1st CCIE lab attempt blog and help for candidates.

Turgon

Ok Im done with the switching sections on the command memoriser. Finally. A truely awful experience. I have forgotten many things, some outright and others just syntax. Some of the sections just battered me. But overall it was worthwhile because having been here before with some hardwork I should get these things back on track. Feel really tired.

No more Cisco now, time to give my wife a hand and get the little one ready for bed.

Turgon

A visit to the shops today to buy some printer paper. Time to print out and file the Vol 1 technology labs. I shall be going through each topic dumping the configs into a spreadsheet. Most likely I will revisit the command memoriser switching topics over the weekend. It will most likely take 10 weeks to get the topics up to standard before attempting mock exams. End of June I will start those just in time for the summer.

Turgon

the Vol 1 workbook amounts to 2500 pages of pain to be printed and bound. Time to buy some A4 ringbinders. Lots of them.

Turgon

A waste of time. The cartridge went on the printer before I got 300 pages done. About 80 of the pages spoiled due to the ink going. The remainder are fine. Abort the mission before I waste more good paper. It looks like I will have to go half blind reading all this stuff on the screen. Fun.

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

A waste of time. The cartridge went on the printer before I got 300 pages done. About 80 of the pages spoiled due to the ink going. The remainder are fine. Abort the mission before I waste more good paper. It looks like I will have to go half blind reading all this stuff on the screen. Fun.

Sounds like fun, I have to admit I much prefer printing out my labs to work from and scrible on. Actually I can probably apply that to pretty much any theory reading too.

SysAdmin4066

So when you looking at making a run at the lab?

Turgon

SysAdmin4066 wrote: »

So when you looking at making a run at the lab?

End of the year I imagine. Over the next 10 weeks I will be nuking the command memoriser and working all the technologies in Vol 1. Then it's mock labs.

Turgon

Three agents called in response to my application for different roles this week. We talked and given the job requirements I was interested and they said I was a good match. All wanted to put me forward for the job. I asked all three to send me the job spec. Only one has been forthcoming. So I imagine the other two leads are hot air. Still one out of three isn't bad.

SysAdmin4066

There is a lot of hot air out there man, but on the same token, there's a lot of good stuff. Just have to be willing to treasure hunt a bit. So end of the year, that's cool.

Turgon

Job specs have fessed up now. Got sent forward for three architect roles. One perm and two contract. Not bad. Back on with switching prep now. Lunch time.

Turgon

Well I have an interview next week with a lady Architect leading a team of Telecom Architects at a bank in London. Should be an interesting challenge. Breaking into senior finance IT roles without significant banking experience is always very hard but nothing ventured nothing gained! I imagine I will be spending quite a bit of time going over multicast theory this weekend to prepare. Real time trading, latency, mcast and lots of debugging and TCP parameters..gotta love it.

Ahriakin

Don't forget elite shredder sk1llz

Turgon

Finally got through another pass of the eight sections on Switching in the Command Memorizer tool. A time consuming and draining process. On to reading now, the switching sections in Vol 1 INE.

Turgon

Had telephone interview today for a contract at a bank. Thought it went quite well although it usually takes five or six before Im fully warmed up. Each one is different. Im sure I could do a good job in that role so lets hope I clinched it, even if I was rather brief on differences between R65 and R70 Checkpoint. Forgot! Another telephone interview for a different job was confirmed for Friday! On the studyfront looked at Vol I switching.

rsutton

Good luck on job prospect, in this market it's nice to see people getting good interviews.

laidbackfreak

Turgon wrote: »

Had telephone interview today for a contract at a bank. Thought it went quite well although it usually takes five or six before Im fully warmed up.

I know the feeling on the numbers game and getting warmed up. Only trouble with this climate is the time periods between them. Actually thats probably more with me being lazy on the applying front :-/ Though thats about to change.

I'm never keen on telephone interviews even less so than face to face, probably due to the fact I cant see the person\s face etc. I'd be interested to hear your strategy for these if you have one.

Turgon

laidbackfreak wrote: »

I know the feeling on the numbers game and getting warmed up. Only trouble with this climate is the time periods between them. Actually thats probably more with me being lazy on the applying front :-/ Though thats about to change.

I'm never keen on telephone interviews even less so than face to face, probably due to the fact I cant see the person\s face etc. I'd be interested to hear your strategy for these if you have one.

