I bombed my interview

Well folks, I got my CCENT and CCNA, passed with good percentages (994 and 890, respectively), and reviewed switching, when I found an opening in my department for a Networking Engineer Level 2 job.

Perfect, I thought - I know all the guys in the department already, and they know my aspirations. This is a school district job, and my kid goes to a school here, so I'd be a networking engineer with the same schedule as my child, pretty much. And looking over the description of the job, it seemed to match my CCNA studies.

I got to the interview a few minutes early, and was handed a written test. I nailed every question, but a couple on fiber, which I never studied at Cisco Networking Academy. But when I got to my interview, I bombed the oral questions! They described a scenario where a broadcast storm was happening, but asked me to identify this by the lights on the switches. I couldn't do it. I've studied STP and how to avoid broadcast storms, and read up on the troubleshooting, but I couldn't tell them what the switch would look like when that was happening.

And then they grilled me on fiber. I basically don't know a thing about it, except that is uses light. I haven't done labs on it, and I can't afford to buy such a lab to use at home.

Aside from the first scenario, their questions were a clean miss as far as the CCNA curriculum was concerned.

Wow am I upset. Why would these people want to hire me?

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Comments

ColbyG

Sounds like they're looking for more real-world experience than you currently possess. Maybe they'll give you a shot anyway.

blackninja

Unlucky!

"They described a scenario where a broadcast storm was happening, but asked me to identify this by the lights on the switches" - the lights on the router would be all on & staying on.

Use this to move forward, don't let it get you down.

Keep yer chin up, some else will come up.

Geetar28

Man,

Don't sweat it too much. You never know, they may think your perfect for the job. In EVERY job there is a learning curve anyway. Earning the CCNA shows that your not a slouch and have a good brain in your head. That's kinda how I view the CCNA it shows that you have the ability to learn and have proved it.

I don't think that once I finally have earned the CCNA it will ensure I get a better job, I'm mostly doing it to prove to myself that I can understand the technology, and if doors open great if not, I may have to knock on a few more.

Hope for the best and keep looking. YOUR attitude toward whatever is thrown at you is one of the few things that you can control. Good Luck!

mikem2te

rodan07 wrote: »

They described a scenario where a broadcast storm was happening, but asked me to identify this by the lights on the switches. I couldn't do it.

A Broadcast has happended to me a couple of times - total network devastation. All the lights on all the routers were solidy lit or blinking like mad. There was no out of band management so we hand no management interface to identify the problem. So we started to unplug cables from the switches, after unpluging about 40 cables it all went quiet, all the lights stopped blinking. I can't remember the root cause, probably a computers' NIC on the way out or a switching loop.

Another common real world problem you may see driving the switch lights mad - the network works but throw any load at it and it falls over. Mismatched full duplex / half duplex settings on switch trunks!! Auto negotiation doesn't always get it right resulting in loads of collisions.

pitviper

Was the fiber stuff mentioned in the job description? It's actually not all that uncommon for a potential employer to ask you something from WAY out in left field just to asses HOW you handle yourself under pressure. How did you respond? Were you honest about not knowing the answer and did you follow up with something that would show them that you are capable and eager to learn?

tanix

Don't let it get you down, confidence is really the biggest killer in anything really. Just stay focused, keep on learning and eventually you will get what you are looking for.

After a long break from the IT field, I went back to learning and started going through the certs refresh and update subjects I knew as well as expand my knowledge in fields I didn't. While I do have several years of experience, it has been so long that I am pretty much starting over in some respects.

My friend set me up for a job working out of country and after 200 people it came down to me and another (while it has been a while, I have a wide range of experiences in various topics). I lost out because the other guy had a level 3 security clearance and they couldn't spend the time to get me cleared for the job (less than a month to ship out).

Anyway, it is disappointing to run into these sorts of set backs, but keep in mind it is the set backs which prepare us for the successful ones. Use it to your advantage as a learning tool. Good luck!

mikej412

Hopefully they were just busting your, er, giving you a hard time.

But those sounds like some old school CCNA questions.... the stuff was in the older INTRO/ICND material in the 3.1 courseware from my Cisco CCNA Academy days.

rodan07 wrote: »

They described a scenario where a broadcast storm was happening, but asked me to identify this by the lights on the switches.

I would have gone with "It's lit up like a Christmas tree" (even though with VLANs it may just be some ports/trunks on a switch).

Single and Multimode fiber were in the trivia section of the old INTRO exam, along with 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 and STP (Shielded Twisted Pair), etc. It was covered where you learned about Ethernet LANs and the max distances for the various cable types. And it may have been mentioned again in the hardware discussion on cable connector types. Using fiber to avoid electrical interference was a popular factoid to know for CCNA Academy exams.

bcall64

There is a book called Network Warrior that's goes through real life situations. It's what you didn't learn on the CCNA. I bought it and plan on reading it after the CCNA. From what I have read so far it looks awesome for these types of questions.

tanix

mikej412 wrote: »

Single and Multimode fiber were in the trivia section of the old INTRO exam, along with 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 and STP (Shielded Twisted Pair), etc. It was covered where you learned about Ethernet LANs and the max distances for the various cable types. And it may have been mentioned again in the hardware discussion on cable connector types. Using fiber to avoid electrical interference was a popular factoid to know for CCNA Academy exams.

