Some folks need a reality check....

it_consultant

mikedisd2 wrote: »

5x years is just a time frame. This example is a bit extreme and one would expect alot more from 5x years experience. This shouldn't be something you would boast about on your resume.

Competence on any topic ought to be covered in your skillset, work history and achievement sections.

I have the opposite problem, I don't have 5 years total experience supporting any version of MS exchange but I can run circles around most people that do. I get around this by saying, specifically, what I have done with Exchange. Planning, migrating, installing, troubleshooting, etc. When I look at resumes for my company, I look for things like that with any mentioned skill. If you say you have a lot of Windows Server experience, let me know how many times you had to a Windows Server from bare metal, etc. Any technical discrepancies can be cleared up in the interview.

I am more likely to pull someone in to an interview who has demonstrated (in their resume) not just years of experience, but experience in the right areas where we are looking. That way I don't get '5 years of exchange experience' building mailboxes.

cisco_certs

ccie15672 wrote: »

First let me just say, Turgon, you and I are in sync. As I was reading this thread and thinking to myself that I was going to reply and say this or that, I found you had already posted what I was going to say. Get out of my head!

I don't like grilling people with explicit technical fact questions. I've given up on this. I try to ascertain whether or not this person is motivated and will figure it out. "Figure it out." I've posted about this before somewhere on this forum. I mean, they should be able to tell me some absolute basics about things, but really I'm wondering if this person knows how to move from square zero on their own. Ok, so you know nothing about BGP except the "router bgp xxx" and "network xxxx mask xxxx." BUT if you are sitting there at 3AM trying to work an issue: (a) are you going to walk away from it or (b) are you going to read some docs, gather the info you need, and figure it out? Thats what I want. I prefer extending an outage 20 minutes if I can get away with it so that someone can have an "ah ha!" moment.

I'm not saying its easy identifying those people, but I'd rather have that than someone who still has 500+ flashcard questions in his head from the CCNP exam he just took. Nothing like a blob of information with no context. The human mind doesn't like carrying that around, it will jettison that **** as soon as possible.


One other thing I'd like to comment on... Oppurtunities and the NOC. If you are stuck in the NOC and your lifestyle can support it... choose to work overnight and certainly overnight on the weekends. On your own, get into contact with the upper-tier folks running projects and volunteer to execute/coordinate changes for them during outage windows. This is what I did when I was in the NOC years ago. I got lucky I guess because this was my first strategy and it worked for me... I pretty quickly became a sort of unofficial Tier 2 engineer that always worked during change windows and it did earn me some decent pay. It also enabled me to become familiar with the project history and network layout of some very important customers.

If you sit and think about it, you could come up with some strategies like this. Its a long game usually.

Good point on the upper Tier folks not engaging NOC/helpdesk personnel to do some of the work. I am frequently guilty of that, but it is true as said here in this thread that it seems all of my timelines are compressed so badly I just don't have time to train people AND do the design/testing/etc. Its pretty much... "go go go!" and when the work is done then I get to go back and train people on what was already done. Its not ideal, but it is what happens a lot. Thats one of my current challenges... how can I fold the people who are going to support this into the process earlier and still work with these compressed timelines?

Enough rambling from me!

This is whats happening to me right now but my engineers, architect and admin are patient and train me on everything. I guess that really depends if the person also is willing to train people. But Im happy that my co-workers are open to training.

chrisone

i wished i earned 75k

ltgenspecific

As someone looking to break into the industry, this has been a hugely informative thread.

As someone who has been in the position to hire folks for non-IT related fields, it's great to hear that there are several schools of thought on interviewing and the manner in which to present a resume. I'd even imagine that putting CCNP on a resume (for example) is great, but just like any job, you've got to tailor your resume in general (and interview techniques) to match the position in question. Fundamentals, I would imagine, wouldn't even come up in an interview with Cisco. It just may come up, however, in an interview with Merck as they don't need engineers at that level, they need Network monkeys.

