So why certifications?

It cannot be denied that the majority of the entry-level Network Engineer job openings today are still looking for certified candidates. The networking industry is a "vendor-driven" industry dominated by large networking vendors. When we say vendor here it means a manufacturer of networking equipment such as Cisco, Juniper, Huawei and etc.

To understand this "vendor-driven" industry, compare this to programmers or the Software Engineering world. Certification is NOT a thing for programmers.

With certifications, companies do get some benefit in narrowing down their hiring process to just "certified" job candidates. At least, for the most part, because the system isn’t perfect.

On the other hand, there are organizations out there who don’t really care about certifications and have their own capability to figure out candidates that fit their requirements as well as train them for the actual job without the help of any certification body.

Overall, it’s a matter of industry and company requirements. So there’s 2 main paths for you, one that requires certification, and one that does not.

The companies which do not require certifications are harder to find since they are fewer. Fortunately, we now have more people and more information on the Internet, you can just post a question (such as in FB groups or forums) and someone will probably have a recommendation. Thanks to information being more easily accessible.

Now let's go to this question - "If I will go via the certification path, what are the different certifications out there?"

The different vendor certifications

This is the most popular entry-level networking certification and the one which you will find in most job requirements. Cisco is the top networking vendor and their products are the most deployed networking equipment especially in the enterprise environments (medium to large business).

However, unlike 10 years ago, Cisco has a lot more competitors nowadays. So there are other networking vendors which are taking some piece of the networking market.

CompTIA is a vendor-neutral certification body which has a variety of I.T. certifications (vendor-neutral means they are not specific to any company or vendor). One of the major ones being Network+ which is their networking certification.

Juniper is a major competitor and also have their own certifications similar to Cisco’s certification program. They primarily compete in the Service Provider space (ISP/Telco) but also have a respectable position in the enterprise space primarily with their firewall/security products.

They are quite strong on automation so if you’ve heard about the buzz around Network Automation, Juniper has a lot of advantages when it comes to that area.

To give you an idea about what's going on in this field - Network Automation, which includes learning Programming, is the current trend in the Networking industry.

Huawei is another major competitor and just like Juniper, they also have their own certification similar to Cisco’s certification program. They primarily compete in the Service Provider space as well but have also been trying to penetrate the enterprise space.

Alcatel-Lucent which is now owned by Nokia also has a certification program. However, their certification is targeted for the Service Provider space since that’s the market they mostly compete in, quite similar to Juniper. But unlike Juniper, they have less presence in the enterprise.

Due to less popularity, this certification may not end up on top of your list. However, it does give you more options. I have read their books and it's actually good material.

Even if you consider this just as a "good to have" certification, it may still give you a unique advantage since there’s not a lot of Network Engineers who have this.

When you apply for a Service Provider who uses Nokia/Alcatel-Lucent, then you’re probably going to be highly considered.

Certification renewal

Certifications are renewed every few years. For example, in Cisco certifications, the CCNA certification, as well as the CCNP certifications (the next level of certification after CCNA) have an expiry of every 3 years.

Higher-level certification

Most of the vendor certification programs have different levels of certifications. For example, in the Juniper certifications page, you’ll see that they have multiple levels of certifications, starting from an Associate Level (entry-level) to an Expert Level certification. You can think of this as beginner, intermediate, and advanced level certifications.

For now, you don't need to think about anything else other than the entry-level certifications. However, I'd like to give you a glimpse of what you're getting into.

Entry-level certifications are just the beginning. The typical approach is to climb up the ladder and take higher-level certifications as this also renews your existing certification.

You'll be doing this every few years for you to maintain your certification. You've got to be dedicated to it because it means you'll be constantly studying (with timelines since there's an expiry date).

Should you certify or not?

This is a question only you can answer. Most people will try to get certified. The biggest reason you will certify as a beginner is so that you can get into the industry. Since you don’t have any experience, all you can really show when starting your career is a certificate, proving that you have gone through the necessary studies.

