How CCIEs can Survive These Economic Hard Times
We have all heard the bad news about high gas prices, a mortgage crisis, recession scenarios, pandemics and layoffs. None of us are immune to the economic blues, but CCIEs are able to cope if they stay on their toes. I would like to share some of what I have learned about how CCIEs can better survive and even thrive in this economic turbulence.
Here’s what my Career Diva, Eve Tahmincioglu has to say about the current economic climate and how it might affect you; “…… if we think the sky is falling we may be apt to make rash career decisions right now. We may be convinced to accept less pay or benefits because everything is falling apart, and oh, aren’t we lucky that an employer has offered us a job at all.” (see her complete article on the current state of things on her blog http://www.evetahmincioglu.com/web/blog/)
I have recently been contacted by CCIEs who are feeling threatened by the economic downturn. It’s true that Retail, Mortgage, Securities, Real Estate, Banking, Automotive, Pharmaceuticals, and some global partners have been affected by the economic strife. A few months ago several large financial institutions hurt by the Mortgage crisis began downsizing and several CCIEs contacted me when they were told they would be losing their jobs. Even this past week I had calls from a few more CCIEs who were on the cutting table from a major pharmaceutical and they were worried about the future. The stories are mostly the same. The size of the companies they worked for made them feel secure in their positions, after all enterprise network engineers are essential to any enterprise IT department. Some of the CCIEs had been lulled into a false sense of security because of their roles and the size of the enterprise they supported made them feel secure. Several were actually contractors who had contracted for just a few months and found themselves still on the site 3 – 5 years later. I asked questions like; “Why did you wait so long to get your resume together?”; “What have you done to prepare for some unemployed time?”; “Do you have a job search plan?”; “What are your career goals?”; “Have you let this situation change any of your career plans?”
It comes as a real shock to be told you are being let go, especially if you have been with the same company for a few years, but don’t let it get you down! Not everyone is prepared to hit the job market with a fresh resume and some rainy day money. The next decisions you make could help or hurt your career. Many CCIEs think it will be easy to simply pickup a contractor role and to interview on the side in their spare time this may or may not work. Old wisdom said you needed to pound the pavement and scour the want ads, even post your resume on job boards. Remember to keep your career goals in mind as you make decisions of your targeted employers. Keep the eye on the prize and if that prize is to continue to recertify or add new certifications to your resume then give this next idea some thought. Cisco Channel Partners usually provide financial support and incentives for CCIE certifications and training. If you are planning to keep that CCIE then a Channel Partner can usually keep your hands dirty in the technology and in different environments. So the hum-drum of supporting the same old gear every day is avoided and you keep your skills sharp. Many CCIEs think that working at a Channel Partner comes with living in hotels and airports; this is not the case for most of the roles I represent. Many channel partners are local and keep their resources within driving distance of home and the office. My advice is to check out the Cisco Channel Partners and see what they have to offer. Keep in mind that while many large corporations are feeling the pain right now, most Channel Partners are still growing. Also consider that the US government expects that economic recovery will ride squarely on the backs of the entrepreneur and small businesses. Regardless of the down turn many Cisco solutions can save companies money and that keeps the demand up for the Channel Partners’ resources, namely CCIEs.
See the rest of this article on IT World follow this link;
http://www.itworld.com/tip/53602/how-ccies-can-survive-these-economic-hard-times
But always remember;
When you go into the market looking for a job put your best foot forward, keep your chin up and be prepared to answer technical questions as well as sharing your personality. The technical and professional stuff is good but remember a team is built upon people and you want to open up and see your interviewer do the same. Always remember the ZZ Top song about sharp dressed men. Just like the girls, employers are crazy for a sharp dressed man!
Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don’t know where I am goin’ to.
Silk suit, black tie,
I don’t need a reason why.
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
Coz every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man
ORLANDO NETWORKERS 2008
Eman at Cisco Live 2008
What a trip my pilgrimage to Networkers was! I drove from Delaware thinking it would be a good idea since I had a stop in Raleigh for meetings in RTP at Cisco HQ. Heck it was only 1,000 miles or so! I would spend the night Sunday in RTP and have my meetings on Monday then travel on to Orlando pumped up from the positive discussions I was planning with the Cisco folks I had on my agenda. Monday turned into a single morning meeting due to some scheduling issues I found myself free before 10:00 AM!
WOOHOO! I was off to Networkers much sooner than I thought.