The Network+ hits them pretty hard as well. The test hit you with every detailed little fact about cabling, connectors, and their uses. Even the CCNA coverage of it seemed light compared to the Network+, especially on fiber.

mikem2te

bcall64 wrote: »

There is a book called Network Warrior that's goes through real life situations. It's what you didn't learn on the CCNA. I bought it and plan on reading it after the CCNA. From what I have read so far it looks awesome for these types of questions.

Network Warrior. +1

blackninja

bcall64 wrote: »

There is a book called Network Warrior that's goes through real life situations. It's what you didn't learn on the CCNA. I bought it and plan on reading it after the CCNA. From what I have read so far it looks awesome for these types of questions.

+2

A third of the way through it.

rodan07

pitviper wrote: »

Was the fiber stuff mentioned in the job description? It's actually not all that uncommon for a potential employer to ask you something from WAY out in left field just to asses HOW you handle yourself under pressure. How did you respond? Were you honest about not knowing the answer and did you follow up with something that would show them that you are capable and eager to learn?

When this happened I replied that disabling DTP on the switch interfaces should help to prevent this problem. There would be no trunk mode autonegotiation in the event someone accidentally plugged in a cable to a switch port.

I hope that worked...

R

rodan07

mikej412 wrote: »

Hopefully they were just busting your, er, giving you a hard time.

But those sounds like some old school CCNA questions.... the stuff was in the older INTRO/ICND material in the 3.1 courseware from my Cisco CCNA Academy days.

Single and Multimode fiber were in the trivia section of the old INTRO exam, along with 10BASE2 and 10BASE5 and STP (Shielded Twisted Pair), etc. It was covered where you learned about Ethernet LANs and the max distances for the various cable types. And it may have been mentioned again in the hardware discussion on cable connector types. Using fiber to avoid electrical interference was a popular factoid to know for CCNA Academy exams.

Interesting you should mention that! The leader of the three men who interviewed me got his own CCNA back in the mid-90s, and then later a CCAI, so he should remember some of this.

I would like to thank everyone for their positive comments. I feel better now...

R

networker050184

I don't think you are out of the running. I've never had an interview where I was able to answer every question. Most employers understand you don't know everything. As long as you show you have a good grasp and are willing to learn they may take a chance on you. Let us know how it goes!

ConstantlyLearning

I'd recommend Network Warrior as well.

A song call The Switch by Rival Schools came on while I was reading this thread.

mgeorge

I love it when i get questions like those in interviews because i like to answer their question with a question...

What type of cisco switch? 2950, 2960, 3550, 3560, 3750? they will show lights flashing rapidly across all ports during a broadcast storm.

4500's and 6500's wont show any flashing lights, they just show green for link/active and orange for administratively disabled. if the led is flashing orange then the port has been phsyically disabled by ios due to a hardware issue.

Kaminsky

You replied with a confident answer. Shows you would have attacked the problem instead of throwing your hands in the air. A reasonable answer might have been to jump on wireshark to see what was spamming and then go and pull the plug on it. In larger networks, it's not that simple. I once got asked "So... you know IP and stuff.. right ?" that was the entire technical interview.

Don't beat yourself up. We all beat ourselves up after an interview even when we have done fantastically well. You wouldn't have helped your nerves by building it up so much with the perfect fit it could be. You did get some good clues of your weaknesess though whether you get the job or not.

You should know fibre. You don't have a leg to stand on not knowing how that works in this industry. You'll kick yourself at how simple it is. As far as a router/switch/firewall/server is concerned, a fibre is the same as cat5/cat6/serial/wireless/satellite. It's just an interface connection. It's just a bigger pipe than the others.

If you have gone through the IOS commands to check an interface problem and that seems fine so you think a fibre itself has a problem and how would you go about checking... Once you have checked transfer and receive are the right way round, you don't check ! Just throw the fibre away and use a new one. They're cheap enough. If it starts working then great, the fibre was the problem but that is now in the bin. Ticket closed <- most important thing and way more important than getting to the bottom of what specifically was causing the problem.

If it is still busted, look at the fibre modules though these arn't cheap to replace. Use a spare to check. If the modules seem fine, you could have a busted interface slot. It's all modular. Fibre/copper/wireless... their all just another medium. Same fixing rules apply. If it's a telco fibre provision that is the problem, make sure you rule out every possible thing it could be before phoning up and being talked to like your an idiot.