However, if you can land a Network Engineer role in a company that doesn’t require certifications then i think you can get away without it. Yes, this is possible and some Network Engineers started this way. Although you probably need to stay there for a while, because your primary target in the first few years is to gain experience.

Once you get in, you need to accumulate experience, so later on in case you move jobs and someone else is looking to hire you, their primary decision point is your experience. You’re not a beginner anymore, you have the experience. If ever you get the chance to get in without a certificate, make the most out of it - learn and gain experience.

It's worth noting that studying certification material is still very helpful regardless if you take the exam or not. I personally have studied certification books without taking the actual exam. I just read the book, and I just wanted to learn.

Honestly, that's really the whole point of it. The paper doesn't matter if you can't prove that you've learned from what you studied. It's one thing to certify, passing an interview is a different story. Once, you're in the room with your interviewer, it's all just you.

Live face-to-face training

I'm going to use Cisco here since it's the most popular and most available. There’s a lot of training centers nowadays, the majority of them are within Metro Manila. I just want to point out that most of the training centers available only offer a “boot camp” training. What this means is that it’s usually 5 days and is fast-paced.

WARNING: Cisco boot camps are not meant for total beginners or if you’re starting from "zero-knowledge". A boot camp is intended for those who already have some prior learning and are close to taking the certification exam. The point of a boot camp is to validate your existing understanding of what you have learned so far and fill in those areas which you feel you’re not confident yet. The bottom line is to prepare you for your Cisco certification exam.

It’s worth noting that there are slow-paced trainings as well. It's typically comprised of 4 modules (usually they call it Cisco 1 to 4) and is taken over a span of a couple of weeks or months depending on the schedule. If you’re starting from "zero-knowledge" this is probably better for you.

NOTE: due to our current situation with the pandemic, some may be hesitant with live face-to-face training. But I still included it as it is an option that existed even before all this started and may still be a good option after we all get through this crisis.

Self-study (self-paced)

If you have a limited budget or going to face-to-face training is not possible for you or you simply don't have plans to certify, then this is the option for you.

I know a lot have done this with success so it’s still a good option especially if you want to take your time with your studies. You can either read books or watch video tutorials.

As far as price is concerned, self-study won’t cost you as much. However, expect to put a little more effort in trying to find answers to your questions.

I highly recommend joining a community of other people who are also learning networking such as online groups. I will tell you from experience that learning with the help and support of a community will make your learning journey faster.

Virtual lab

Having a virtual lab (virtual network simulator/emulator) is crucial because you want to be able to practice anytime.

I wouldn’t advice building a physical networking lab as a first option, but if you prefer that and you have the budget, yes it's possible. There are many refurbished equipment you can buy online.

In reality, you can survive without ever building a physical networking lab. Here are a few reasons why.

Note that if you plan to work for a role that requires a lot of physical work such as cabling, racking and stacking (see what a rack looks like here), then getting experience with physical equipment will most likely be better for you. Such kind of work is not uncommon when you’re just starting out and don’t have any experience.

I also acknowledge the fact that it can boost your confidence if you've handled physical network equipment before applying for a Network Engineering role.

If you're already in the I.T. field, you probably are already doing some related work so I don't think you're going to be completely clueless about physical equipment and cabling, etc. I'll leave it up to you to gauge if you really need to experience it.

I know some aspiring Network Engineers enroll in boot camps just to experience the physical hardware. If you're purpose is to experience physical hardware, then perhaps it's a better idea to just buy physical hardware. Because you can't take the equipment in the boot camp back home. That way you can practice on real equipment anytime.

Virtual lab software

Here are your options for virtual network simulators/emulators.

There's another one called EVE-NG however I wouldn't recommend it for complete beginners.

If you're going for just the CCNA certification, Cisco Packet Tracer will suffice. For a more future proof setup, GNS3 is a better option than Cisco Packet Tracer since it supports other networking vendor devices, not just Cisco. As you gain experience, you'll eventually encounter other networking vendors so multi-vendor support for your virtual lab is a good thing.