Am I correct in assuming this? (I've always interviewed candidates with this in mind... don't quote me Basis Points on a resume if you've never been in management and are interviewing for a traveling sales job, etc...)

Turgon

ccie15672 wrote: »

First let me just say, Turgon, you and I are in sync. As I was reading this thread and thinking to myself that I was going to reply and say this or that, I found you had already posted what I was going to say. Get out of my head!

I don't like grilling people with explicit technical fact questions. I've given up on this. I try to ascertain whether or not this person is motivated and will figure it out. "Figure it out." I've posted about this before somewhere on this forum. I mean, they should be able to tell me some absolute basics about things, but really I'm wondering if this person knows how to move from square zero on their own. Ok, so you know nothing about BGP except the "router bgp xxx" and "network xxxx mask xxxx." BUT if you are sitting there at 3AM trying to work an issue: (a) are you going to walk away from it or (b) are you going to read some docs, gather the info you need, and figure it out? Thats what I want. I prefer extending an outage 20 minutes if I can get away with it so that someone can have an "ah ha!" moment.

I'm not saying its easy identifying those people, but I'd rather have that than someone who still has 500+ flashcard questions in his head from the CCNP exam he just took. Nothing like a blob of information with no context. The human mind doesn't like carrying that around, it will jettison that **** as soon as possible.


One other thing I'd like to comment on... Oppurtunities and the NOC. If you are stuck in the NOC and your lifestyle can support it... choose to work overnight and certainly overnight on the weekends. On your own, get into contact with the upper-tier folks running projects and volunteer to execute/coordinate changes for them during outage windows. This is what I did when I was in the NOC years ago. I got lucky I guess because this was my first strategy and it worked for me... I pretty quickly became a sort of unofficial Tier 2 engineer that always worked during change windows and it did earn me some decent pay. It also enabled me to become familiar with the project history and network layout of some very important customers.

If you sit and think about it, you could come up with some strategies like this. Its a long game usually.

Good point on the upper Tier folks not engaging NOC/helpdesk personnel to do some of the work. I am frequently guilty of that, but it is true as said here in this thread that it seems all of my timelines are compressed so badly I just don't have time to train people AND do the design/testing/etc. Its pretty much... "go go go!" and when the work is done then I get to go back and train people on what was already done. Its not ideal, but it is what happens a lot. Thats one of my current challenges... how can I fold the people who are going to support this into the process earlier and still work with these compressed timelines?

Enough rambling from me!

It's not rambling Derek. You know what you are talking about. Thanks for the paper by the way.

Turgon

it_consultant wrote: »

I have the opposite problem, I don't have 5 years total experience supporting any version of MS exchange but I can run circles around most people that do. I get around this by saying, specifically, what I have done with Exchange. Planning, migrating, installing, troubleshooting, etc. When I look at resumes for my company, I look for things like that with any mentioned skill. If you say you have a lot of Windows Server experience, let me know how many times you had to a Windows Server from bare metal, etc. Any technical discrepancies can be cleared up in the interview.

I am more likely to pull someone in to an interview who has demonstrated (in their resume) not just years of experience, but experience in the right areas where we are looking. That way I don't get '5 years of exchange experience' building mailboxes.

As I have said repeatedly, it is your portfolio of work that defines you. What have you done? On the flip side a lot of people dont get a lot of exposure because things are locked down or outsourced or basically someone elses problem/responsibilty. That's an equation you need to make good for yourself through your employment choices. Dont sit around waiting for a chance to do an Exchange migration if that is what you want to learn and do. Go and find one because if that's what you want to go to the industry as, an Exchange specialist, then you need to get some serious projects under your belt.

There are people with 10 years experience who think flashing lights are cool. I will take two years part time if the candidate is smart, dedicated, thorough, and most of all..careful.

