Everyone gets mental blocks from time to time. Here is what I suggest:

1. If you are feeling overwhelmed then feel free to take a break. A day off can work wonders and you should be taking regular breaks.

2. Don’t try to force information in. It never works! Let stuff sink in at the pace that is right for you. If it takes twice as long so what?

3. Make it fun. Read a bit and then see how much of it you can recite. Make memory jogger cards. Set yourself a competition to get certain marks and reward yourself when you get them.

4. Ask for help! If you get stuck then come on the forum and shout. If you are frustrated then tell us and if you finally get it let us all know as well.

Don’t suffer in silence.

5. Attack your brain in many ways. Writing stuff out, reading it out, listening to recordings. Do hand on labs and take exams. Stop half way through an ACL exam and do an ACL lab.

6. Teach it. The only way you will truly know stuff is when you have to teach it to somebody else.

Paul Browning

So you want to learn about ACLs for example. How much extra work should you do beyond what you need to pass the exam?

There are two camps here:

1 – you learn what you need to know to pass the exam. Do the labs, learn the theory, do the crams, flash cards etc. and then pass.

If you need to dig deeper later on then do that but your main focus should be passing the exam.

2 – you can’t just learn what you need to know. You should dig deeper to gain a more thorough level of knowledge about the subject. This makes you a better network engineer.

Both of the above are correct but taken too far they are both wrong.

I’ve seen people focus purely on passing the exam which leads to a person who can pass exams. Even the Cisco exams can be passed by such a person.

I’ve also seen people get lost in subjects for days or even weeks. They fall off the study wagon and become almost obsessed in the tiniest details. Instead of taking about two to three months to pass they take six or more.

We are all grown ups so we make our own choices. My personal recommendation is to read all you need to know, dig deeper if you have spare time outside your study schedulle. If you are doing some more advanced exams you will be digging deeper anyway.

As a qualfied engineer you will be able to go back AFTER you passed and dig as deep as you like at your leisure.

Paul Browning

The Oracle knows all, The Oracle sees all.

Firstly, if you first thought is ‘It is impossible to pass your CCNA in 4 weeks then please read no further, you can’t be helped. If your first thought is ‘How can I pass my CCNA in 4 weeks’? then you are in the right place.

First things first. Remove all distractions such as TV, friends, cinema and a social life (for a short while only of course). You will need a huge amount of focus and effort and if you are out of the study habit then this step is even more important for you.

If you are a novice then you will want to start out at the very beginning. I have seen quite a few people pass with only 4 weeks but they were very determined to pass and had a huge focus. Three of them were going to be sacked by the end of the month if they didn’t pass and this sort of thing tends to aid the concentration somewhat!

Plan to study for 2-3 hours per day. Do whatever you have to to make the extra time including getting to work 2 hours early and finding a quite room and taking your lunch somewhere quite. Take any holiday you can or days owing.

Read the Underground CCNA Cram Guide for 20 mins per day and listen to the audio in your car or whilst travelling. Do 30-45 mins hands on lab practise per day using the hands on labs section. Read up on one area per day such as OSPF or Access Lists. Next ensure you can answer any subnetting or design question within about 20 seconds. You can do this with continual practise of 20 minutes per day.

The final step is to do a practise exam every single day. There is nothing like the pressure of having to answer a question with a time limit to test your knowledge.

Use your instinct to judge what your weak areas are and work on them until they are your strong points. When you take the exam you want to be more than ready, you want to be passing in the high 900s and not just scraping by.

The Oracle Knows All – The Oracle Sees All.

Your situation is a common one. People think they are going to pass the CCNA and then a magic portal will suddenly open out of which will pour job and contract offers. The reality is that passing the CCNA is the first step. Now you must use the CCNA study time you put aside to implement your job application plan.

First, work out what sort of role you want, for what sort of company, what pay rate and which location.

Second, get a list of all the companies who have a network support team (or who need one) and who are within the area you wish to work. Call the human resources team and ask about job applications and also get the name of the IT manager.

Third, call the IT manager and very briefly introduce yourself. Tell him you have written a list of companies you are considering working for and his is very high on your list. Arrange an appointment to come over for a chat to discuss their network and how you can contribute with your Cisco skills. Do not bring up any lack of experience or anything else negative about you or your skill set.

Fourth, keep repeating this process. Under no circumstances are you to stop until you have done the above 100 times. There is a huge shortfall in qualified network engineers all over the world and there is definately a demand for CCNA engineers.

