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 <l...@satchell.net> Date: Sunday, June 7, 2015 at 8:28 AM To: <joshua.riesenwe...@outlook.com>, "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@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.