It's worth mentioning that for Cisco Packet Tracer, it can only simulate the network devices. This means that it is not real. But it's the easiest to setup and use.

For GNS3 (as well as EVE-NG), it provides emulation for the actual network device software. This means that it is close to the real thing.

When the network device software is loaded into an emulator such as GNS3, the network device software "thinks" it is running on real hardware. But in fact, GNS3 is just making it "appear" as if there is a real network device hardware. This is the main difference between a simulator and an emulator.

NOTE: You will have to provide the networking vendor software on your own (ex. Cisco IOS). This is usually the inconvenient part when using emulators because some of these network device software requires you to spend some money to acquire them legally. It's worth noting however that some networking vendors are already providing their software for free (lab purposes only). An example of this is Juniper.

Books and video tutorials

When it comes to self-studying I find that videos are usually a good place to start with. I like reading, but the video tutorials tend to give you a better "overview" approach.

If I want to dive deeper into a topic then that’s the time I will read the books. Books are usually the "detailed" version and work well if you’re ready to get into the specifics of a topic. I would recommend going for the official certification/study guide of the certification exam you're studying for.

If paired with some online search and asking some help from online communities, self-studying isn’t that hard at all. But here’s the truth, whether you choose to get more help with face-to-face training, or if you self-study, you’ll be self-studying anyway, all throughout your career. Learning in I.T. never stops so you need to learn how to learn by yourself.

Entry-level requirements

The typical requirements would be similar to what you can find in the Network+ or the CCNA exam. Obviously, each company will have their own qualifications. However, I’d like to point out a few important topics that you should really nail at the time of the interview.

I cannot stress enough how important these basic topics are. Imagine failing an interview because of a basic question. You may not be able to get all the questions right but at least get the basics right. To me this is the most important thing for a Network Engineer candidate apart from character and the other non-technical considerations.

The different industries

Here are some examples of typical industries or types of companies that you might get into. This gives you an idea on where to go in the industry. It's a big world by the way, but I'm going to list the ones which are common.

These are the ones which sell vendor equipment/products to companies as well as help companies deploy and implement these equipment/products. So primarily working in an SI will involve roles such as implementation and pre-sales.

As the name suggests, this involves working in some Internet provider, Telecoms provider as well as other types of network communications provider. There are various roles for Network Engineers in a Service Provider. This can be any of the following.

NOTE: Service Providers are large networks. So it's normal to have dedicated teams for specific types of work.

This makes up the largest portion simply because there are a lot more other businesses compared to System Integrators and Service Providers.

These businesses are usually the customers of the System Integrators and Service Providers so you’ll be in the "customer" environment.

You’ll usually work with Service Providers for your Internet and WAN (Wide Area Network) connections. You might also work with System Integrators if you buy networking equipment from them.

Yes, it’s also possible to end up working with the vendor itself. This is not one of the common places that Network Engineers start out but it’s good to know that it’s a possibility somewhere down the road.

Below are some of the typical roles when working for a vendor.

It's worth noting that in these roles it's normal to have some design and architecture related work. Most of the time you are working on getting a solution deployed on a customer network.

Personally, I’ve worked for Service Providers for the majority of my professional career. I’ve also worked with one of the major vendors but even when I was working for a vendor, I was still working with Service Provider customers for the most part (vendors of course also sell equipment and provide networking expertise to Service Providers).

Deciding where to work

Now that you know the common industries that you might get into, you can decide where to work. It's not going to be easy figuring out where you would fit. But at least you have an idea of your options and you can check which one appeals more to you.

I can't tell you which industry to go or where you should work. You'll discover or perhaps stumble upon that on your own.

In my case, I dreamed about getting into the Service Provider industry. But I didn't know I was going to work for an ISP on my first job as a Network Engineer until my first day at work!

But let me give you a piece of honest advice. I understand everybody has their own priorities in life. However, based on my personal experience, I highly recommend working in a place where you will get the most exposure.

