bad time for cisco certs?

[xyyz]

i'm looking for employment... and i emailed someone i know, who's a high level manager at a local university telecom, to elicit his aid.

this is what he said about CCIE's:

"... I guess it has to be a miserable employment environment right now
because we're seeing CCIEs with more than 10 years of experience that
would be happy to make $55K..."

i never really believed him when he said it the first time (actually the first time he said they were begging for $35k), but here he is repeating it.

is it true that circumstances are so bad... even for CCIE's?

 

[spidey07]

its that bad out there.

 

[Fallen Kell]

It is that bad for most people. Only ones that havn't been hit as bad are unix admins. Mainly because the majority of dot.bomb places setup quick MS based systems with (you guessed it) Cisco network gear. So there are tons of CICSO Cert holders and tons of MS Cert guys looking for jobs.

Now if you happen to be Sun Solaris Certified or something similar, you will have a slighly easier time finding a job, as there wasn't a HUGE influx of new certified people during the dot.com erra and as a result, there wasn't a huge layoff of said people.

 

[Mucman]

Ouch! Makes me appreciate the job I have even more!

Do you think the drop in the job market is the result of less work needing to be done, or businesses skimping on their IT budgets? I believe
the latter because the clients that I talk to nowadays don't even have "tech" guys anymore... The "tech" guy gets dropped to save money, now
all of the sudden I get calls from a secretary complaining that her bosses E-mail isn't coming through.

 

[spidey07]

So mucman is that quote in your sig from Minor Threat?

You're too young to appreciate that music. 🙂 Heck you're too young to appreciate rush.

-edit-
xyyz, I know four CCIEs that have been out of work for 6 months with no offers. It is very bad out there. Any job is a good one right now.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: spidey07
So mucman is that quote in your sig from Minor Threat?

You're too young to appreciate that music. 🙂 Heck you're too young to appreciate rush.

I dont know, they're alright live. 😛

I agree with Mucman, I definitely appreciate the job I have now a lot more!

 

[Fatt]

On the other hand...
And of course, this is just my opinion and I might be a raving lunatic.


The economy isn't falling, it's flat. It's been flat for a while. that means it's bottomed.

The oversupply in skilled people isn;t as big as a lot of people think it is and the reason for that is simple.

Less than 10 years ago it was possible for an individual person to know pretty much everything about everything in IT. Well, close anyway.

The explosion in new technologies has been huge. The technical world has gotten vastly more complex and broad since 1999, when the bubble burst.

But now several things are coming together.

1) A lot of people got out of the tech field. Crazy as it sounds, the labor pool has been shrinking. It's not easy to notice because ther is still an oversupply. But that excess will go away very quickly.

2) There is a LOT of bandwidth capacity out there. Enough that when the economy starts rolling again we'll have a good running start before we run out.

3) There's a lot of outdated stuff that needs upgrade but companies have only just recently starting spending money again.

4) Hiring is already up.

The bad days are coming to an end. Really slowly, that's for damn sure, but it's on it's way.

 

[Mucman]

Originally posted by: spidey07
So mucman is that quote in your sig from Minor Threat?

You're too young to appreciate that music. 🙂 Heck you're too young to appreciate rush.

-edit-
xyyz, I know four CCIEs that have been out of work for 6 months with no offers. It is very bad out there. Any job is a good one right now.

Too young? What about all of these? 😛

Another thing too add to the topic... I think most of you are of the same mold as me when it comes to how much we love
this stuff! If being a sysadmin or network guru isn't in, it won't phase us. I do what I do because it is where I want to be. Being in control
of a computer network turns my crank... whether or not it is the "in" job to have makes little difference to me.

I don't have a CCNA (or any certs), but I know my goal when getting a cert will be to learn. This is an assumption, but I bet almost all people
who get their CCIE's do it for the challenge.

I know of several jobs out there that I could do that require no skill, and involve very little stress. Instead I have opted for a stressful job, but
also a rewarding job.

Hmm... what was in my mind was more verbose... I just suck at writing long posts 😛

 

[drag]

ah, the cisco cert... rember A+ cert? All these people rushed to get certified, because the companies were saying these people were in demand.. So guess what happened? A bunch of people rushed to get certified and now there ain't no demand no more.. haha. They have enough certs now, but it'll take a bit for the rest of us to figure that out, so more and more people get certified thinking that'll land them a good job easily.

 

[Agamar]

Well, I taught myself everything I know. I got a degree in Toxicology, but moved to a larger city with my then girlfriend (now wife). Couldn't find me a job in my field so, since it was the whole Y2k deal, I got a job at a small company with 2 IT guys (including me). Yep, it was just me, and the "director". Nine months later I get a job offer at a local college. Took it and really learned a lot more about linux. Now I am over both the Win2k / NT domains, and over a large portion of the Linux servers (including DNS, DHCP, and a few web servers).

Probably will never have time to get a certification. Studied a while for the Win2k certs. Learned a lot and decided that I didn't really need the test (It would have come out of my pocket anyway). Taking care of over 10 servers with lots of clients keeps me busy enough 🙂 Job security baby!!

 

[Santa]

In my company better yourself is something they encourage. So they pay for all training and certification tests that we pass. Granted it has to be somewhat in the field you are working in but this alone is the reason I even get certified.

I enjoy what I do and I wouldn't say there is a good or a bad time for certifications. There are opportunistic times and then there are not.
I think companies hiring based on certifications are evil and should be avoided since you will end up working with total idiots anyways.

These kinds of companies don't quite exist anymore anyways so going for a certification should only be to enhance your experience and degree. If you don't have the experience to run a network don't go out trying to do so by craming for an exam.

Also for those who have CCIE I would take note that gouging the companies that feed you only makes them resent you more and want to get you out the door the first opportunity they get. This is why we are having this problem to begin with.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: Fallen Kell
It is that bad for most people. Only ones that havn't been hit as bad are unix admins. Mainly because the majority of dot.bomb places setup quick MS based systems with (you guessed it) Cisco network gear. So there are tons of CICSO Cert holders and tons of MS Cert guys looking for jobs.

Not from what I've seen. Been interviewing lately in a M$ driven shop and the ratio of applicants with Unix experience to those with MS experience is 4 or 5 to 1.

Certifications in general make no difference. Cisco isn't quite as meaningless as some others, but still.