Security Basics: RE: Security Certs

["David Gillett" <gillettdavid () fhda edu>]

> ....  To me they represent a minimum level of knowledge about a 
> subject, so that for example, if the person is an MCSE and I 
> ask them an active directory question, they shouldn't say 
> "active what?", though it's no guarantee they'll actually know 
> the right answer.
  A few years back, I interviewed an MCSE for a network engineer
position.  Our environment was strictly 100-BaseT/Cat-5, so one
didn't absolutely *need* to know anything else, but he was coming
from working (as a civilian contractor, as I recall) on some Air
Force base where they had a mix of 10-Base2 (co-ax) and UTP at
10 and 100 Mbps.
  So between having apparently passed the Networking Fundamentals
requirement, and working daily with the mix, I figured he ought 
to be able to name at least *one* characteristic difference between
10-Base2 co-ax and 10/100 Cat-5.  I would have taken almost any one.
  He couldn't, and that was one of two reasons he didn't get the
job.  (The other was that he considered himself too valuable as a
"network designer" to crawl under a desk to plug in a cable....)

David Gillett



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