On Failure

Shocking to hear I know but not everyone passes their Cisco exams first time. I failed my CCNA first time and most CCIEs fail around three times before they pass. One colleague at Cisco failed five times in a row and at $1500 per attempt plus travel, rack time and study manuals he must have lost about $10 000 in total.

We all react to failure in different ways, we often beat ourselves up and kick ourselves for not being perfect. I'm afraid that at school we were all brainwashed to fear mistakes and to believe that failure is bad. We were punished with an F grade on our papers and fellow students looked down upon us.

The truth is that failure is a part of success. It is impossible to win at something without also losing. I have lost in relationships, business deals, job interviews, exams and a lot more but I still regard myself as happy and successful. I'm actually glad that some things didn't work out actually because I have ended up doing something different and enjoying it.

Whilst it is not a particularly enjoyable experience to fail at something we have to face facts that we were not prepared or that some event outside of our control affected our performance. I have heard from several students that the router emulation software didn't work properly in the exam which of course was out of their control. For my first CCNA exam, I didn't really understand subnetting so I failed. That was in my control but I just took a chance that it wouldn't be in the exam.

Moving Forward

When you fail an exam have a sit down and have honest chat with yourself. Did you give it your very best shot? Were you as prepared as you could have been or did you skip study days and take it on a wing and a prayer? What did you learn about the exam and yourself?

If you do fail an exam you have lost the money you spent on it and the time it took to sit it but in the grand scale of things, it wasn't much to sacrifice. You will have had a chance to see what to expect during the exam, no doubt you will be asked some of the same questions next time round as well.

Next Steps

I would immediately book the exam for a couple of weeks away. You have built up enough momentum to actually take the exam so you can spend the time working on the areas where you need to improve. Don't waste your time studying things which you found easy. If you can subnet easily then don't do it, what would be the point?

If you failed dismally (under 600 /1000) then either something went very wrong or you were not prepared at all. Nerves to affect many exam takers. If you do suffer from anxiety then use the hypno track on howtonetwork.net downloads or get some relaxation tracks from a hypnotic inductions web site.

I don't know anybody who has passed every exam first time and I have never been to a job interview where they asked me if I had to take the exam more than once. The exam is there to prove your knowledge for a particular role and once you pass it you will have proved you are up to the level Cisco require to carry out that role.

Best of luck with your next exam!

Paul Browning