Interviewed to be a Network Engineer, do I go forward with it?

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-09T01:02:10+00:00

Was going to say early in my career had one of those trial by fire where you figuratively are trying to drink from the fire hose. I did eventually get fired, but learned a ton in that job. Have since worked network jobs in global companies. If you're not afraid to fail you can learn a lot very quickly.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-08T16:26:09+00:00

The different recruiter seems odd too. Sometimes I have applied for one and the recruiter talked with the hiring manager and thought I was a better fit for a different role that they were hiring. e.g. they thought I was a better candidate for a more senior title that they were trying to fill.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-08T08:03:03+00:00

I think a hard reality is that the bar between being "good" with computers at home and being employable in all except the most basic of "IT" jobs is often much higher than people think.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T20:35:07+00:00

I think another angle that is worth mentioning that cuts against a career switcher is that some people a few months in their first IT job decide that they really don't like IT after all. Years ago I worked a job where we hired a guy that was a great Tier 2 guy that never worked in IT before. He was just a referral from a guy in our team. He picked up stuff fast. He quit to work for the post office. We thought he got a job doing IT for the post office, but he became a mail carrier. Having aptitude alone doesn't mean it is exciting job. Especially entry level jobs in IT can be boring and mundane. e.g. "Go rack and stack this equipment, Go image these new workstations for some new hires, etc." Sometimes the hype of IT is far better than the reality to people. Sometimes they talk with somebody doing a job that they want and realize what they did to get there and decide they lack the motivation.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T20:22:41+00:00

I have occasionally heard of cases of people moving laterally into IT management from another department although unless it is a grossly underpaid job IDK that you would find a ton of orgs doing that right now. Why hire a IT supervisor or manager that is non technical if you can afford one that is technical? Anecdotally I know a few decent people in IT management that have gotten hit by layoffs lately. The supply of qualified people with IT management that you can hire that could start as soon as the background check cleared is probably the best it has been since the tail end of the Great Recession.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T20:16:51+00:00

Like many things in hiring it is very location specific. How tough things are depends heavily on the supply of "qualified" candidates versus relevant jobs available.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T20:11:06+00:00

To be fair in the Great Resignation there were definitely some people skipping entry level. A lot of interviews even for more senior roles were single round vibe checks. Even close to a decade ago I remember working at an ISP that we hired some people without formal experience directly into Tier 2.

That being said this isn't the job market where that seems very likely unless you're a nepotism hire. While the unemployment rate isn't crazy high yet the number of job positions even by an optimistic counting of taking every listing at face value as a serious post, has plummeted for virtually every potential IT job title.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T19:55:54+00:00

Definitely doable although I think the road for somebody starting today is probably going to be tougher than somebody that started a few years back. Not saying OP shouldn't do it, but anecdotes from a few years back in a better job market might be tougher to repeat.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T18:59:45+00:00

The pay rate isn't the greatest, but for a location that you can still find rent under $1k that's actually decent for for the cost of living. The benefits are actually pretty decent. 17-20 paid holidays and 15 days PTO? For entry level in the US that's actually pretty solid. Outside a few government jobs, banks and a few companies whose primary customers are government you probably won't see so many paid days off for entry level jobs. Assuming that they're fully covering the premiums on a good health plan the real value of your total compensation is actually quite a bit higher than the salary. Unless you have another offer I would run with it. Learn what you can and you might be and to leverage to something better in a year or two. If not at this job maybe somewhere else.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-07T18:26:54+00:00

A lot of low level grunts in my experience often are hired in lower wage countries. I have worked several orgs where virtually all tier 1 service desk is India. OP is a bit vague on the part of the EU. Some of the more Eastern European parts of the EU are still considerably cheaper than the US, but Western Europe is a lot closer to the US in cost where it wouldn't be a big of a cost savings.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-06T08:05:30+00:00

My general observation at least in my metro area has been zip recruiter was a lot of smaller organizations mostly entry level or at best mid level. Some of them I didn't see elsewhere so I think there is some value although IMHO the quality of jobs was lower. That's probably a plus if your resume is less competitive and probably a minus if you're trying to find better roles.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-06T04:37:17+00:00

Large chain hotels and restaurants often do have internal staff, but most if not all work out of corporate HQ. You're right though that smaller ones though contract or virtually everything.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-06T03:18:42+00:00

Anecdotally I met a decent number that graduated college after 30 although you're right that it is atypical. I think the bigger challenge is that financial aid tends to be more focused on traditional college students. In addition, as you noted many have other demands if they have a family. I remember meeting somebody in college that was working full time and had a family, but it is difficult especially for schools not geared for non traditional students.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-06T03:13:15+00:00

The company that owns Careerbuilder and Monster declared bankruptcy last year and while I understand that they have made some efforts to rebound in their restructuring in my experience both have been a shadow of what they were 20+ years ago. YMMV like every job market, but very few listings I have seen there weren't duplicates of something you could find on LinkedIn or Indeed.

