New Job 2.0 (Aka "The Story of how I got Diablo 3 for free")
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
I'm FINALLY getting around to writing this thread. Sorry about the wait. It's been a crazy couple of weeks and I was dealing with the flu and bronchitis at the same time so I didn't really have a lot of energy to write a long thread.
As many of you may know, I've been working two jobs for the last two and a half months. I was giving a new job for a cloud provider a trial run for three months to find out if it was a good fit while I worked my old job as a security analyst during the night. Both employers knew the deal and both knew I could leave either one at the end of the three months.
Working for the cloud provider was a great opportunity and if I was more of the "system administration" type, I probably would have left each day feeling more satisfied with my work. There were some other things that made me hesitate. After 2.5 months, there were some issues that came up and some things that REALLY made me question if I wanted to continue on with them or not. After thinking about it for some time, I made the decision to quit the cloud provider last Monday night. Unfortunately, the flu and bronchitis had other plans so I couldn't go in on Tuesday to quit and I was sick for the rest of the week.
I've known for awhile now that I really love networking and that's where I want to be long-term in my career. For the last few years, I feel like I've been passing up a lot of opportunities for advancement so I could finish school, establish experience, etc so I made the decision to actually start pursuing what I want to be doing. On Wednesday night, I decided to be productive while I was coughing my lungs out and updated my resume on Monster, Dice, Indeed, and Hotjobs. I also asked a friend of mine in San Jose to pass my resume on to his manager since he just moved up there for an entry-level network engineer job and I knew they were still looking. By Thursday morning, I had 7 calls on my cell from my updated resume and an email from my friend's boss.
I weeded out most of the callbacks as jobs I didn't want (Too little pay, terms didn't sound good, etc). One of the ones that REALLY stood out to me was this contract job in Los Angeles. The recruiter that called me knew my minimum hourly rate from my online profile ($50/hr) and was completely fine with it. He explained to me that the company where the position was open was looking for someone fresh out of college, who loved networking, had CCNA-level knowledge, and willing to learn. Of course, I immediately exclaimed, "THAT'S ME!" (Ok, I was a little overzealous sounding on this call but I blame the cough meds). The recruiter asked me why I would leave my solid long-time job with benefits to pursue this opportunity that would likely end in the middle of next year. I explained my circumstances honestly: I am dating a med student who will graduate next year and we will have to locate to wherever she gets matched for residency. Since I will likely have to move, having a temporary contract that allows me to acquire enterprise-level network experience would be perfect for me.
He said he would pass this information along to the IT director at the company. He called me back to let me know that the IT director was very skeptical given my credentials and my experience and the fact that he thought I would get bored in an entry-level network engineer position but since the IT director was stuck in traffic on the 405 at that moment, he would give me the chance to give him a call and do a pre-screening interview over the phone.
So I call the IT director and the conversation starts out well. I explain to him my circumstances and how passionate I am about networking. During this part of the conversation, I'm getting a pretty good vibe from this guy. He seems extremely intelligent. He starts throwing some technical questions my way to establish that I understand basic networking concepts and I went through them easily enough. He threw a few hilarious trick questions in there thinking I wouldn't catch onto them or to figure out if I was googling or not (I.e. "Please explain a 3-way UDP handshake to me," "List some layer 8 protocols," etc). Those questions had me cracking up and it broke the ice a little that I wasn't phased by them. So he then asks me if I have any questions for him and with my best serious voice: "To determine if you would be a good fit as an employer for me, I need to gauge how nerdy you are. Please list your ten top nerdy qualifications. Seriously, if you like sci-fi, role-playing games, or whatever, this is the time in the interview where you would bring that up." (I'm still blaming the cough syrup on this one!) That turned into a 15 minute conversation on Star Trek, gaming, and BSG and ended with having an in-person interview with his three network engineers the next day.