Lastly, please ignore anyone who tells you that you cannot find work unless you have six months experience. If that was the case how would anybody ever get a job in IT? They weren’t born with the experience. We had a student come on our CCNA boot camp course in the UK a couple of months ago. He had just moved over from Africa with his wife and two young children. He had no experience and hadn’t even passed the CCNA exam yet. He did the CCNA boot camp and then applied for job after job. After his fifth interview he was offered a job as part of a network support team.

The Great IT Training Swindle!

How Alan lost $7200 in 30 minutes.

I’ve just got off the phone to a guy who downloaded some of the tools from my site. I asked him if he was going to join howtonetwork.net but he said he didn’t have $97 to spare as he had spent $7200 a few days ago on a CCNA home study course.

Alan explained that he wanted to change careers from the legal industry into IT. He surfed the net for a few days and found several companies who offered IT training and many were recommending Cisco as the way to go. One had a nice web site but no prices on. He filled in a form to get more information and one of their ‘career advisors’ called him to arrange a free consultation.

They came to his house and explained that he could be making big money in IT and using their proven home study system he could be working as a network engineer in a few weeks time. He signed up for their loan facility and is paying $200 per month for the next 36 months at a very high rate of interest.

And what did he get for his money? He got two manuals, a set of CD ROMS and the e-mail address of his tutor in case he has any questions. I asked him if the manuals were covering the new CCNA syllabus but he didn’t know. I asked what help they were giving him to study for the exam and then get a job in IT but he wasn’t sure!

Alan is a well educated man and is certainly no fool so what happened and has he been ripped off?

Well the first warning is when the career advisor calls to arrange your free consultation. They are not career advisors at all but freelance sales people who are paid a commission which is higher the more they sell. The free consultation is a carefully designed sales script designed to push your emotional buttons around money, success, security, peace of mind and so on. The actual product is not discussed in great detail hence Alan not being able to tell me much about what he has actually paid for.

I went to visit one of the UKs largest IT training companies last year because they wanted help with their CCNA and CCNP course. The guy they were using to train was their web designer who had only passed his CCNA the week before! During lunch the operations manager was laughing about the fact that the company made $100 million that year but only 25% of their students even turn up for the course because they make them sit some very hard exams before they are allowed on the course.

By this time they have taken their money of course so they don’t care if they come or not.

So why I am telling you all this? Well first I suppose I don’t want others to fall victim of these immoral schemes. Every day, hundreds of these type of high price and low quality/poor results courses are being sold to people who are in a desperate situation and want to get into IT but need some impartial advice.

Second, of course I run my own Cisco training company as well as the online training for CCENT and CCNA and I like to think the students get good value for money and with a 95% pass rate for the first exam attempt I feel pretty confident that the course works.

I guess it is just a bit of a rant on my part but it really grates me to see people paying vast sums of money when I know that the chances of them attaining the thing they want are remote to say the least.

If you are considering an IT course why not:

Ask what results they get for the students

Ask about money back guarantees

Ask to sit in on one of the courses

Ask about what jobs the students get afterwards

Ask about the instructors experience

Ask how much time you get configuring the kit

Ask what job seeking support you get

Ask what after course support you get

Shop around and don’t make any snap decisions and turn down any ‘free consultations’ and beware if they do not post their prices on the web site. That is a sure sign they are trying to suck you in.

www.networksinc.co.uk

End of rant.

The Pressures of Work

As you know. I run a Cisco weekend boot camp in the UK about
once per month. It is amazing how many people book months
in advance and then the week before the course send me a
desperate e-mail asking to move dates as they haven’t had
time to study due to ‘work pressures.’ Strange really because
that is the very reason they are usually booked on the course,
to get away from their current job.

One of two things have happened here. Either they just
didn’t get themselves organised in time and kept putting
off doing 1 hour reading per day or they really are working
very long hours for extended periods of time. That is a
big problem.

There seems to be an emerging trend of employers almost
expecting their employees to come to work early, work through
their break and then stay late. This is almost always as
a result of bad planning meaning projects run late and well
over budget. The pressure is put upon employees to work
long hours to help salvage the situation.

This of course is to be expected from time to time when
there is some sort of unexpected crisis but it appears to
now be the norm that you HAVE to work long hours and often
for no extra pay. While work cannot legally make you stay
there (unless you are in the armed forces) they can exert
overt pressure by talking about promotion chances, pay
reviews, commitment to the team etc.