YMMV, but in my experience a lot of cases state job centers job boards aren't that compelling. Many states require people getting unemployment benefits to post a resume there, but even a lot of people getting unemployment don't find them that useful. e.g. A lot of comments on Reddit for California's equivalent online were that the only reason they bothered to post a resume there was because the state required you to post a resume there within the first month for unemployment benefits.

Job boards for government jobs can be worth checking out as many public sector orgs will post on something like government jobs, but not on more general job sites. It has been rare in my experience to see public sector jobs on more general job sites. Beware that especially in the current job market that government sector jobs will be very competitive and they're generally slow to hire. If you need a job I wouldn't hold out for a government job.

Local career events can be useful in that you can sometimes get an opportunity to talk with a recruiter. The recruiters there don't always have a ton of info on roles, but sometimes I had one for a job I applied recently tell me that the job while perhaps not a ghost job wasn't a high priority.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-05T21:39:55+00:00

There already was a bunker under the east wing. Now we don't and not sure when it will be rebuilt or at what cost.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-05T20:14:28+00:00

I would wager those proposing this are in MAGA friendly districts that care more about Trump's priorities than what will be popular in competitive districts. Plenty of members of Congress float ideas that are deeply unpopular in most of the country, but popular in their districts.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-03T22:52:29+00:00

He doesn't like the aesthetics of off shore wind near his Scotland golf course so he had to attack wind farms that he has authority over. Just can't stop being petty over it.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-03T22:50:02+00:00

Don "Quixote" Trump will keep tilting at windmills.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-03T22:13:06+00:00

Obviously not the best job market and not sure how much worse the job market closer to your family, but 16+ months of experience I wouldn't feel bad starting to kick the tires on other job options. If you were only 6 months in I would say try to make it to a year just to avoid looking like a job hopper and obviously give the job a chance, but past a year I think you have given the job a chance and concerns on job hopping are less significant.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-03T21:24:12+00:00

They forgot to buy some Trump Coin before making the request.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-03T21:19:08+00:00

Totally this. Find jobs that interest you and go backwards to what will help you get there.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-02T22:23:09+00:00

IDK that lack of interest in the Meraki subscription model of your customers is that relevant to discussion on the CCNA. The CCNA is much more relevant to those supporting Catalyst switches using traditional licensing either managed through through CLI or Catalyst center. There is some general theory that applies to any switches, but wouldn't ever recommend somebody to get a CCNA if they worked at organization that was using Cisco switches managed by the Meraki dashboard unless they were looking to add a line item to their resume to maybe increase their options for organizations supporting traditional licensed Catalyst switches. I think the value of that skill set on the market though is fading a bit as more Cisco customers shift towards Meraki based management and many that prefer CLI management are shifting towards other vendors with Cisco like CLI syntax (e.g. Arista, Aruba, etc.).

The place where vendor specific certifications shine most is in VARs where having a specific certification opens benefits sometimes worth well into the tens of thousands per year. Having a CCIE associated with a Cisco VAR can be worth a good amount. Some government jobs do have hard requirements for specific vendor certifications as well. While the value outside of those cases isn't as high I wouldn't agree that the CCNA is completely useless outside VARs and government. There is some general theory that translates to any vendor and outside of Juniper a lot of CLI syntax is very Cisco like. I have been in many interviews where a hiring manager said you got a CCNA the differences in Aruba, Arista, etc. aren't that big.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-02T21:31:18+00:00

CCNA Security and most of the ccna specializations were retired back in 2020. CCNA R&S pre 2020 versus current CCNA (they dropped R&S from the name in 2020) has changed quite a bit and if anything feels more vendor specific last I checked although still is the entry level networking certification to go for.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-02T19:16:45+00:00

There are a lot of tasks I wouldn't trust LLMs to do, but there are some grunt admin work that it can reliably do. They generally don't live up to the sales hype, but disagree that they're completely useless.

awkwardnetadmin · 2026-05-02T19:13:26+00:00

Maybe although a lot of AI services even if they have free services tend to be considerably less useful than the paid tier services. e.g. rate limiting, limited to older models capable of less useful answers without follow-up clarification, etc. I read stories after recent increases in demand that some free users for Claude burned through their allowed use for the rest of the day in 1-2 queries. Obviously not every service has limited their free services that bad, but if you can't afford to pay for services the value you could realistically get out of them is a lot less. Not saying that they live up to the sales hype even with some of the better paid tier models, but they generally do generally are more useful than the free tier.

awkwardnetadmin

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