again.

At least it gives the rest of us a little hope

Turgon

ncsugrad2002 wrote: »

It's interesting to me to see someone go who is close to the CCIE level going back to do CCNA stuff and actually having to practice some of the basics again.

At least it gives the rest of us a little hope

hehehe..everything starts with the basics!

Turgon

Put forward by two agents for permanent Senior Network Engineer positions in the UK.
Finished the IP section on the Boson test. Cool.

Now watching astradyne with my son while mum cooks tea. He likes this track..;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=ZP0Psd_lu5w#t=28

Turgon

Informed I have a telephone interview tomorrow. W00t. Time for curry now. MPLS study later

Meanwhile here's what happens when you give God a guitar apparently..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxTWQD91b5c

Turgon

Time to load the Lammle test engine on the PC and download the Boson MPLS tests..