The nature of my business has me on the phone constantly so I was still scheduling interviews and processing offers and bugging the help in London. So a productive drive down Interstate 95 South kept me very enthused about my trip and this was just Monday! Soon I was feeling the miles and received an email from Scott Morris, who I had told I was going to look for him when in Orlando. I got an email from Scott asking me if I had made to Networkers. I responded that I was on the way and about 3 hours out. He got back with me letting me know he was at ipexpert’s get together for CCIEs at Ker’s Wing House, and a few exchanges with him on my iPhone (in my best one-handed driving the car at 80 miles an hour style), resulted in me being added to the guest list. Thanks to an email exchange between Wayne Lawson, the founder and president of ipexpert, and Scott I was ready to rock. When I arrived in Orlando I drove directly to the Wing House and was thrown instantly into the CCIE Agent’s dream come true. A large gathering of CCIEs I was truly in heaven! Most of these gents were eating wings and drinking a variety of libations. The crowd included a whole bunch of CCIEs who already knew me from the internet, ITWorld, LinkedIn, Network World, my blog and my CCIE Flyer! I had one of those great experiences where faces and names were connected, from introductions that originated across the virtual landscape. What a great time I had making new contacts and meeting old ones. The gals serving up the suds were giving the Hooters’ Girls a run for their money. I was even served one ice-cold Heineken delivered from the cleavage of one friendly young lady who could make a pin-up model blush. The folks at ipexpert did a great job attracting a nice crowd of CCIEs. I met Matt Brooks VP of ipexpert, who along with Scott Morris were logging folks into the party, handing out T shirts and shaking hands. The event lasted into the night and I will go on record as saying it was a stupendous success and a wonderful event to start my first trip to Networkers with.
Ramy, Me and Scott at ipexpert Wing House CCIE Social
Inside the ipexpert CCIE social at Ker's WIng House
I had a fun meet with a CCIE in my network, I am happy to now call a friend. Ramy Sisy who used to be a trainer at CCBootcamp and Dual CCIE was at the Wing House and our encounter started by my asking him why he was dressed like a pimp. It was all good fun and continued into the next day at the Main hall of the convention and the evening’s Cisco sponsored CCIE social at the Nascar Sports Grille on Main Street, Universal Studios. The convention floor was a real nice layout. There were many companies represented and a lot of great information. I was not registered for any classes so I was enjoying the event for the spectacle it was.
CCIEs at the Nascar Sports Grille Universal Studios Orlando
CCIEs at the Nascar CCIE Social
The CCIE social at the Nascar Grille was another CCIE Agent dream event. I was told I could not recruit while there or I would risk expulsion, so rather than risk being tossed out on my ass I complied. I had a wonderful time meeting even more CCIEs. I was very pleased to speak with Charlene, the first female voice CCIE. She is a very smart lady and I am happy to have learned that her career is a rewarding experience. There were groups of CCIEs dressed in company colors and they almost looked like middle aged baby boomer, gangs. They hung out together and some even seemed aloof to the other CCIEs gathered at the event. I guess not all CCIEs are created equal. After the Nascar event I hosted 10 CCIEs for drinks at the Hard Rock Café. We took over one end of the bar and had a great dialogue about CCIE salaries and each of their towns. One of the guys was from Alaska and three were from Germany. We all had a lot of fun swapping stories and then called it a night.
CCIEs and me at the Hard Rock
I departed Orlando Wednesday morning for the long drive home. I had accomplished what I had traveled there for and did not see any reason to stick around for much more. I did not manage to hook up with my friend Erik the proctor from Brussels or Ken a Florida resident in my network, who I exchanged voice mails with several times those 2 days. Sorry I missed you maybe we will hook up next time.
I was contacted by one of my clients during my drive with the news of Scott Morris joining Internetwork Experts answering my question about a comment he made to me in an email, about him no longer working for ipexpert. This was quite a move and commented on by a few of my network members it is also carried on the internet in a few articles. I think some really old song like Radar Love or Afternoon Delight was playing from some top 40 oldies radio station in Georgia when I had the call. If I ever hear either song again it will be too soon.
Cisco Travel Plaza on Interstate 95 (who would of thunk it)
A BIG THANKS TO CISCO AND THE GREAT PEOPLE WHO ORGANIZED THE NASCAR SOCIAL. YOU DID A WONDERFUL JOB AND I HOPE CISCO REWARDS YOU WELL FOR YOUR GREAT WORK! Many thanks to CCIEs 2879, 5804, 17706, 16810, 5804, 15770, 13229, 19709, 17844, 14432, 19153, 6374, 17321, 8759, 15255, 4713, Joseph, Charlene, Eric, Matt, Jeremy, Wayne, Robert, and there are many more names I cannot recall from Networkers. These and many more CCIEs have allowed me into their networks and I am humbled by their skills and spirit. To be a part of nearly 3,000 CCIE’s networks is a huge honor and I thank you all!
