ColbyG wrote: » Sounds like a unicorn.
vinbuck wrote: » I take it you don't get study time at work I think it's a legit and fair question. There are going to be certain jobs that don't lend themselves well to studying at work whereas others might. I am in a Service Provider shop and work roughly 50 hours a week not including on-call work so I woudn't classify that environment as the most ideal. I've also seen it mentioned that working for a VAR is a tough sell as they want you out billing hours and not sitting at your desk. On the flip side, every Tom, Dick and Harry at Cisco TAC seems to have a CCIE plastered to their signature, so I've got to assume that's a more ideal enviroment.
TesseracT wrote: » From my perspective you have 3 options: Work for Cisco and hit the stupidly expensive 360 program Work for a NOC during unusual (read night) hours so it's quiet Work for a sole company that pay for your crap and you have time to study (me fortunately ) Only thing else I can add is to stay away from a MSP - As said earlier, if you're not billing hours then you're costing them
vinbuck wrote: » The title says it all. I'm curious what type of positions are better suited to be able to put in serious hours on company time? Which ones aren't? I would think picking up a job working for Cisco would be a fast track to CCIE - maybe a year or less if you bring solid routing and switching skills with you? What say you?
jamesp1983 wrote: » I am in the same boat for the most part, but we have so many projects going on right now that there isn't a ton of study time available. I know my nights and weekends are going to be dedicated to studying now.
Turgon wrote: » So long as you dont get pulled into problems at work! The CCIE was never designed to be an obtainable certification for people suffering demands on their time in the field. It was designed for Cisco employees and resellers.
jamesp1983 wrote: » you speak the truth. I was working until around midnight last night for some ISP troubleshooting/circuit activations.
Turgon wrote: » If you work for Cisco there is plenty of support to get the CCIE and internal resources the rest of us dont have. Advanced Services is the place to be. But if you dont make it inside 2 years it will seriously hurt your career prospects there..I mean you really should be passing it with everything working for Cisco means you have going for you.. If you work for a partner that wants Gold, they may give you the time on the works dollar to prepare for it. But in the West this is less so today than 10 years ago. It's just so much easier to hire a number from someone in India or China to get the status to Gold. Work for NOC on graveyard shift and you will have time. Work in a busy operations environment and you will not have time. I know I dont.
Turgon wrote: » Work for NOC on graveyard shift and you will have time.
Turgon wrote: » You will be. Some people working at Cisco have a lot of time on their hands. For those of us working in the field, technology is something to be endured. It takes up a lot of our time and nobody at Cisco or at a partner at the end of a phone to bail us out. They would run away anyway
Mrock4 wrote: » What job allows for CCIE study on the clock? Definitely not mine..
jamesp1983 wrote: » My boss actually encourages it and carves out time for me at the end of the day. I'm a lead engineer so he makes the other engineers take on a lot of the other work.
vinbuck wrote: » Are you saying that if you go work for Cisco that you have to pay to use the 360 content?
SteveO86 wrote: » I'm working for an MSP now, boy are you guys telling the truth.. I'm getting in at least 60 hours a week. Although I'm thinking my day to day experiences should be particularly useful.
Mrock4 wrote: » I'm a lead too- but I generally work through lunch to be able to get enough work done so I can go home on time. Got several migrations going on at once, not enough people, and the usual fires to put out. Plus, my boss doesn't really have input as to what my people do- that's up to me, and I couldn't tell them to take my work so I can better myself ya know. IF I have any free time- which is rare- I'm usually training the junior guys up. It's all good though. I've got a solid study plan, so as long as I stick to it I'll get there.
mikearama wrote: » Best advice I can give... have a private and candid conversation with your manager. Acknowledge that you don't get a lot of spare time (make sure you say that, even if you do! Otherwise they may think you're dispensable), but that when you have some time on your hands, you know he/she would prefer that you study your cisco stuff, rather than surf the web. Whenever I put it like this to a manager, I have always gotten the nod to crack a book, or, now, watch an INE video.
Forsaken_GA wrote: » I'm lucky in that I haven't had to have this conversation with my manager. He's delighted that my freetime is spent reading, watching INE videos, or practicing hands on, instead of wandering around the building chatting with others, watching random crap on youtube, or taking a nap.
jamesp1983 wrote: » You're doing well. You've helped me out a lot. I've read a lot of your posts multiple times. I don't always get the study time at work, but I usually get a little bit of time here or there. I only have one guy under me and I give him all of my notes as well as try to teach him about a subject as various topics present themselves. He's at about a CCNA level and has his own business (non-IT) so he doesn't really spend that much time studying.
vinbuck wrote: » That's kinda how I feel, luckily I get constant exposure to a good portion of the CCIE blueprint in one way or another working for a Service Provider. We get to work on just about every Layer 1/2 technology in the book. Couple that with supporting IP Voice, IP Multicast video, huge volumes of data and a massive BGP/MPLS core that runs on OSPF and you've got an awesome training ground to prep. I am a huge fan of working in an SP environment - it really forces you to bring your A game. The part that sucks is running operations 24/7 365 days a year. Even with an on call rotation, I'm constantly dragging my butt out of bed at oh-dark-thirty for something or another. That plus maintenance windows and normal day to day ops takes its toll on your studying. It's taken me quite a while to work through the CCNP because I have had to put in almost all the hours off the clock...not sure if I want to do that when I make a run at the CCIE.