A good learning environment where you can really sharpen your skills is beneficial in this early stage of your career. Even if the salary isn't that high, but if it trains you well, ideally not just on the technical side but in other areas as well, it's a lot more worth it long term.

It will be easier for you to succeed later on because your skills and experience are much more attractive. Never underestimate the value of experience.

What to do when experience is required

A lot of companies looking for Network Engineers requires someone who already has experience. I get this a lot from young and aspiring Network Engineers.

"It's hard to get experience if you need experience to get a job" - I see these kind of comments all the time. It may sound funny but this is actually a real frustration for someone who's trying to break into Network Engineering.

We also can't blame some companies for only accepting candidates who already has experience. They have priorities, and that may include time and money.

They may not have the resources to train someone. It could also mean they really need help and needs someone who can take care of the network for them. Apart from that, even a small configuration mistake may have big consequences in a network. There's a risk factor for them.

So what can you do as an aspiring Network Engineer? Well you can focus on the companies or job positions where you have a better chance.

There are still companies out there who hire candidates with no experience but with good potential. Of course, you will start with simple things first, and then work your way towards more complicated tasks. If you come across one, especially if it will give you good exposure to networks, grab the opportunity!

There are also many options for a stepping stone. If there's a Network Engineer opening and you don't meet the requirements, check if they have other open positions for a more junior role. Something you can apply for just to get in. You can work your way through promotion later.

What to expect for junior positions

Networking is such a big world, and just like you could never really know everything, you definitely cannot handle everything, especially at the beginning. So don’t be surprised if you’re only tasked to do a few (and easier) things at the beginning. It’s just natural that you’ll only be given more responsibility as you learn and understand more about the network.

What to do when you get in

I’m just going to say it again. Make the most out of it - learn and gain experience. That’s your focus, because that’s your investment to yourself. Sharpen your skills because you’ll benefit from it later. You may think it doesn’t sound much but let me give you something to think about.

Imagine that you already have an experience of 5 years being a Network Engineer and you have a great opportunity in front of you. You’re sitting in an interview and you have to sell yourself. What would you want to say? Think about that for a moment.

How the beginning looks like

Back when I was just starting out as a Network Engineer, I realized that everything I knew was just the tip of the iceberg, similar to most things we learn in life. Expect to start learning all over again once you're in practice.

I learned that there is a big difference between knowing something, and using it in the real world. There's a whole lot of stuff you won't learn from the books, and that's easy to understand. It’s called reality.

The books are meant to give you the basics. You are given the manual, but how you implement it for your network environment is a different story. I know this sounds like it's just common sense. But it's better for me to mention it than not.

It is only by experience that we begin to really learn how to harness our newly acquired knowledge. They don't really turn into skills until we actually make use of them in practice.

As we go through the journey of building and breaking networks (yes, I made mistakes, and you will too), we begin to connect the dots and understand the weight of our actions. We realize that there’s more to this than just typing commands on a network device. There’s a need for a sense of ownership, a sense of responsibility.

Continuing your journey

Forming a habit of learning either by taking courses, reading books, or even just researching online, along with enough curiosity to try out the things you learn and apply it, is a good formula for making it in this industry.

But improving only your technical skills isn't enough. Being able to communicate and work with your peers, customers, and people external to your organization is a very important factor.

We can continue to refine our skills by:

By focusing on improvement, it becomes easier to be in a position of success. You'll be surprised one day how far you have gone.

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

Related content

Base your judgment on the job description, not the job title:

When looking at a job opening, you need to go through the job description and base your judgment from there instead of just referring to the job title.

A job title is just a title and doesn’t give you an accurate picture of the role’s tasks and responsibilities.

You can have a fancy title but don’t really have good exposure to networks. You can have a simple job title but have solid network experience. You get the point.

Note that some companies will have job titles as “Network Engineer” but the actual job doesn’t necessarily require a lot of Network Engineering skills such as mixing it with other responsibilities that are not necessarily related to the network. So always review the job description or job responsibilities.