I saw it myself at Cisco where some teams regularly worked
7am to 7pm every day. They blamed the workload but when
somebody said something to the management their response
was that all the jobs were being done on time so clearly
they didn’t need any more staff!

Success is multi-faceted and includes good health, family
relationships, friends, social time and your career success
is a part of your success. If you put too much time or
energy into one area then the others will suffer.

I can’t wave a magic wand but I would like you to take a
few minutes to print out this article, read it and then
write out answers to the questions below. It is important
you do write the answers to get them out of your head and
give you something outside yourself to look at.

1. How many hours are you working each day on average?

2. How many hours should you be working?

3. Are long hours the norm or is it just now and again?

4. Are you paid for the extra time you work or given time
off in lieu?

5. How would you rate the level of your health 1 being poor
and 10 being excellent?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6. How would you rate the quality of your family relationships
at the moment?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7. Are you taking work home with you?

8. What will happen if nothing changes and you carry on as you are
now?

9. Is there anything you need to change now?

10. Who do you need to speak to about this or can you just
make the decision yourself?

11. Do you feel guilty when you leave work on time and others
are choosing to stay and work late?

12. What would happen if you left work on time? Would anyone
make comments or try to judge you? Would any management or
colleagues try to bully you?

13. How happy are you in your current role?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

14. What needs to change?

15. What action can you take now towards making this change?

16. Who is in control of your life? Circle your choice.
My boss Me My spouse/partner My pet dog Aliens

How to Choose The Right CCNA Course.

I’ve just spent an hour on the phone with a guy looking to
take his CCNA after attending a course. He thought he
would be able to do a quick search on the internet and then
choose from three or four companies. One week later he is
being bombarded with sales calls offering guaranteed jobs,
guaranteed exam passes, special offers if he buys today
and access to whole libraries of IT certification resources.

While the companies he spoke to shall remain nameless I do
feel that their tactics are unethical and some of their
claims go way past stretching the truth.

Company 1 – Offered a whole online certification library
and a special deal which had to go through before end of
business in order to qualify. The salesman called him back
12 times over the next two days with the same offer.

Company 2 – Offered online certification training for half
the price of company 1 but their CCNA course is 640-801 which
is now out of date. They still have IPX in their materials
which was phased out about 2 years ago.

Company 3 – told him not to bother with the CCNA and to do
the A+ PC repair exam and then the Network+ exam first and
then find a helpdesk role for 18 months.

Company 4 – told him he should come on their 2 week long
CCNA course which is £4000. The equipment he would be
using for the course would be locked away in another room
and he wouldn’t be allowed physical access to it during the
course.

As you can imagine, he was confused, frustrated and a bit
angry. Because he had been lied to he didn’t know who to
trust anymore so he was basically stuck.

When I started out running weekend Cisco boot camps there
were only a few companies running such training courses.
Now you are inundated with home study, online training,
boot camps galore and more promises than you can shake a
stick at.

If you are looking for a course here are a few things I
recommend you look for because you are unlikely to receive
an unbiased opinion from any company you call.

1. What suits you best? Home study with e-mail or phone
support or an on site course where you can ask the
instructor questions if you get stuck. If you are not
motivated to study from home then an classroom course may
be the best option.

2. What is your budget? Getting loads for IT training may
mean many months paying off a large debt which will be a
waste if you never pass.

3. Beware promises too good to be true such as guaranteed
pass or guaranteed jobs. Get the promises in writing and
check the small print. Speak to students who have passed
with the company.

4. Is the trainer a cisco consultant or does he just train?
Beware of guys with more than 20 letters after their name
spread over several different vendors.

5. Can you try before you buy with either free tasters of
the course materials or sitting in on one of the classes.

6. What happens if you don’t pass the exam? Will you be
able to re-attend the course for free?

7. Speak to the trainer and ask a bit about their background
and training style.

8. Make sure you have access to live Cisco kit either on
the course or if it is distance learning then over the
web. You simply cannot pass the CCNA without strong hands
on skills.

Of course, you are aware that I run weekend CCNA and CCNP
boot camps in the UK via www.networksinc.co.uk but I do
like to think that we are running our courses ethically
and building relationships with our students in the hope
that they tell their friends about the course and come
back for the CCNP in the future.

I hope this helps.

Paul

CCNA Audio Guide is Out.