(Sidenote: I have to give this guy an ENORMOUS amount of credit for completely ignoring me hitting mute on the phone every 5 minutes so I could cough up a lung and not mentioning the fact that I sounded like I had bad smoker voice Crystal smokers voice - YouTube)
So the next day, I medicated myself, put my interview clothes on, and made my way to Los Angeles bright and early. I ended up doing a phone interview in a random parking lot for the San Jose job about an hour before the interview (which went well) and then made my way up to the interview. The interview with the IT director went well. He showed me the kind of Visio documents and SOWs that he would expect out of someone in this position and I was honest about the learning curve I would have. He then asked me if I had a choice, what would I pick to work on: Data, VOIP, or Video over IP. I, of course, said that I would love to get my hands on ALL of them but if I had to choose, I would go with data. He said that was the right answer. We talked about our CISSP exam/certification experience for like 20 minutes. He then called his network engineers in to interview me on their own and left the room.
They grilled me on some technical questions but that wasn't really the important part of that interview. They asked me about my willingness to learn, how much I wanted to learn, explained the job, etc and seemed impressed by my eagerness. I also asked them if this all didn't work out and I didn't get the interview, I would love to have them add me on Linkedin so I could pick their brains on how they got to where they are now (I definitely NEVER say anything like this on interviews usually. I pretty much did everything you shouldn't do in your interviews in these two interviews. Do NOT do this!!) We wrapped things up and they told me that they would let me know by Tuesday.
Within 60 minutes of walking out, I get a text message from the IT director saying "Are you sure you want to work here?" to which I replied "OF COURSE!" He replied "Welcome aboard. BTW, since you're into gaming, would you like a free Diablo 3 key?" Of course I said yes to that!
So, in the end, I was completely unorthodox in my interview, sick out of my mind, and ended up with a job and Diablo 3. Huzzah!
The San Jose job is still in the air. I'm supposed to fly to San Jose on Saturday to do an interview but I'm not sure if that one will even pan out or not. I'd like to give the interview a shot since my buddy did put himself out there. While it's a great position with a pre-IPO company that's going public next year, I don't even know if my SO is going to get a residency in San Jose so getting a job that I will have to leave in a year might not be the best thing for me.
Yesterday I quit the cloud job and I put in two weeks notice at my security analyst job. I'm going to spend the next two weeks restudying my CCNA material and trying my hardest not to play Diablo 3 (It's like CRACK!)
As many of you may know, I've been working two jobs for the last two and a half months. I was giving a new job for a cloud provider a trial run for three months to find out if it was a good fit while I worked my old job as a security analyst during the night. Both employers knew the deal and both knew I could leave either one at the end of the three months.
Working for the cloud provider was a great opportunity and if I was more of the "system administration" type, I probably would have left each day feeling more satisfied with my work. There were some other things that made me hesitate. After 2.5 months, there were some issues that came up and some things that REALLY made me question if I wanted to continue on with them or not. After thinking about it for some time, I made the decision to quit the cloud provider last Monday night. Unfortunately, the flu and bronchitis had other plans so I couldn't go in on Tuesday to quit and I was sick for the rest of the week.
I've known for awhile now that I really love networking and that's where I want to be long-term in my career. For the last few years, I feel like I've been passing up a lot of opportunities for advancement so I could finish school, establish experience, etc so I made the decision to actually start pursuing what I want to be doing. On Wednesday night, I decided to be productive while I was coughing my lungs out and updated my resume on Monster, Dice, Indeed, and Hotjobs. I also asked a friend of mine in San Jose to pass my resume on to his manager since he just moved up there for an entry-level network engineer job and I knew they were still looking. By Thursday morning, I had 7 calls on my cell from my updated resume and an email from my friend's boss.