Honestly, sometimes even the job description isn’t 100% accurate. This is something you’ll just have to find out in the actual job interview.

So how does one determine a good job description?

Well we go back to our aim which is to gain good exposure to networks.

There are 2 aspects to consider:

This leads us to the next point.

The more focused and the more in-depth, the better:

You might ask - does that mean I need to avoid jobs with non network-related responsibilities?

Well I think it boils down to this. When you are going through a job description, if you feel that they're trying to cram a mix of I.T. functions into one role despite the title being "Network Engineer", that most likely means you'll be switching across various other tasks.

So you can start and weigh things from there.

If you're not sure or if something isn't clear, you can always ask. However, these things will almost not be disclosed until you're in the interview room.

The biggest reason why you would want to go for more focused and more in-depth network related jobs is because of "Relevant Experience".

In other words, how well does your experience or overall profile matches the position you're applying for.

As you move forward in your career in Network Engineering, your profile will be judged based on how much experience you have working in a particular area of networking.

Generally speaking, a more "focused" profile will be preferred over experience that's a bit scattered. You'll understand this more in a later discussion.

You might ask again - does that mean I should not consider getting experience on other skills so I can diversify?

The answer is not yet. Specializing gives you a better chance to get off the ground FAST.

At the beginning of your career, focused and deeper knowledge is better than diverse but shallow knowledge. That is if you want to go faster.

However, diversifying your skillset is necessary later on as you gain experience.

Take note that it's not just about diversifying. A good combination of complementing skills is one of the key aspects to providing uniqueness to your profile.

NOTE: Focused and diverse are quite loose terms here. To be completely honest, within Network Engineering, even the baseline skills are already quite diverse. Understanding the basics requires going through a wide range of topics.

Consider the nature of business of the company:

The level of experience you will get across different companies will not be equal. There are a few things that can prevent you from getting good exposure to networks.

Below are some of the common reasons:

I know this is an unfair example, but just to make you better understand - a Network Engineer for a mall will not get as good exposure or experience compared to a Network Engineer at Google.

Google’s networking team is a driving force for their business. There’s no doubt that a mall business doesn’t have the same networking requirements as Google. Again, this is just for the sake of example, but I hope that makes sense.

It’s also worth noting that these points I’ve mentioned do have an impact on your potential salary. But again, it depends on how a company sees its network infrastructure, and most importantly, its Network team, as a part of its business.

Now I’d like to point out that I’m not telling you to only apply for companies with massive budgets and invests heavily on network infrastructure, or has complex networking requirements. Majority of the companies out there are not like that. There are scenarios where it makes sense to go for those.

My point here is for you to maximize your time.

As I said, we would want to aim for getting as much good exposure to networks as possible. This is particularly important in the first couple of years of your career.

Quality experience can significantly accelerate your career as well as your value.

Imagine spending 2 or 3 years in a place where you feel stagnant.

Yes, you can keep improving outside of work. But remember that you will spend at least 40 hours of your week at work. So you would want to maximize the use of your time and focus on getting good experience rather than just many years of experience.

Remember that quality is more important than quantity.

Be more like an artist:

What I’ve learned in my experience is that the thing that got companies calling me is that I’ve set up my profile to highlight my best projects and experiences.

It’s not simply telling where I’ve worked, how many years I’ve worked in a company, or what networking protocols I know.

Before that, I want the person looking at my profile to see in summary what I can bring to the table. Because at the end of the day that’s what they are after. This is the same style used by artists and other creative professionals with their work portfolio.

Most importantly, they have to see something unique about you.

In my case, I’ve specialized in Network Automation. This worked well at a time that Networking skills and Programming skills combined aren’t really common.

However, as you may have heard, Network Automation, as well as a lot of these Software Defined Networking (SDN) related technology are now more widely known so more and more Network Engineers are getting into it.

Build yourself like a game character:

When I was starting out, I wasn’t really consciously trying to design my career.