RomBUS

I agree with whoever said that to start off with smaller shops/solutions provider (I believe Turgon but this thread is too long to remember). I started off in a similar company myself when I first landed my first IT job. We were a small outsourced IT company in midtown manhattan that we only had 1 office room that was rented out to us because we managed their network for free. And I still say today (even though I am getting paid more for probably less responsibility) that it is the best IT experience I've ever had, at the time I was hungry for knowledge and it filled my appetite, the countless reading, the 14-16 hour days, working weekends (rare but it did happen), to my first exposure to servers in a business environment to actually building my own server for client solutions, eventually managing the network when my boss was unavailable. Its too bad that the economy took a bad turn because I probably would still be with the company for probably the same salary

Turgon

ltgenspecific wrote: »

As someone looking to break into the industry, this has been a hugely informative thread.

As someone who has been in the position to hire folks for non-IT related fields, it's great to hear that there are several schools of thought on interviewing and the manner in which to present a resume. I'd even imagine that putting CCNP on a resume (for example) is great, but just like any job, you've got to tailor your resume in general (and interview techniques) to match the position in question. Fundamentals, I would imagine, wouldn't even come up in an interview with Cisco. It just may come up, however, in an interview with Merck as they don't need engineers at that level, they need Network monkeys.

Am I correct in assuming this? (I've always interviewed candidates with this in mind... don't quote me Basis Points on a resume if you've never been in management and are interviewing for a traveling sales job, etc...)

A lot of companies need network monkeys these days. That's part of the problem, graduating from monkey level. If you were interviewing for anything technical with Cisco expect fundamentals to come up, as they should. However filtering on people based on minutia is somewhat flawed. Example, I missed a simple question on OSPF, link or network? once in a telephone technical interview. Never went to next stage. Then I got a major contract doing colocation OSPF network design. Everything went fine. But you have to draw a line somewhere and busy IT folks dont always have time for touchy feely interviews

Turgon

RomBUS wrote: »

I agree with whoever said that to start off with smaller shops/solutions provider (I believe Turgon but this thread is too long to remember). I started off in a similar company myself when I first landed my first IT job. We were a small outsourced IT company in midtown manhattan that we only had 1 office room that was rented out to us because we managed their network for free. And I still say today (even though I am getting paid more for probably less responsibility) that it is the best IT experience I've ever had, at the time I was hungry for knowledge and it filled my appetite, the countless reading, the 14-16 hour days, working weekends (rare but it did happen), to my first exposure to servers in a business environment to actually building my own server for client solutions, eventually managing the network when my boss was unavailable. Its too bad that the economy took a bad turn because I probably would still be with the company for probably the same salary

Yep it was me. How I started out and helped me tremendously. Big stuff is different but there are parallels. Remember both of those things and it works well.

shodown

Turgon wrote: »

A lot of companies need network monkeys these days. That's part of the problem, graduating from monkey level. If you were interviewing for anything technical with Cisco expect fundamentals to come up, as they should. However filtering on people based on minutia is somewhat flawed. Example, I missed a simple question on OSPF, link or network? once in a telephone technical interview. Never went to next stage. Then I got a major contract doing colocation OSPF network design. Everything went fine. But you have to draw a line somewhere and busy IT folks dont always have time for touchy feely interviews

This happens too much and I feel is a lack of real knowledge and on the side of the interviewer than the interviewee.

Turgon

mikedisd2 wrote: »

5x years is just a time frame. This example is a bit extreme and one would expect alot more from 5x years experience. This shouldn't be something you would boast about on your resume.

Competence on any topic ought to be covered in your skillset, work history and achievement sections.

You may have 5 years experience administrating Exchange on a basic level because that's all you are allowed to do. It's still experience but you shouldn't be trying to pass yourself off as a hosted Exchange migration specialist.

Turgon

shodown wrote: »

This happens too much and I feel is a lack of real knowledge and on the side of the interviewer than the interviewee.

It's nothing to get hung up about. At the time I had a busy day with job searches, CCIE labbing (not OSPF) and kids. As I say IT recruiting often involves busy people pulled off urgent work so they throw the vanilla Q + A your way. If the interview was less **** and they had time to really talk and they read my CV I might have been hired, that happened in the next interview for a better job the next week and I got on an aeroplane. Let's just hope they didn't hire a tk hippie who knew the answer

If you can remember the answer to every piece of theory 24/7 you need help. There is more to life

pham0329

I read the first post, but didnt have a chance to read through the entire 5 page.