Google and Wiki single mode, multimode, difference between laser and lcd feeds (remembering you can only look directly at a 1500 nm laser twice when seeing which is carrying the light), sc/lc/st/mt-rj connectors and cleaning, max curves of cables, microfractures, gbics and sfp modules, etc and you're basically sorted for general support. Submarine fibres will open up how it all strings together including the main telcos that make it work. Dark fibre trays and ODF frames will learn you how your telco's deliver wan links.

You can get into some of the deeper theory of it reading up on how dwdm works which could be usefull but as for how telcos make fibre work... who cares ? I've sat in on telco engineers from the early polishers (which took forever) to the modern splicers and patch panel cablers to realise that we don't need to know how they make it work. If it goes wrong, that's their problem. You do need to know how to prove that though.

YouTube has some really great info on fibre optics and how it works

tmlerdal

and don't forget that depending on what "mode" the lights are in, they may be showing something different for the 2950, 2960, 3550, 3560, 3750 switches.

thenjduke

My advice is answer question best to your knowledge. My current employer asked me if I knew subnetting and I said a little bit and that was it. This was 2 yrs ago I know it like back of my hand now but during the interview he actually sat down and explained it to me on the white board.

jamesleecoleman

thenjduke wrote: »

My advice is answer question best to your knowledge. My current employer asked me if I knew subnetting and I said a little bit and that was it. This was 2 yrs ago I know it like back of my hand now but during the interview he actually sat down and explained it to me on the white board.

That's awsome!!!

Selfmade

Don't get discouraged sir, don't let misery paint pictures of you failing.

rodan07

You guys all rock! Thanks so much!

Now off to study fiber, & switch troubleshooting...

Stuppored

That's the spirit brother! Keep your head up and keep moving forward!

sjcat

I'm feeling your pain. Two years ago I knew NOTHING about networking. 6 months ago I finished my CCNA and started looking for jobs. Got my first phone interview a month ago and it could not have gone worse! It was supposed to be an entry level job, not really any networking involved, but a way to get some experience. This guy asked me every imaginable CCNA question, and wanted answers in full detail. I basically sounded like the biggest moron ever. I should have gotten all those questions with no problem but I was nervous and frankly hadn't reviewed the material since I passed the exam. Use it or lose it. Then if that wasn't enough he finished off the the interview by asking me about 10 or so terms I had never heard of before. When I had finished humiliating myself, he told me that I would not be getting the job, but I thanked him for the opportunity to interview and it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. It let me know the bar that I was going to be held to in these interviews. I may get tripped up on different questions in my next interview, but I WILL NOT stumble on the same questions again. Each interview is an invaluable experience, Good luck!

Turgon

rodan07 wrote: »

Well folks, I got my CCENT and CCNA, passed with good percentages (994 and 890, respectively), and reviewed switching, when I found an opening in my department for a Networking Engineer Level 2 job.

Perfect, I thought - I know all the guys in the department already, and they know my aspirations. This is a school district job, and my kid goes to a school here, so I'd be a networking engineer with the same schedule as my child, pretty much. And looking over the description of the job, it seemed to match my CCNA studies.

I got to the interview a few minutes early, and was handed a written test. I nailed every question, but a couple on fiber, which I never studied at Cisco Networking Academy. But when I got to my interview, I bombed the oral questions! They described a scenario where a broadcast storm was happening, but asked me to identify this by the lights on the switches. I couldn't do it. I've studied STP and how to avoid broadcast storms, and read up on the troubleshooting, but I couldn't tell them what the switch would look like when that was happening.

And then they grilled me on fiber. I basically don't know a thing about it, except that is uses light. I haven't done labs on it, and I can't afford to buy such a lab to use at home.

Aside from the first scenario, their questions were a clean miss as far as the CCNA curriculum was concerned.

Wow am I upset. Why would these people want to hire me?

Dont beat yourself up. Most technical interviews are a very blunt tool and horribly contrived leading in some cases to both bad hires and also passing some very capable people by. The important thing is what will the work actually *involve* and are they *really* testing you on your capabilities to deliver. Neither of these can you truely know going in! Its down to the interviewers to get that right! But often the task of preparing to interview someone is left horribly late and the experience for the interviewed is skewed. Sometime you get put forward for the wrong job. Last year I was put forward by a terribly nice lady for a job that turned out to be far from described. I was asked searching questions on the pros and cons of star vs ring topologies to design MPLS cores. No idea Im afraid as I never did that. Another interview included open ended answers to 8 arcane questions on things like the difference between MISTP+ and PVST+ and ACE modules and some IPsec config stuff I really haven't done before. One does ones best in those circumstances unless you are rainman or lucky enough to have spent a few months working on them or need medical help.

Either way just do your best and move on. Somebody someday will see the light and give you a break!

imsisko

Here is a bit of the book:

Network Warrior by O'Reilly Media

I have it, read some of it and it is very usefull!