After many requests, we have just released your CCNA Audio Guide. It is an audio version of our very successful CCNA study guide which has been used by over 2000 students to help them with their CCNA exam. Here it is:

http://www.howtonetwork.net/products/item20.cfm

Router Simulators – Useful or Useless?

We are often asked for opinions on router simulators. Many people
rate them very highly as a study tool for the CCNA. Of course
there are opinions for and against them so perhaps I can add a
few comments for both sides.

Router simulator quality has improved over the past few years and
now many sims behave in a very similar way to the real thing. The
more advanced sims can also allow you to build your own network
and configure several different type of scenarios to test all the
areas you will be expected to know for the CCNA

Pros

Convenience – you don’t have to carry or cable up bulky equipment
and you can easily use them on your PC at work or at home when
you have a spare few minutes.

Price – it all depends on which version you buy but you can get
CCNA router sims for $99 to $499 depending upon where you go.

Versatility – modern router sims are designed to allow you to
configure a wide range of scenarios depending upon how you have
the network set up.

Safety – you can’t accidentally break a simulated network or
wipe the operating system.

Cons

They are not real – yes, I know I am pointing out the obvious here
but this is my point. Would you fly in an aircraft with a pilot
who had only every flown in a simulator? Aircraft simulators are
a vital part of a pilots training but no replacement for the real
thing.

You MUST chalk up many hours of hands on experience on live
Cisco routers and switches if you are to pass the exam and be
confident during job interviews and doing Cisco support for real.

No cables – being able to cable up your network is a vital skill
for a Cisco engineer. You can’t cable up a simulator.

Nearly Like – because they are software simulators we have found
that you get a ‘nearly like’ a real router experience. You
cannot use a lot of the shortcut commands with them, they will
never behave like a real router or network such as flapping
interfaces, cables connected incorrectly or bent pins and you will
lack the granularity of using a full Cisco IOS feature set.

We will be doing a review of the various models of router sim
available on the market early in the new year. If you have any
suggestions about the ones you want including please drop us a
line at help@howtonetwork.net

Verdict

For an aid to study, router sims can be a useful tool but please
don’t kid yourself that it counts towards hands on experience.
Don’t be too surprised if you come to configure live routers and
switches and they behave very differently to simulators.

Thanks

Paul

Passed CCNA and Can’t Find Work

I had an angry e-mail from a guy yesterday saying that he
passed his CCNA 6 months ago and ‘there are no jobs out
there’ and all the CCNA jobs wanted 2 years experience
before they would even interview him.

This means one of two things. Either he is correct and you
simply cannot get work if you have little or no IT
experience or he is mistaken.

The clue to the answer is in his comment ‘there are no
jobs OUT THERE.’I am going to treat you all like grown ups
and I hope you don’t find my comments to be rude but your
success in IT and life in fact is entirely down to you. If
you pass your CCNA and get knocked back a few times you can
either redouble your efforts and find ways into IT or cry
to anyone who will listen that the cruel IT industry won’t
give a guy a break.

The second clue is when he said ‘ALL the jobs wanted 2
years experience.’ There must be over a thousand jobs
advertised every month with CCNA in the title in the UK
alone. Has he checked every one or just looked at the
trend and decided that the 2 year rule applies to all
of them?

If I spent time on the phone and asked this guy what he was
doing I may find out that he had put his CV ‘out there’ on
job boards, maybe applied for some Cisco roles advertised
on the internet and heard nothing back. This is all passive
job seeking. Waiting for the phone to ring.

I would ask him about proactive job hunting. I would start
by asking if he had written a list of large companies in and
around his area and called the IT manager for a chat about
vacancies. I would ask him if he had written a list of
every friend, family member and acquaintence and asked them
who they know who is working in an IT role so he could have
a quick chat with them about where they work and any job
openings there.

I would ask if he had put his Cisco skills to use by doing
some freelance work for local companies. He could call them
and offer a free Cisco audit where he will check that the
router and switch configs are backed up and that the
passwords are stored securely in case of router failure
or reload. If he found any problems he could offer to fix
them for a fee. He could even offer monthly support contracts
where they get 2 hours free on site support in case of any
problems.

If he charged only $100 for each device he had to back up
configs for plus $200 for the support contract and he found
only 10 companies in his area who wanted that service he
could easily net $3000 in a month and a recurring $2000 per
month in support fees whether or not his clients called him.

Anyway. I’m sure that if he carries on e-mailing off his
generic CV and waiting for the phone to ring he will get
the same results he has had so far which is nothing.

Thanks

Paul