I weeded out most of the callbacks as jobs I didn't want (Too little pay, terms didn't sound good, etc). One of the ones that REALLY stood out to me was this contract job in Los Angeles. The recruiter that called me knew my minimum hourly rate from my online profile ($50/hr) and was completely fine with it. He explained to me that the company where the position was open was looking for someone fresh out of college, who loved networking, had CCNA-level knowledge, and willing to learn. Of course, I immediately exclaimed, "THAT'S ME!" (Ok, I was a little overzealous sounding on this call but I blame the cough meds). The recruiter asked me why I would leave my solid long-time job with benefits to pursue this opportunity that would likely end in the middle of next year. I explained my circumstances honestly: I am dating a med student who will graduate next year and we will have to locate to wherever she gets matched for residency. Since I will likely have to move, having a temporary contract that allows me to acquire enterprise-level network experience would be perfect for me.
He said he would pass this information along to the IT director at the company. He called me back to let me know that the IT director was very skeptical given my credentials and my experience and the fact that he thought I would get bored in an entry-level network engineer position but since the IT director was stuck in traffic on the 405 at that moment, he would give me the chance to give him a call and do a pre-screening interview over the phone.
So I call the IT director and the conversation starts out well. I explain to him my circumstances and how passionate I am about networking. During this part of the conversation, I'm getting a pretty good vibe from this guy. He seems extremely intelligent. He starts throwing some technical questions my way to establish that I understand basic networking concepts and I went through them easily enough. He threw a few hilarious trick questions in there thinking I wouldn't catch onto them or to figure out if I was googling or not (I.e. "Please explain a 3-way UDP handshake to me," "List some layer 8 protocols," etc). Those questions had me cracking up and it broke the ice a little that I wasn't phased by them. So he then asks me if I have any questions for him and with my best serious voice: "To determine if you would be a good fit as an employer for me, I need to gauge how nerdy you are. Please list your ten top nerdy qualifications. Seriously, if you like sci-fi, role-playing games, or whatever, this is the time in the interview where you would bring that up." (I'm still blaming the cough syrup on this one!) That turned into a 15 minute conversation on Star Trek, gaming, and BSG and ended with having an in-person interview with his three network engineers the next day.
(Sidenote: I have to give this guy an ENORMOUS amount of credit for completely ignoring me hitting mute on the phone every 5 minutes so I could cough up a lung and not mentioning the fact that I sounded like I had bad smoker voice Crystal smokers voice - YouTube)
So the next day, I medicated myself, put my interview clothes on, and made my way to Los Angeles bright and early. I ended up doing a phone interview in a random parking lot for the San Jose job about an hour before the interview (which went well) and then made my way up to the interview. The interview with the IT director went well. He showed me the kind of Visio documents and SOWs that he would expect out of someone in this position and I was honest about the learning curve I would have. He then asked me if I had a choice, what would I pick to work on: Data, VOIP, or Video over IP. I, of course, said that I would love to get my hands on ALL of them but if I had to choose, I would go with data. He said that was the right answer. We talked about our CISSP exam/certification experience for like 20 minutes. He then called his network engineers in to interview me on their own and left the room.
They grilled me on some technical questions but that wasn't really the important part of that interview. They asked me about my willingness to learn, how much I wanted to learn, explained the job, etc and seemed impressed by my eagerness. I also asked them if this all didn't work out and I didn't get the interview, I would love to have them add me on Linkedin so I could pick their brains on how they got to where they are now (I definitely NEVER say anything like this on interviews usually. I pretty much did everything you shouldn't do in your interviews in these two interviews. Do NOT do this!!) We wrapped things up and they told me that they would let me know by Tuesday.
Within 60 minutes of walking out, I get a text message from the IT director saying "Are you sure you want to work here?" to which I replied "OF COURSE!" He replied "Welcome aboard. BTW, since you're into gaming, would you like a free Diablo 3 key?" Of course I said yes to that!
So, in the end, I was completely unorthodox in my interview, sick out of my mind, and ended up with a job and Diablo 3. Huzzah!