In my case it's not too bad. I seem to have no problems getting interviews of late and have hardly started to look really. Now we are in the new financial year it's the best time to be looking. I prepare for telephone interviews by reading the job spec, reminding myself what I already know and try to relax. In the end I did not turn the family upside down this weekend by cancelling trips out to pour over my multicasting theory. It wasn't necessary anyway as MCast questions never showed up. At this stage in my career Im regularly punting for jobs that I know I can do well so that helps somewhat with the process. So it's really if the interviewer and I click or if there are people out there with better specific experience in certain platforms or industry sectors. It's really just a matter of time before someone decides to make me an offer for a job that interests me.

laidbackfreak

cheers buddy always good to hear of others experiences and how they deal with them.

Turgon

Gotta love interviews! The bank thing passed me by, for some reason they felt I was more of a project manager than an architect..hehehe..I guess I must have worked for too many PMs over the years and the madness has rubbed off. I could never have delivered for the PMs unless I was an architect. That's what I do.

Friday's interview went swell. Aced the interview with the manager and was told I will definately be sent forward to the second stage. It's for a major outsourcer as..Network Lead Architect.

Another 5 or 6 like that and a decent job offer should emerge!

laidbackfreak

Makes me laugh when they come out with stuff like that. I'm always like No I'm an engineer (not quite architect yet!) always get the stock answer of oh well you know about this and that.... lol
Sounds like things are picking up, are the roles uk based??

I've got a telephone interview this week for a job in Malta and in the hunt for another in New Zealand plus fingers in pies for a few others.

Turgon

A full on week at work. Should be back on with the training material this weekend.

Turgon

Well I finished my project and handed over the documentation to support. Time to look for a new gig now. A few days rest first and a trip to London with the family followed by an interview next week. Job search and study time finally opening up again. Some R n R first though because the last four months have been very intense on the workfront.

Turgon

Set about constructing a spreadsheet with different worksheets for protocols. This will be a useful working document to record my Vol I technology studies.

Turgon

Interview went well for the Lead Network Architect position. This week I will be looking for more opportunities. One agent needs to talk to me about a couple of contract role so I will get back to her.

Turgon

Spoke to the agent and shes putting me forward for the contract. Its a senior network ops gig but managing everything, a gadzillion sites and people, plus design plus lots of process, meetings and reporting to the top. Hands on as well. Fun.

With a new cartridge for the Laserjet installed and a box full of printer paper in the house I set about printing out the INE Vol 1 workbook. Called a halt halfway into printing the Security section because I got a lot of printing done today and Im sick of sitting here waiting for it all to finish. Everything divided into subjects and a nice job for the binding guy awaits tomorrow in the store, about 1800 pages worth. The insane QoS section is over 400 pages, BGP and OSPF are the next biggest. It will be good to pick them up when they are bound and make a start on my revision.

At least another 500 pages more to print out when I get some time.

I anticipate that whatever job I land in the next few weeks will require most of my time and energy for sometime ahead because there will be high expectations and a LOT to get up to speed on, not so much on technology (which after all these years I mostly understand) but more on how things hang together and the processes in place to get useful stuff done. Many people to meet and win over early on. So only light studies are appropriate for the next six weeks as I will be very stretched on the workfront. That should be enough time to get through Vol 1 in a satisfactory fashion.

Then it's mock exams until the end of the year. The last four months I aced a demanding contract overseas at the expense of study time, energy or inclination for CCIE prep. Hard hours on the CCIE were neither practical or sensible if I was to do well for my client. My free time was spent researching (amongst other things) IOS solutions for field work and data centre design. So with the CCIE centric ring rust I will most likely get destroyed on the mocks for a couple of months. Then I will take the lab about Christmas time and kick it's ass.

Turgon

Completed printing the remaining Vol 1 sections this morning in time for the trip to the binders. Also took a call from the agent who told me I have been offered the Lead Technical Architect job I interviewed for last week. Cool.

chmorin

Turgon wrote: »

Completed printing the remaining Vol 1 sections this morning in time for the trip to the binders. Also took a call from the agent who told me I have been offered the Lead Technical Architect job I interviewed for last week. Cool.

It is good to see those with IE knowledge being worth something

Turgon

chmorin wrote: »

It is good to see those with IE knowledge being worth something

It's worth a great deal but the important thing is to have the chance over the years to put it all into context through live projects and experience. That's ultimately what clinches most hiring decisions at this level. They wanted a CCIE but seem to have relaxed that requirement for me. A TDA role suits me fine.

mrmcmint

Congrats on the offer Turgon!

laidbackfreak

Nice one buddy nice to see things come round at the right time

Local gig?