All I really wanted was to learn and learn more. It was just the hunger for knowledge.

However, as I gained experience, I started to really think about what kind of projects or experience I wanted to get into. So you begin to think and be selective about these two considerations:

The purpose of these considerations is for you to be able to shape your skillset. So you want your resume to kind of reflect this shape such as you are built in a particular way.

If you played games such Diablo or say Dota, it’s like collecting items and building your character attributes to fight in a particular style.

If you want to be a tank player then you will have to really pack a lot of armor and still do a great deal of damage, especially in close-range combat.

When you’re a strong player in these games, guess what? People want you on their team.

You're not necessarily strong at everything, but instead you're strong in certain areas and in certain roles. That’s a key to attracting opportunities.

For example, in my case we can say that when someone looks at my skills and experience, it is clear that I'm well suited for an "Automation" role.

The job opening:

The hiring process typically starts with the recruitment team receiving a job opening requirement from the hiring manager. The hiring manager is usually the person who requires additional resources on their team or department.

The job opening requirement will include what the open position is along with the job description and qualifications. As you would expect, these details are pretty much the same details that will end up in the job ad.

Apart from the job requirement, the hiring manager also needs to define certain details that the recruitment team needs to look at in order to filter out the resumes.

This could be like certain keywords, years of experience, number of companies that an applicant has been with, etc.

The point is for the recruitment team to identify what’s a YES and what’s a NO.

This is the part where the high-level overview of your resume matters as well as the keywords you've included. An example of keywords could be certifications, protocols that you know and have experience with, etc.

Filtering of resumes:

When applications start coming in, the applications will be reviewed. Typically, the resumes will be reviewed by someone who can gauge if the applicant is indeed a potential candidate for the open position.

This process will select the applicants who will be invited for an interview. This is the part where the details of your resume matter.

Now there could be an initial phone call to speak with the candidate over the phone and see if it’s worth inviting the candidate for a full interview.

Of course, the company doesn't want to waste time. But this goes both ways since you as the candidate also don’t want to attend an interview that isn't going anywhere. It's important to have respect for the time of both parties.

An important part of this process is to understand how relevant the experience of the applicant is to what is required for the position. This is not an easy task but it is necessary.

The one reviewing the resumes may like the skills you have or the different kinds of protocols you know in your resume. But there's one big question that still needs to be answered.

That is if how well are you going to match the expectations of the job.

Because anybody can put whatever network protocol or network technology in their resume, but your history of experience and environments you've worked with tells it better. Remember this one and it will change how you view your career.

The technical interview:

Now I’m not going to include every detail of how an interview goes about but instead, I'll highlight the key points in an interview.

Remember the first couple of minutes are important. The reason for this is that a technical interviewer will only try to find out one thing in the first part of the interview and that is whether he/she needs to spend more time on you.

This is a filtering technique. Because an interviewer will not want to wait 30 minutes before figuring out that you don’t meet their base requirements.

Most likely your technical interview will involve a part where you draw and explain a particular network setup on the whiteboard or something similar.

The purpose is to go into the specifics. This is the meat of the interview and you’ll most likely spend the most time here. The key here is to be confident about what you’re explaining, like you’re an instructor teaching how the network behaves.

This is also the part you can’t fake. The technical interviewer will be able to figure out how well you understand the subject.

Be ready to receive questions involving breaking the network topology you have on the whiteboard. This is one approach a technical interviewer may use to gauge your level of understanding of how a particular network setup will operate.

It’s one thing to understand how to set up and configure a network, it’s another thing if you know how it will react if something fails. This is where your knowledge of how protocols work and behave will come into play.

If you are doing well so far, it’s not uncommon for a technical interviewer to step up the questions and see where you start to reach your limits.

This is not about asking you a question about something you don’t know (although those kinds of interviews exist). It is more about figuring out how deep is your knowledge on a subject which you seem to be knowledgeable about.

