CCIE or Work Experience?

Dijkstra

I haven't had much experience in the networking environment, may be a little less than a year now working with other guyz sometimes although very minimal on little things but I do my own labbing at home mainly using GNS3 and few bits here and using of Cisco kits that I bought from Ebay such as Layer 2, layer 3 switches, ATA and an ASA I borrowed from a friend. However having said that I am from a technical background and have got a degree in Electronics and electrical Engineering but since I graduated few years back I decided to become a teacher hence trained to be a qualified teacher and was teaching Math/Physics/DT at Sec School but in the back of mind I always was interested in Networks and specially wanted to attain CCIE. Now since I have left that teaching job about 6/7 months ago I started studying for CCNA and CCNP and have achieved both. Well, I achieved my CCNP about 2 months ago in October to be precise, all this time I was in some sort of a dilemma to go for the CCIE direct just to get done with it since I have my eyes dead set on that or seek work experience. So my question to the forumers is, and specially to those with CCIEs under their belt and those that have solid real world work experience, do you think I should hold on a moment and go get some real experience or go for the CCIE, and the second part of the question is would it make any difference, lets say in a hypothetical situation, should I attain CCIE without much of a work experience, how's that going to affect at a later stage or impact.

Dieg0M

Why don't you work towards your CCIE while getting experience.?

Dijkstra

That's very good point and I have thought about it. Doing both at the same time may be an option as you suggest however you know the very nature of CCIE is very intensive, extremely time and effort exhaustive and do need concentration as often, in most cases as I have read a lot of accounts from different people, a lot of distractions/interruptive things can get in the way and in end lose interest or give, to add to that I have not seen may jobs with flexibility, well hardly any there, it would have been a great opportunity for me had I got a job that supported me in attaining my goal. That's a far away hope, 1 in a million right? Besides, what do you say about the second part of my question?

Dieg0M

Dijkstra, I understand very well how you are looking at things. From an efficiency point of view you think it would be easier and faster to get CCIE in one go. I have been through there and I can tell you that you are wrong. You will get more out of going slowly towards the CCIE while getting work experience. A couple of points here:
1. It will be extremely difficult for you to attain the CCIE with no work experience. However, if you do decide to go for it, be very careful not to burn yourself out studying.
2. You have to understand that you are not learning best practices in the CCIE. Most of the configurations in the CCIE lab is meant to break the network and see if you understand how the different technologies interact with each other. This said, no employer in their right mind will hire a candidate with no experience for a CCIE level position. Sure you might get hired in a Network Engineer position, but you can get hired for this kind of position with your current certifications.
3. Most employers WILL encourage you in your CCIE studies and a lot of the bigger firms have a budget to finance bootcamps and exam fees.

This all said, assuming you have 0 work experience and you have to choose between work experience and full time CCIE studies, I would say: go for work experience. A lot of employers will frown upon CCNP's with no work experience. I can't imagine what they will think of a CCIE with no work experience.
Before I go, please keep in mind that most people get their CCIE's while working full time jobs. It is doable but sacrifices must be made.

Good luck.

gregorio323

Dieg0M wrote: »

Dijkstra, I understand very well how you are looking at things. From an efficiency point of view you think it would be easier and faster to get CCIE in one go. I have been through there and I can tell you that you are wrong. You will get more out of going slowly towards the CCIE while getting work experience. A couple of points here:
1. It will be extremely difficult for you to attain the CCIE with no work experience. However, if you do decide to go for it, be very careful not to burn yourself out studying.
2. You have to understand that you are not learning best practices in the CCIE. Most of the configurations in the CCIE lab is meant to break the network and see if you understand how the different technologies interact with each other. This said, no employer in their right mind will hire a candidate with no experience for a CCIE level position. Sure you might get hired in a Network Engineer position, but you can get hired for this kind of position with your current certifications.
3. Most employers WILL encourage you in your CCIE studies and a lot of the bigger firms have a budget to finance bootcamps and exam fees.

This all said, assuming you have 0 work experience and you have to choose between work experience and full time CCIE studies, I would say: go for work experience. A lot of employers will frown upon CCNP's with no work experience. I can't imagine what they will think of a CCIE with no work experience.
Before I go, please keep in mind that most people get their CCIE's while working full time jobs. It is doable but sacrifices must be made.

Good luck.

Sooo what you're really saying is I can still study for my CCIE? lol j/k

reaper81

Getting a CCIE with little or no experience is not really a good career move. You are supposed to be an expert so you need to combine the certification with the experience.

As a CCIE you are expected to know certain things and some of these things you can only learn from experience.

Also consider what kind of role you want to have in the future. There is a lot of stuff going on in the networking world with things like data centers, NSX, ACI, OpenDaylight and things like that.

wintermute000

you'll struggle to find work as a pure paper CCIE. like a PhD applying for a graduate position. As Diego said, even paper CCNPs find it hard.

Also I think you're underestimating the difficulty as you've not done a 'real' networking job before. I can't imagine how someone can start to comprehend the level of understanding required without having done 'real' networking.