Monday, June 25, 2012

Real World Level 1/2 Network Engineer Interview Series - Part 1


While we are half way done with our "MPLS Layer 3 VPN Configuration & Troubleshooting" series. I am going to start one more series today on "CCNA-CCNP Interviews". 


Actually recently my current company was hiring couple of network engineers for Level-1/2/3 positions. But while taking interviews, I found even some good CCNA/NP/IE people were not having enough skills to qualify as Level 2/3 Engineers. No doubt they were good at Cisco Routing and Switching concepts for example, but were not aware of many things which though Cisco don't cover in terms of certification exams but still I would expect someone to know those at concepts  level from Level 2/3 Engineer prospective. Few examples would be - Load Balancer, WAN Acceleration, Basics of Network Security, Catalyst 6500, Supervisor Engineers and how to identify them, Catalyst 6500 Native Vs Hybrid Mode , TDR, OTDR, MDIX, OSPF Database Explanation Etc.


So in this particular series I'll not only present some of questions I asked them in terms of technology but also we will focus heavily on Other Products and Technologies which Cisco still don't cover in terms of Certification Exams but those are heavily deployed in real world and without knowing them you can't qualify as Level 2 Network Engineer. I didn't mention Level 3 here since I consider that as expert level and at that point only knowing these additional products and technologies are not sufficient enough and I expect them to have good hands on experience with those.


This series is going to be a big one for sure ;-) , And first of it's kind.


HTH...
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE
at

5 comments:

  1. VishwaJune 26, 2012 at 1:12 PM

    Thanks a lot Deepak.

    ReplyDelete
  2. vaibhavJune 27, 2012 at 5:18 PM

    Awesome!

    May we contribute some questions? Like the kind we get asked/or ask at interviews?

    ReplyDelete
  3. PifferJune 28, 2012 at 8:26 AM

    That is an excellent idea. Some time ago we also were looking for a network engineer, and ran into similar issues. He was sharp as a razor blade on switching and routing, but that's where all skills stopped. No security awareness, load balancing etc. We were also looking for someone with some minor scripting skills, as we move towards new network platforms where scripting and automation will be key.

    ReplyDelete
  4. dkmahajanJune 28, 2012 at 5:42 PM

    Hi,

    This will be really a good series i hope, and helpful too for engineers like me.

    Thanks in advance for this.

    Regards,
    Deepak

    ReplyDelete
  5. ArunJune 28, 2012 at 11:28 PM

    Awesome!
    As an aspiring network engineer about to graduate I would love to know what it is network companies want from their future employees.

    ReplyDelete