For example, if you seem to know enough about a particular routing protocol, the next question to that would be like how deep is your understanding of that routing protocol?

This can be taken in different angles but your understanding plus your experience of the subject will come into play in this part. It all comes down to how easy or how hard it was for you to come up with an answer.

How a candidate is considered for the position:

First, we need to make sure that you do well up until Phase 2 as mentioned above. There’s definitely no question about that. The following are some other considerations.

To be honest, this is quite a personal take which I’ve used in my experience in interviews. This may not reflect the views of others. But I have a good reason for this.

Everything else can be learned on the job. If you can learn in one area of networking quite well, then it’s likely that you’ll be capable of doing the same in a different area given enough time.

For example, I find that most candidates coming from an enterprise background typically have their strengths in switching and LAN technologies. This is easy to understand because it’s quite normal that most of the action is happening within the LAN in enterprise type of environments.

If you're really good on the LAN side, but not as confident on the WAN side, that's ok. It just means you can be easily deployed in LAN responsibilities and that's already a good start.

This is where the hiring team looks at what you bring to the table. There is no perfect team so if there’s a part of the team that’s a bit weak or a part which requires more attention, and you have the skills to fill in those gaps, then you’re more likely to be considered.

Not all Network Engineering teams do this but I’ve been part of one that does so I’m throwing it here as I think it helps.

Obviously, this only applies to already established teams. Thinking about how well a candidate will work with an already existing team can be a factor to the team’s success.

I understand these things can get complicated because we are talking about human personality and each of one of us is different. We have different attitudes and not everybody can work well with just about anyone.

Yes, we do have to be professional regardless of the people we work with, but I admire teams who take an extra step to do this because I know for a fact that it certainly plays an important part in the working environment.

How fundamentals helps you land the job:

Remember Phase 1 - The baseline test of the technical interview process? Well, having a good grasp of the "basics" will help you through that phase.

Here's an example. Let's say you're quite comfortable with OSPF routing and perhaps it's you're favorite topic. You know you can answer OSPF questions with confidence.

But what if you were asked to explain how ARP works. Then let's say you understand how it happens from the client side, but maybe you're not 100% clear on the full process when an ARP passes through a switch.

This is not a good situation to be in. A "basic" question such as this one can cost you an interview. Even if you were well prepared for OSPF questions, all of that doesn't matter if you can't get through these "baseline" tests. This is why fundamentals are very important.

Fundamentals in practice:

Here's the reality. Fundamentals are not just important for the sake of the interview process. They are actually crucial on the real job!

Imagine a Network troubleshooting scenario that stretches for 2 hours when you could have fixed it in less than 15 minutes if you just studied the "basics" well. If it was a Network outage, this becomes even worse.

When you are working as Network Engineer, these "basics" are always running through the back of your mind. The more you use them, the more they become second nature to you - and that's what you want.

Ask any experienced Network Engineer about IP address subnetting or supernetting and you will notice how it's just natural to them. Network Engineers "breathe" IP addresses everyday, they almost don't even think about it. It's built into muscle memory.

Why is this even important? The point here is that these core / fundamental topics are just a portion of the job. We use them to achieve something bigger - and that is to connect computers and people to each other.

When you're trying to build a Network, all these fundamental topics are pieces that we put together to come up with the final outcome - just like how we mix ingredients for a recipe. Every piece has a purpose. A single piece cannot do much on its own. But if we use the right pieces together, we can build a Network.

Since the Network is such an important part of businesses and our day to day lives, Network Engineers essentially help keep the world running.

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

Related content

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

9 Key Reasons To Learn Programming For Network Engineers

Isa ka bang Network Engineer at gusto mong makasabay sa demand ng mga company ngayon for Automation? Alamin kung bakit worth it na mag-invest sa pagaaral ng Python programming.

• get the free report

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

Hirap ka pa rin ba sa programming? Tulungan kita you can take my Python tutorial.

Free Basic Python Tutorial

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash

by: Jess Primero

@iamzeroslash