Thanks Ethan Banks for sharing your “Touch of Grey”
(Lyrics by Jerry Garcia)
Must be getting early, clocks are running late.
Paint my love a morning sky, it’s all cold.
Dawn is breaking everywhere, light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains I don’t care, but it’s all right
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.
The internet is such a wide reaching and powerful medium that often bloggers do not realize its real strength. The fact is many of us find that our words carry some value to some audiences and they can come back to haunt us. When we convey or display our passions for something in a public forum there will be those that disagree and those who may even be hurt by our display of strong opinions. In the case of Ethan Banks I feel as many do that it is hard to cheat on the CCIE Lab exam. In many cases the lab is given in such a way that it prevents cheating from happening and the contents do change frequently. Yes I have been told that many locations are merely unsupervised closets where an enterprising person might be able to get away with cheating and that in some cases body doubles are used. I cannot prove or disprove this point but as a career agent I have spoken with several individuals who could not answer the simplest technical questions. I came away from these interviews feeling that the candidate could not have passed any of the Cisco exams and wondered how they received a CCIE number. Ethan however did not take the easy road to certification. He blogged his experience on a very well respected site and he shared his feelings about his many months focused on the goal of achieving his CCIE. He did it and he was delighted at his accomplishment and many of us were happy that he shared his accomplishment with us.
I see you’ve got your list out, say your piece and kiss off.
Guess I get the gist of it, but it’s all right
Oh well anyway, sorry that you feel that way.
Every silver lining’s got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.
See the rest of this artilce at;
http://www.itworld.com/opinion/53299/thanks-ethan-banks-sharing-your-quottouch-greyquot
I am amazed when I discover that some CCIEs don’t have a plan for their careers. A repetitive cycle seems to keep them nearly fully engaged. Life seems to be dictated by a two year cycle of work, study, test, and recertify, followed by work, study, test, and recertify. Two years is gone in no time when you are busy. The time for thinking and planning your career seems to slip past as the family grows and other priorities consume chunks of your time. What are you working so hard for? It takes more than thought; action is required to make your efforts a means to an end. As a CCIE there are many options for you to make money but sustaining your career growth is essential. Money can get better and responsibilities can improve. Any situation which can restrict your career goals should be dealt with before they become impediments to your growth. Take the story of a CCIE I have been speaking with for several years now as an example. He experienced a boost to his ego when he passed his lab. As a new CCIE bigger and better things were his destiny so he made a gift to his wife and himself of a pair of new BMWs. They quickly moved into a new home and started a new family. Trouble was that he over extended himself and became a slave to his bills. He had to find better revenue and his pursuit lead him to becoming an independent contractor. This put him on a cycle of being paid well dampened by weeks not billing causing him to act very mercenary. His aggressive search for the next better paying gig left his current assignments suffering for his attention, resulting in a bad reputation in his wake. I warned him of his downward spiral and the need to improve his situation and he told me about his divorce. We have no more interactions until he turns his life around.
Make your career growth plan simple by deciding on the steps you need to take and arranging them in a sequential order. Make sure to create reasonable annual goals that lead to successful accomplishments. You suffered enough when passing the CCIE written and then the lab sacrificing a lot of valuable time. Make that investment pay off by continuing to set aside time for your professional development. Make your goals known to your employer and get feedback on if or how they can support you. Work as hard on your goals as you do on the job so you don’t end up with Boney Fingers!
 Me pictured here with my recently acquired 1967 Gibson J-45. This is like the one Bob Dylan played in the 60s and I love it man!
My Trip to Toronto
On the 22nd and 23rd I was in Toronto speaking with an interviewing several Cisco engineers and a couple of CCIEs with one of my channel partner clients. The trip turned up a few surprises and resulted in 4 finalists for their consideration. I was also very pleased to see interest in one of the three junior candidates who I scheduled to interview. My feeling was that if not selected they at least had a chance to interview and this will help develop their skills. It is not easy when you are young and breaking into a new career to feel poised for success in an interview. But as I stated one of them did make the final cut.
At the end of my stay at the Downtown Courtyard I hosted a few of these gents for drinks and a discussion about their careers. Two of the guys are CCIEs and they had plenty of wisdom and words of encouragement to share.
