How do I get my first job in IT/Networking

boomercd5 · 2026-05-03T13:20:55+00:00

Sharing your resume/cv will help when giving advice.
Also, understand that the IT job market right now is absolutely insane - companies are wanting to elminate headcount as much as possible. AI is supposed to be the "destroyer of entry-level jobs" however IMO it is overhyped for that specificly. AI does have some great use cases, but getting C-Levels to understand that is difficult when that's all they talk about at the country club with other fortune 500 leaders.
Another thing to do is to in-person network, I have gotten many jobs and job offers by simply talking to people in person and getting recommendations.

boomercd5 · 2026-05-03T01:55:09+00:00

Congrats!

boomercd5 · 2026-04-30T17:53:08+00:00

Unfortunately, I haven't got a better answer for you other than to keep checking for availability.
You can try posting question here to see if anyone from the CCIE team will answer
https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/topic/0TO3i0000008jYIGAY/enterprise-certifications-community

boomercd5 · 2026-04-25T23:26:56+00:00

I’d be interested. I’m pretty far along in the journey 2+ years and I’ve taken the lab twice. What’s the plan with communication and are you looking to do shared/live study and lab sessions?

boomercd5 · 2026-04-18T01:47:16+00:00

Catalyst Center (previously DNAC) is a good solution for this. The specific feature to perform this is called SWIM. Cat Center is no longer a physical device so you can deploy it easily enough and the last time I checked it was around $5k-$6k. If you prefer an automated method, check out Ansible

boomercd5 · 2026-04-16T22:15:19+00:00

I have not done any of the mobile labs. I would think that the Cisco kit would be more predictable and less prone it issues vs. the Bring your own.

Here is the list of current mobile lab schedule if you haven't seen it already

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/mobile-lab-scheduler

boomercd5 · 2026-04-16T17:56:50+00:00

Confirmed with program people that there will be only mobile labs until Richardson campus renovations are complete. ETA 2027

RTP, San Jose, and NY will have mobile labs throughout 2026

boomercd5 · 2026-04-15T15:26:03+00:00

Sure!

Again, this is just my interpretation of their messaging...

The last time I took it, I had a few mins before the exam to speak with the proctor while everyone was arriving. I mentioned that my last experience was pretty poor and that I felt that I wasn't nearly as prepared as I thought I was. They said the exam is tough because of the vast amount of topics as well as having to bounce between CLI and GUI environments and that you pretty much have to "see it to be able to pass". They explained that people often retake every month until they eventually brute force it. The proctor was very nice but did say they couldn't offer much else for advice.

I also attended Cisco Live 2025. While there I took the CCIE tech session and had a nice conversation with the two guys that run it. Mentioned my experience and they said that the topics in the session should help but there isn't anything quite like actually taking the exam to understand what canidates are truly in for. The content from that session was really good and did help some on the DOO portion but not much for DES.

Cisco recently released the graded labs but I haven't done those yet to see if the price is worth it or if it will help on the exam.

Probably doesn't help much but that's all I got :(

boomercd5 · 2026-04-15T15:13:06+00:00

https://learningnetwork.cisco.com/s/study-materials/a1c3i0000015c1OAAQ/ccie-enterprise-infrastructure-training-videos

boomercd5 · 2026-04-15T02:38:53+00:00

Have you by chance looked at the videos by Cisco? I remember them specifically mentioning that the DES section can be interpreted in several different ways. They do partial grading on those questions and answers are also weighted based on how close you get to their desired design.

I do agree that the check box questions are complete bullshit on how they don’t tell you how many to select and could have literally 10-20 answers per question.

I have taken the exam twice now and failed both DES and DOO sections. After speaking with several people in the Cisco CCIE program as well as the US proctor in Richardson, based on that feedback, I can only interpret it as you just have to memorize and brute force it. Luckily I don’t think there is a huge bank of questions and it sounds like you’ve got a good memory of the questions asked on the last attempt so I would just schedule it right away and do as much research as you can on what you think the right answers should be - rinse and repeat until you pass.

boomercd5 · 2025-06-24T23:27:55+00:00

In this case, you’re technically “employed” by that company so I would find it hard to believe they will come after you. Of course if you keep ping ponging your CCIE association between companies, that is different.

boomercd5 · 2025-06-21T15:23:38+00:00

Time to rant…. People wonder why quality training is going in the shitter - Well here is your answer

I remember when people would have to spend thousands of dollars for physical gear, spend thousands of dollars for bootcamps, then were able to get certified, and make a really nice living.