If you have a skill listed in your resume that you haven't used in years, should you take that off? For example, I got my CCENT a while back, and my job doesn't make much use of it. So if I got an interview and someone start asking questions about how to configure an ACL, I may not know all the answer on the top of my head, but I know that once I start working with it, it'll come back to me.

it_consultant

Turgon -

You said something a couple of posts that I think is more important than you were given credit for. Being careful is such an important and undervalued skill in this industry. If someone has a little less experience then I want but shows careful deliberate operating tendencies, I try to snap them up.

stlsmoore

it_consultant wrote: »

Turgon -

You said something a couple of posts that I think is more important than you were given credit for. Being careful is such an important and undervalued skill in this industry. If someone has a little less experience then I want but shows careful deliberate operating tendencies, I try to snap them up.

Yea I noticed that there are a lot of IT people who are "trigger happy" about making critical changes on production environments. Doing careless things such as not creating any type of Change Control, Back Out Procedures, or outlining exactly what, why, how, and when they're making changes.

ltgenspecific

So, as a random question (and out of laziness at the end of my work day) does anyone have any advice or perhaps a good link to some examples of relevant resumes for entry level IT work? I'm thinking something along the lines of a couple of certs, a couple years of education but no work in the industry as of yet?

I suppose even an example of some that have relevant work experience would be helpful too.

Prob. the wrong section of the forums for this, but any quick links are greatly appreciated!

-Cheers

Turgon

stlsmoore wrote: »

Yea I noticed that there are a lot of IT people who are "trigger happy" about making critical changes on production environments. Doing careless things such as not creating any type of Change Control, Back Out Procedures, or outlining exactly what, why, how, and when they're making changes.

Any professionally run environment will have strict change control process in place requiring an engineer to spend time producing a documented change with rollback and impact assessment. Further, the engineer will have to defend the change to a change approver before it can be implemented. This is not something you learn in books but the experience of doing it is vital if you want to make it in serious networking.

shodown

My last environment we had tickets for small changes(messing around in a Small AS, or adding static routes to to the network) and a Board for (changes to Area 0, large AS changes, Policy Based routing and so on)

My current job, I just go haywire. I work Tier 3 so it has already hit fan so I usually go in get after it( I prefer this environment more) As a example I get a call that all the phones are down and we can't access the call manager over the web, but we have CLI access to it I just reboot, let them know I"m doing it, we are already down why wait for management approval.

Forsaken_GA

We have to submit an RFC to our change management board (which I really wish they'd called it something else... there has occasionally been confusion as to whether someone was referring to an internal RFC, or an ietf RFC) for big and small changes. They meet twice a week and you have to defend your change, and they either vote you up, or strike you down.

However, for emergency issues that require immediate remediation, we have some latitude. We do have to write up the outage and then defend the changes we made on the fly after the fact, which means we have to decide whether the emergency fix needs to stay permanent, or if we need to file another RFC to fix whatever the root cause was, in addition to undoing our changes.

As my hiring manager told me during the interview process - we need superheroes, we don't need any cowboys.

Turgon

shodown wrote: »

My last environment we had tickets for small changes(messing around in a Small AS, or adding static routes to to the network) and a Board for (changes to Area 0, large AS changes, Policy Based routing and so on)

My current job, I just go haywire. I work Tier 3 so it has already hit fan so I usually go in get after it( I prefer this environment more) As a example I get a call that all the phones are down and we can't access the call manager over the web, but we have CLI access to it I just reboot, let them know I"m doing it, we are already down why wait for management approval.

In your example things have been escalated to you so the audit trail exists.

Audit trail is important so people know whats going on. If you do changes without approval and there is an impact to customers someone has to answer to them. You may log on to the wrong device and take out a hosted solution for a customer that has no problems at all.

millworx

You know it's funny this whole thread reminds me of one of my first job interviews about 10 years ago.

