eBay is looking for network heavies...

Sun Jun 7 16:11:44 UTC 2015

Shop class can also teach you how to turn a wrench.  How many people out
of that area go on to be the best mechanics you¹ve ever seen?  Some do,
some don¹t.  Certifications aren¹t any different.  They are around to
establish a benchmark of minimally qualified knowledge.  We all should
know the difference between hands-on and multiple-choice things.

ANY knowledge is useless unless you know how to actually use it.  Looking
at your previous post about all the Layer1 things actually made me smile.
But that was based on my experience, not something an IE exam taught me.
(You were the first person I have ever heard refer to the 30cm with
ethernet in the almost 30 years I¹ve been doing cabling stuff.  I loved
it!)

We all should know the specifics of what is (or more importantly IS NOT)
being tested on in the various exams.  And ask questions accordingly.
While I¹m happy that someone could spout off particular names and their
functional contributions to the world, it likewise does not have any
indication about someone¹s ability to actually program Perl or
configure/use/whatever to BIND.

Quit bitching about the certifications and simply make your interviews
appropriate to what you want to know that a candidate can actually DO on
the job.  Certs or no certs, there are people who know things and people
who do not.

If you discount people simply because they have a certification, then you
are missing out IMHO.  But I guess take that as you will since I have
several of these certifications.  :)

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Satchell <list at satchell.net>
Date: Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 8:28 AM
To: <joshua.riesenweber at outlook.com>, "nanog at nanog.org" <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: eBay is looking for network heavies...

>That said, certifications show that the candidate can turn a wrench.  It
>shows nothing about the candidate's ability to handle ARIN, to
>troubleshoot political snafus, how to deal with management that is
>severely clue-deficient, and most important play nice with colleagues at
>other network operator centers.  Not to mention one's own customers, and
>even sometimes co-workers.  And all the other (arguably) non-technical
>parts of being a member of a network operations team.