The San Jose job is still in the air. I'm supposed to fly to San Jose on Saturday to do an interview but I'm not sure if that one will even pan out or not. I'd like to give the interview a shot since my buddy did put himself out there. While it's a great position with a pre-IPO company that's going public next year, I don't even know if my SO is going to get a residency in San Jose so getting a job that I will have to leave in a year might not be the best thing for me.
Yesterday I quit the cloud job and I put in two weeks notice at my security analyst job. I'm going to spend the next two weeks restudying my CCNA material and trying my hardest not to play Diablo 3 (It's like CRACK!)
Comments
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Roguetadhg
Member Posts: 2,489 ■■■■■■■■□□
First!
Congrats Irish!
So say we all!
Also, good job on the free Diablo 3 key. Just be prepared for good and bad
In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
TE Threads: How to study for the CCENT/CCNA, Introduction to Cisco Exams -
dave330i
Member Posts: 2,091 ■■■■■■■■■■
Congratulations. For whatever reason, Diablo 3 isn't as satisfying as 2 for me.2018 Certification Goals: Maybe VMware Sales Cert
"Simplify, then add lightness" -Colin Chapman -
kgb
Member Posts: 380
Congrats on all that!
Amazing how sometimes everything just clicks together. It sounds like that's what happened with you.
Uninstall Diablo3!! Do it now!!!
Bachelor of Science, Information Technology (Software) - WGU -
YFZblu
Member Posts: 1,462 ■■■■■■■■□□
Sounds like a dream situation! Great work, congratulations are in order! -
chrisone
Member Posts: 2,278 ■■■■■■■■■□
Damn i had to skim through this amiga! hahaha but congrats anyways on the new adventure. So all it takes to lure you in is Diablo 3? lol jkCerts: CISSP, EnCE, OSCP, CRTP, eCTHPv2, eCPPT, eCIR, LFCS, CEH, SPLK-1002, SC-200, SC-300, AZ-900, AZ-500, VHL:Advanced+
2023 Cert Goals: SC-100, eCPTX -
Legacy User
Unregistered / Not Logged In Posts: 0 ■□□□□□□□□□
Congrats on the job! lol Thats a good read it left me with a smile at the end. It was definitely a crazy, raised eye brow, what the hell situation but thats probably what helped you get the job. The text from your new employer at the end made him seem like a cool guy. -
networker050184
Mod Posts: 11,962 Mod
Congrats!An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made. -
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
Seriously, I am usually an EXTREMELY professional person to interview with but I think I was just sick and exhausted. Thankfully, it didn't hurt me in this situation
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Legacy User
Unregistered / Not Logged In Posts: 0 ■□□□□□□□□□
Everything happens for a reason. Whats next ccnp?
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shodown
Member Posts: 2,271
job well done.Currently Reading
CUCM SRND 9x/10, UCCX SRND 10x, QOS SRND, SIP Trunking Guide, anything contact center related -
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
No, not CCNP. That's skipping ahead too much. I'm going to spend the next two weeks going over my CCNA material (100 pages a day) and labbing on the weekends. I have the new CCNA Security and CCNA Voice books so I'm going to spend the next 2-3 months working my way through those exams. After that, I'll finally start on the CCNP.
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RouteThisWay
Member Posts: 514
Congrats!
I did the same thing with the LinkedIn thing. I took it a step further and sent an invite to my now-boss as a Thank You note. A "doh" moment, but he was a really cool guy who had the same passion for virtualization technologies that I have."Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture." ~ Vaclav Havel -
the_Grinch
Member Posts: 4,165 ■■■■■■■■■■
Congrats! I tend to think being a little crazy in the interview (not too crazy) can actually help you. So many people are business business business, but if you working 12 hour days for a week to make a deadline I'd want someone I can at least enjoy the time with.WIP:
PHP
Kotlin
Intro to Discrete Math
Programming Languages
Work stuff -
Roguetadhg
Member Posts: 2,489 ■■■■■■■■□□
Grinch says is true. Gotta want to work with people, especially if you spend a good portion of your waking moments with them.In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
TE Threads: How to study for the CCENT/CCNA, Introduction to Cisco Exams -
cyberguypr
Mod Posts: 6,928 Mod
Congrats on the new gig. Just be advised that next time you make us wait for an update you will be in some serious trouble.