Got called in for a Systems Administrator position for a small ISP. So as part of the interview they gave me a list of things to configure on a server. It was setting up Win Server 2000. (all my experience was labbing with NT4) Wanted all the basic stuff, install the scsi drives, setup from scratch, add AD, setup DNS, setup IIS, etc.

I completed everything on the guys list except one thing, I think it was DNS I was stuck on it for some reason. Well the big fat arab guy started yelling at me, and how could I waste his time, and I should go work at McDonalds and stuff. I swear I kinda wanted to cry, and I just walked out of his office and left. lol...

It was kinda a joke, at the time I could configure everything but one thing I needed help with which I could have easily picked up in like 30 minutes, and the guy starts belittling me and yelling. WORST INTERVIEW EVER. Some employers are NUTS. All in all I'm glad I didn't get the job, cuz the guy was a real dick.

Turgon

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

We have to submit an RFC to our change management board (which I really wish they'd called it something else... there has occasionally been confusion as to whether someone was referring to an internal RFC, or an ietf RFC) for big and small changes. They meet twice a week and you have to defend your change, and they either vote you up, or strike you down.

However, for emergency issues that require immediate remediation, we have some latitude. We do have to write up the outage and then defend the changes we made on the fly after the fact, which means we have to decide whether the emergency fix needs to stay permanent, or if we need to file another RFC to fix whatever the root cause was, in addition to undoing our changes.

As my hiring manager told me during the interview process - we need superheroes, we don't need any cowboys.

Yeah in an emergency you need an emergency change. Then you need superheroes. Sorts the men out from the boys.

shodown

Turgon wrote: »

In your example things have been escalated to you so the audit trail exists.

Audit trail is important so people know whats going on. If you do changes without approval and there is an impact to customers someone has to answer to them. You may log on to the wrong device and take out a hosted solution for a customer that has no problems at all.

I wouldn't even know what to do if that happened. I'll be on the lookout to make sure that doesn't happen.

Turgon

shodown wrote: »

I wouldn't even know what to do if that happened. I'll be on the lookout to make sure that doesn't happen.

I have seen some great engineers do that. They are tired, get kicked out of bed and under pressure. Always double check!

erpadmin

millworx wrote: »

It was kinda a joke, at the time I could configure everything but one thing I needed help with which I could have easily picked up in like 30 minutes, and the guy starts belittling me and yelling. WORST INTERVIEW EVER. Some employers are NUTS. All in all I'm glad I didn't get the job, cuz the guy was a real dick.

That was almost certainly a way to see how you could act under pressure, more than how l337 your DNS skills were.

In the end you're probably better off you never got that job...

Turgon

millworx wrote: »

You know it's funny this whole thread reminds me of one of my first job interviews about 10 years ago.

Got called in for a Systems Administrator position for a small ISP. So as part of the interview they gave me a list of things to configure on a server. It was setting up Win Server 2000. (all my experience was labbing with NT4) Wanted all the basic stuff, install the scsi drives, setup from scratch, add AD, setup DNS, setup IIS, etc.

I completed everything on the guys list except one thing, I think it was DNS I was stuck on it for some reason. Well the big fat arab guy started yelling at me, and how could I waste his time, and I should go work at McDonalds and stuff. I swear I kinda wanted to cry, and I just walked out of his office and left. lol...

It was kinda a joke, at the time I could configure everything but one thing I needed help with which I could have easily picked up in like 30 minutes, and the guy starts belittling me and yelling. WORST INTERVIEW EVER. Some employers are NUTS. All in all I'm glad I didn't get the job, cuz the guy was a real dick.

It was a useful experience for you because it demonstated just how many unprofessional people follow the money trail to work in IT on the back of people who actually do have to get useful and important things done, which requires knowledge and skill they dont have. Most likely that guy is out of the industry. Dont work for such people.

Forsaken_GA

millworx wrote: »

You know it's funny this whole thread reminds me of one of my first job interviews about 10 years ago.

