In 1999 I started my career in the Telecommunications industry as a glorified receptionist for the Network Operations Center at a DSL company. I immediately started to get as much information from the NOC techs and engineers about the technology. Six weeks in they interviewed to hire a NOC tech and I got the job. I loved that job more than anything. I honestly felt like I was being paid to play. It only took another couple of months to get the enable password
and then a couple of more months I was promoted to NOC Engineer. A year after that I was promoted to the platform engineering group testing dsl endpoints and writing guides for the techs. In august of 2001 I was one of the 800 people (out of the 1200 that were left) that got laid off. I had just finished a class offered by my company to get my ccna. I studied but not that hard. I figured with my experience and a bit of studying I could pass it. This was the 640-507 which looking back was actually pretty damn easy. I used a voucher that I had from my company and got an 814 on the test... That was the last I would see of Cisco for a while.
It took over a year and an 800 mile move from Denver to Phoenix before I got a job. I've been doing front level tech support since then and the job has been killing my soul. Instead of talking to field engineers to throw up a loop at the DSX panel, I'm talking to people that have a hard time typing an address into the address bar
A month ago a position opens up on our companies intranet job posting site for a Network Admin. Requirements were for a BS or experience and a CCNA or experience. I thought this job was right up my ally but never expected to get a reply to my resume because that's what I've gotten in the past... Nothing. I submitted it on a friday and received an email the next Monday to call. I called up and he asked me a few tech questions. He thought I knew my stuff and was interested in an interview. He told me to browse my CCNA stuff to prepare. The interview went pretty well. The Sr Network Engineer grilled the hell out of me and I thought I at least demonstrated that even though it's been a while I have a good understanding and would make a good Network Admin. Another week passed and I sent a follow up email and was again asked to call. The hiring manager asked me to stop by so I could fill out some paperwork. He told me he was going to bring me on. I was a little light on experience (only 2 yrs total and that was 4 yrs ago) but I made up for it by being learnable and eager.
Another week passes and I follow up. Again, I am asked to call. This time the news wasn't so great. I was told I would NOT be getting the job because the jump in pay was too much. My company only allows for a 15 % increase and this increase would have been 50%. He said I didn't have enough qualifications to get the director to approve such a move. The next day I asked him if they would move me over for whatever I can take... He wasn't sure. He did ask how long it would take to get my CCNA. I said "Maybe 2 weeks if I studied real hard"
I went out and bought the updated Sybex book (I already owned the 640-507) and read through that. I took 3 days off of work last week. I made up actual flash cards using the electronic flash cards that came on the cd. I bought the SemSim practice exam (which sucks ass and is filled with inaccuracies btw) and took as many free practice exams that I could.
This afternoon was the exam. When I started seeing the questions, I crapped my pants. I had no idea how tough this exam was. I could router configurations in my sleep but I've never once been logged into a switch. What the hell simulation does the test give me? A switch. It took me about 15 minutes on that one question. I had to poke around both the switches to get a feel for how I was going to configure it. I was pretty demoralized by that sim and some of the questions. I answered the final question thinking I was going to have an ugly score...
I got an 883!! I was going for a 900 but I'll take the pass
I did do a bit of reading on this forum to help and thought I would share my story. This should be enough to get me that Network Admin position!