Best of luck! -
Roguetadhg
Member Posts: 2,489 ■■■■■■■■□□
Do we get a 1 week update?In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
TE Threads: How to study for the CCENT/CCNA, Introduction to Cisco Exams -
VAHokie56
Member Posts: 783
Congrats! that was a great story, when I first looked at it I said to my self "TLDR" ...then I read the whole thing! good jerbs!
.ιlι..ιlι.
CISCO
"A flute without holes, is not a flute. A donut without a hole, is a Danish" - Ty Webb
Reading:NX-OS and Cisco Nexus Switching: Next-Generation Data Center Architectures -
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
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Legacy User
Unregistered / Not Logged In Posts: 0 ■□□□□□□□□□
Its nice you actually have a life after work.
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Krones
Member Posts: 164
Congrats! Nice to see the immediate responses after updating your resume and landing a sweet networking gig with a lot of room for growth.
WGU - Security
Current: Start date Sept 1. Remaining: CUV1, BOV1, CJV1, CVV1, KET1, KFT1, DFV1, TPV1, BNC1, RIT1, DHV1, CSV1, COV1, CQV1, CNV1, SBT1, RGT1 Completed: AXV1, CPV1, CTV1 Transferred: AGC1, BBC1, LAE1, QBT1, LUT1, GAC1/HHT1, QLT1, IWC1, IWT1, INC1, INT1, BVC1, CLC1, WFV1, DJV1 -
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
BTW, here is my resume. It's pretty direct and not that fancy. The one I bring to interviews is condensed to one page but online, I let it be a little bit longer:
https://www.box.com/s/d7d8e8df6bd9b6df9ffa -
JoJoCal19
Mod Posts: 2,835 Mod
Congrats on the new job!Have: CISSP, CISM, CISA, CRISC, eJPT, GCIA, GSEC, CCSP, CCSK, AWS CSAA, AWS CCP, OCI Foundations Associate, ITIL-F, MS Cyber Security - USF, BSBA - UF, MSISA - WGU
Currently Working On: Python, OSCP Prep
Next Up: OSCP
Studying: Code Academy (Python), Bash Scripting, Virtual Hacking Lab Coursework -
MrAgent
Member Posts: 1,310 ■■■■■■■■□□
Congrats!
If you want to add me to your d3 friends list, my name is the same as it is here. -
Iristheangel
Mod Posts: 4,133 Mod
Awesome. I will add you, MrAgent. Try not to make fun of my Level 20 barbarian. His name is Dumbledore
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Zorodzai
Member Posts: 357 ■■■■■■■□□□
congrats.....reminds me of when I moved into pc support (from being an IT trainer) - we ended up talking about our common love for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (story for another day ). -
demonfurbie
Member Posts: 1,819 ■■■■■□□□□□
ive had interviews were people recognized my voice over teamspeakwgu undergrad: done ... woot!!
WGU MS IT Management: done ... double woot :cheers: -
Roguetadhg
Member Posts: 2,489 ■■■■■■■■□□
Iristheangel wrote: »BTW, here is my resume. It's pretty direct and not that fancy. The one I bring to interviews is condensed to one page but online, I let it be a little bit longer:
https://www.box.com/s/d7d8e8df6bd9b6df9ffa
Using as template. kthx.In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
TE Threads: How to study for the CCENT/CCNA, Introduction to Cisco Exams -
tpatt100
Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
Congrats! Don't forget Guild Wars 2 comes out in two weeks. Call of Duty MW helped me at my old job. I try to pretend I don't play games to avoid the "stereotype" but they kept talking about it so I ran with it.