As always I also spent one evening at The Rex were livJazz music is king. The band and the venue ensured I had a great evening.
CCIE Friends and Faces
I have been blessed by making friends in many places around the world, since my days as a TAC manager for BANI in Pennsylvania. But none are as close to my heart as the team I used to manage in Frazer, Pennsylvania. Those were heady days with some of the team working in the lab to prepare for their CCIE lab exams, while others reproduced customer environments to chase down bugs, and still others were researching the viability of voice over IP with latency as the enemy. My crew was about as diverse as any in the IT industry and many of them remain good friends to this day. My true amazement remains with how excited they still remain about what they do. Though I still call them geeks they are not so easily categorized. Take CCIE # 2177 for example, an avid biker with a horse farm he jokingly refers to as his petting zoo. He rescues horses by adopting them through various programs and gives them a home, truth is he seems to be getting many animals left on his doorstep. Your bikers might be labeled as a rebels or drukards or many other things, but not as a geek. Yet there is grey matter between his ears that has met and defeated some of the toughest networking issues his peers have experienced. When you take into account the fact the first CCIE was awarded # 1025, CCIE # 2177 was in some very elite company for a few years. His number makes me feel old talking to CCIE #19,729 and some of the new CCIEs reaching out to me these days in the 20,1XX range! They are all different as night and day like CCIE # 2355 who is an unusual CCIE because she may very well have been the first woman CCIE. Her work as an independent contractor has allowed her the freedom to pick and choose interesting projects all over. I was joking with her about an opportunity she has to take a job in Bermuda that she is mulling over. What is there to think about? Let me see; Bermuda or Pennsylvania? Well it has been snowing less here in the northeast lately, but Bermuda? HE-LLO Bermuda! CCIE # 2582 is a home body raising his kids and doting on his wife.
CCIE # 2582 has a love for deep sea fishing and holds his CCIE in R&S. He has recently begun using his skills in support of his sales team; he is not too shabby a security resource either. CCIE # 4665 is a fun guy who likes to play golf and flip houses. With dual CCIEs in R&S and Voice he is in a small cadre of CCIEs which numbers fewer than 200 worldwide and he is a pretty smart guy. I was privy to an interview he had with a Cisco Gold partner while he was thinking about options for his career. He took off his jacket in the interview and stepped up to a whiteboard and made mincemeat of the CCIEs conducting the interview. They asked me to get him at any price! CCIE # 3955 reconnected with me because of the activities he read about on my blog. He is a triple CCIE and I recall talking to him when he failed the lab for his 1st CCIE on day two in San Jose. He was distraught and knew there was a problem with the test. I told him we would send him again and to take it easy on himself. On his next visit to San Jose he notified the proctor about the bug in the software. The proctor did not believe it when CCIE # 3955 pulled him over to his desk predicted the resulting error caused by the bug and then explained why it was happening. They immediately went up stairs to talk to the developers at RTP and the bug was resolved. Needless to say he received his 1st CCIE after preventing other lab attendees from failing the exam for the same reason he had. CCIE # 3955 is a WAN CCIE with triple certifications in R&S, Voice and SP and he has a patent pending on a new routing protocol. Not a bad guy to have in your court when the network is having trouble!
We all had lunch recently at Ruby Tuesday’s and had a good time catching up. Golf is on the schedule for us in the next couple of weeks. CCIE # 2177 and I have had a running joke between us; we call golf, for years now. We will be adding a few more CCIEs for this next round at Lock Nairn in Southeastern Pennsylvania. If any CCIEs reading this want to join us, just shoot me an email. ccieagent@verizon.net
I love my job!
My search is for CCIEs for Cisco Systems and their international Partners. I have been called a CCIE recruitment guru and recently began work with Cisco recruiting on a plan to help in locating CCIEs and Senior Network Professionals while remaining sensitive to the flight of these professionals between partners. Why a CCIE Agent? For starters, most headhunting in the IT arena is done by recruiters who do not focus in any one discipline. My efforts are focused on CCIEs and Cisco Network Engineers and the details that enhance their careers. There are many kinds of Agents who help develop their clients’ careers by advocating their needs and goals. I have gotten to know many CCIEs and I have also learned many companies’ CCIE retention and compensation strategies. By getting to know the details I can advocate for both the candidate and the hiring company. I can help both ensure a long lasting relationship, with all the wants and needs on the table.
For CCIE Jobs, CCIE Careers, CCIE Positions, CCIE Roles and more
Contact me at:
eman@bridgeresourcing.com
1-302-438-1681
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