Got called in for a Systems Administrator position for a small ISP. So as part of the interview they gave me a list of things to configure on a server. It was setting up Win Server 2000. (all my experience was labbing with NT4) Wanted all the basic stuff, install the scsi drives, setup from scratch, add AD, setup DNS, setup IIS, etc.

I completed everything on the guys list except one thing, I think it was DNS I was stuck on it for some reason. Well the big fat arab guy started yelling at me, and how could I waste his time, and I should go work at McDonalds and stuff. I swear I kinda wanted to cry, and I just walked out of his office and left. lol...

It was kinda a joke, at the time I could configure everything but one thing I needed help with which I could have easily picked up in like 30 minutes, and the guy starts belittling me and yelling. WORST INTERVIEW EVER. Some employers are NUTS. All in all I'm glad I didn't get the job, cuz the guy was a real dick.

Well, I'm not quite *that* bad. I don't insult folks outright, there are ways to make people feel like they're dumb without actually saying it

One of the guys on my team, during his first week, was dealing with an infrastructure outage. People kept calling him wanting to know what was wrong. Well, one guy dropped by his desk and calmly asked what was going on. The team member responded that the network was broke, and he was fixing it, and who was he anyway?

The gentleman simply nodded and walked away. Turns out it was the VP of Operations, so he was kind of important. When the team member found out afterwards, he immediately went to his office and apologized.

At my previous job, we were moving our core routers, and one of them wasn't coming back up, and due to the OSPF inconsistencies, it was effecting the rest of the network (protip - Cisco gear, plus Force10 gear, plus multiple ospf instances, plus the use of passive-interface has a few issues when a router first boots).

The senior network engineer and I are camped out on the datacenter floor trying to get everything up and running again, The president of the network keeps calling the Senior every 5 minutes, screaming about when it's going to be fixed, how much money the company is losing, and this service is down, or that service is down. After about 30 minutes of this crap, the senior hands me his laptop, tells me to fix the problem, and then walks outside to go smoke while he soothes the president's ruffled feathers.

In the first case, the guy had nuts of steel to tell everyone to leave him alone so he could fix the problem. He may have been a little more polite had he known it was the VP, but the message would have been the same - leave me alone while I fix it.

In the second case, I had the responsibility for the network outage dumped on me. I wasn't freaking out, because I knew the senior was there. Then all of a sudden, my security blanket was gone, and it was all on me. I had a moment of fright, took a deep breath, counted to five, and then I fixed the problem.

In both of these cases, if the person responsible hadn't been able to handle the pressure, it would have had a worse impact on the company than the outage was already having. So we need to make sure folks can handle it. If you can't deal with an interviewer putting you on the spot in an interview, you're probably not going to deal well when the pressure is coming from the executive level.

With that being said - I would never do that to someone interviewing for an entry level position. If I'm available, I'm usually called in to interview the NOC guys for their networking skills, especially if they're listing Cisco certs (I can sniff out a paper CCNA a mile away). Those guys I deal with in a laid back manner, and I keep it light, just probing for the basics and fundamentals, and occasionally tossing a quirky question that I don't actually expect them to get right, but I want to see how they'll answer.

I have no doubt that some interviewers are just insane, but for some of us, there's a method to our madness. In *all* cases, the best response is to keep your cool, and explain your position as clearly as possible. In your case, I would have explained that you'd done it before, but it'd been awhile, and rather than guess at the configuration and possibly break something, you could use a few minutes with the reference material to check yourself. For me, that is a good way of saying 'I don't know'. If you'd said that, and your interviewer still freaked out, then he was just a dick, and you're right, you probably didn't want the job.

CompuTron99

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I'm actually trying to get management to approve a policy of recording all the actual phone screens, so that the folks who make the decision on whether or not a face to face is going to happen can make the best decision possible. I'd personally prefer to do my own phone screening instead of passing it off to others, but my day rarely allows for that. I'd love to be able to load recorded phone screens onto my ipod so I could listen to them on the way home.

