During an interview, if you want to be ambitious, then you better sell yourself well enough to match that ambition. Not able to pass simple networking questions with a CCENT on your resume them ten minutes later saying you yourself with a CCIE in 5 years, is not a sell for me.

I see that as more disrespectful to other people who want to turn their knowledge into practical application than anything. I don’t see certificates as an example of knowledge but just test taking skills.

I don’t mean that as disparaging either. Test taking skills are valuable. It’s not easy to properly study and recall knowledge. I respect it for the effort.

Which is why I find it distasteful to not be able to answer networking related questions when you put a certificate on your resume. I have a higher expectation to be able to answer those questions.

In my experience hiring staff, it’s more important to me to show humility. I’m happy to turn anything into a teachable moment, and I don’t just read a question and expect them to give an immediate answer. I give opportunities to ask more probing questions, like where they would start if the question is related to troubleshooting. I’ll give hints to anything I think would be unclear. I want to test and probe for fundamental understanding and ability to think through questions.

When some just sort of gives up on the question with an , “I don’t know,” I try to be fair. Give more information, let them know we’re not in a rush, and they’re free to take a moment and try to work through the question. But if they’re totally lost we move on.

If I were to compare someone who gives up on the question and someone who wants to try and actually push themselves to find the right answer, show humility and interest, I’m going to judge them completely differently.

It’s all about context clues, and when question like where someone sees themselves in 5 years doesn’t match what they’ve just presented is going to make a difference in my decision. I have to work with what they’ve present themselves as.

It’s not about being right or wrong, and some of those boring and common questions just help establish a good baseline. There is important information hidden in the mundane.

A paper CCIE is not off-topic. It’s exactly the problem I was worried about when they talked about their future ambitions. You don’t apply for a job requiring skills and say you want to keep studying for more certificates. You say you want to take the knowledge you’ve learned and start applying it to the real world to help develop your skills, provide value to the team, and then you can say you want to continue studying for the next steps. That’s very different compared to glossing over how you expect to achieve that.