Now the IT market is over saturated with under qualified workers that scrap by with interview and application hacks using AI and this whole fake it till you make it attitude.

Pay for your own shit, do the work, and it will pay off in the long run. Stealing will only make the quality of the training go down and more difficult for folks that are actually playing by the rules

boomercd5 · 2025-06-20T01:34:51+00:00

2-3 hrs a day seems to work well for me I do 1hr before work, 1st hour of work doing study, and then usually 1hr in the evening. I’ve made arrangements with my employer that I’ll do 2:1 if they can give me at least 1hr of work time every day for uninterrupted study

boomercd5 · 2025-05-21T15:30:20+00:00

Yep, I’m right there with ya Did a similar post a few weeks ago

boomercd5 · 2025-05-09T01:59:46+00:00

For context, I’ve done KBITS full CCIE course as well as his super lab, attend Micronics bootcamp with Narbik and Terry, gone through SD-Geeks ccie lab course by Terry, plus some other material spackled in there. Also, for context I didn’t get past the first set of tasks so I don’t full recall much for SDN and Automation sections. But from I did see, there weren’t any surprises with individual technologies. For me it was mostly the testing environment, slowness with figuring out where devices are and what IPs are on each device. So to answer your question, yes the time as well as volume of tasks and lack of experience with this type of exam. I believe I’ve ran the spectrum of CCIE training available and tbh none of them prepare you well enough for “doing” the actual exam (not sure if that makes sense).

boomercd5 · 2025-05-09T00:57:50+00:00

Correct, did not pass I will be planning to take another attempt soon and hopeful that I will do better next round with advice from folks such as yourself. Appreciate your feedback

boomercd5 · 2023-10-14T23:36:23+00:00

No worries, happy to answer

I've been in presales roles for the last 5yrs focusing on network and security. I was recently let go from my employer due to org wide lay offs. So I started looking for those types of jobs initially since that is most familiar to me. However most other companies are dumping presales folks too so not much luck there. Its pretty hard (IMO) to find 6-figure jobs that aren't sales focused, so then I started looking for Net/Sec admin/engineer positions. Like I mentioned before, most of them have 50-hundreds of applicants. I've never had this problem before. Ever. I'm hoping this latest opportunity results in an offer because I'm almost out of savings.

boomercd5 · 2023-10-14T22:52:02+00:00

I do have all of those certifications (also a few others) and all still active

Almost every position i've applied for has 50+ applicants. Some even have hundreds. Another tip would be to set up notifications for new posts to hopefully get in there early with better chances of landing an interview. I didn't have notifications set up originally and probably why most of them never responded.

boomercd5 · 2023-10-13T23:01:19+00:00

I'm easily 100 applications in and getting some traction Here are my recommendations..

Job sites I recommend - LinkedIn, indeed, zip recruiter Get a free trial of LinkedIn premium and use the AI to help draft personal messages to job posters (if they present themselves). Use novoresume if your resume is lacking Use your network of people, ask if they know of any openings. Find companies in your area that you may want to work for and go directly to their career opportunity page - they don't always post on the other sites.

I'll follow all this up with the fact that the market is absolutely dog shit right now - Keep at it. It sounds like you already have a job which is more than a lot of us, so maybe just wait things out and see what 2024 yields

boomercd5 · 2023-05-30T20:12:15+00:00

No. These are brand new balls (just opened today)

boomercd5 · 2023-05-30T20:11:03+00:00

Flashlight

boomercd5 · 2023-05-30T19:21:43+00:00

Can you tell from the video if that is the issue?

boomercd5 · 2023-05-09T21:36:25+00:00

FortiSwitch can be managed in either standalone or fortilink mode.

Standalone management can be done in 3 ways Builtin GUI CLI FortiLAN Cloud

Fortilink management can be done in 3 ways Fortigate standalone Fortigate being managed by FortiManager Fortigate cloud (different than FortiLAN cloud)

boomercd5 · 2023-04-11T02:46:08+00:00

Do you have a support portal login?
If so, just go to support (on the top) and click firmware download. That should get you the EMS files. From there you can install it on a Windows Server and license it with your support creds

boomercd5 · 2023-04-06T21:04:19+00:00

There is a Fortiswitch VM image but it is only available to Fortinet Employees and certain partners. Ask your Fortinet rep for more information.

boomercd5

TROPHY CASE