Great idea.. So long as the person being interviewed agrees to it. I actually had a phone interview that was recorded with my permission. I ended up going to the face-to-face and I got the job offer, but ended up turning it down for another position elsewhere.

Turgon

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Well, I'm not quite *that* bad. I don't insult folks outright, there are ways to make people feel like they're dumb without actually saying it

One of the guys on my team, during his first week, was dealing with an infrastructure outage. People kept calling him wanting to know what was wrong. Well, one guy dropped by his desk and calmly asked what was going on. The team member responded that the network was broke, and he was fixing it, and who was he anyway?

The gentleman simply nodded and walked away. Turns out it was the VP of Operations, so he was kind of important. When the team member found out afterwards, he immediately went to his office and apologized.

The guy was new and under pressure. A lot of disadvantages there. He doesn't know how the infrastructure hangs together and is trying to deal with the problem. Props. Being in that situation is very difficult. I dont think he should run off to apologise unless he was downright rude. and the VP should be supportive. Anyone who doesn't understand should walk into a big infrastructure they are not familiar with and start solving problems.

shodown

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Well, I'm not quite *that* bad. I don't insult folks outright, there are ways to make people feel like they're dumb without actually saying it

One of the guys on my team, during his first week, was dealing with an infrastructure outage. People kept calling him wanting to know what was wrong. Well, one guy dropped by his desk and calmly asked what was going on. The team member responded that the network was broke, and he was fixing it, and who was he anyway?

The gentleman simply nodded and walked away. Turns out it was the VP of Operations, so he was kind of important. When the team member found out afterwards, he immediately went to his office and apologized.

At my previous job, we were moving our core routers, and one of them wasn't coming back up, and due to the OSPF inconsistencies, it was effecting the rest of the network (protip - Cisco gear, plus Force10 gear, plus multiple ospf instances, plus the use of passive-interface has a few issues when a router first boots).

The senior network engineer and I are camped out on the datacenter floor trying to get everything up and running again, The president of the network keeps calling the Senior every 5 minutes, screaming about when it's going to be fixed, how much money the company is losing, and this service is down, or that service is down. After about 30 minutes of this crap, the senior hands me his laptop, tells me to fix the problem, and then walks outside to go smoke while he soothes the president's ruffled feathers.

In the first case, the guy had nuts of steel to tell everyone to leave him alone so he could fix the problem. He may have been a little more polite had he known it was the VP, but the message would have been the same - leave me alone while I fix it.

In the second case, I had the responsibility for the network outage dumped on me. I wasn't freaking out, because I knew the senior was there. Then all of a sudden, my security blanket was gone, and it was all on me. I had a moment of fright, took a deep breath, counted to five, and then I fixed the problem.

In both of these cases, if the person responsible hadn't been able to handle the pressure, it would have had a worse impact on the company than the outage was already having. So we need to make sure folks can handle it. If you can't deal with an interviewer putting you on the spot in an interview, you're probably not going to deal well when the pressure is coming from the executive level.

With that being said - I would never do that to someone interviewing for an entry level position. If I'm available, I'm usually called in to interview the NOC guys for their networking skills, especially if they're listing Cisco certs (I can sniff out a paper CCNA a mile away). Those guys I deal with in a laid back manner, and I keep it light, just probing for the basics and fundamentals, and occasionally tossing a quirky question that I don't actually expect them to get right, but I want to see how they'll answer.

I have no doubt that some interviewers are just insane, but for some of us, there's a method to our madness. In *all* cases, the best response is to keep your cool, and explain your position as clearly as possible. In your case, I would have explained that you'd done it before, but it'd been awhile, and rather than guess at the configuration and possibly break something, you could use a few minutes with the reference material to check yourself. For me, that is a good way of saying 'I don't know'. If you'd said that, and your interviewer still freaked out, then he was just a dick, and you're right, you probably didn't want the job.

You guys jinxed me, As I'm reading this I got a outtage Company can't make any local calls. Obviously I"m not too stressed if I can make a post on TE...................................Good night everybody