Leave Your Ego at the Door

You are just about to walk into the interview room. Regardless of whether you are being interviewed, or interviewing—what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about winning? Are you thinking about whining? Or are you thinking about engaging? I have noticed, on many mailing lists, and in many other forums, that interviews in our world have devolved into a contest of egos.

The person on the other side of the table has some certification I don’t care about—how can I prove they are dumb, not as smart as their certification might indicate, or… The person on the other side of the table claims to know some protocol, can I find some bit of information they don’t know? These kinds of questions are really just ego questions—and you need to leave them at the door. This is particularly acute with certifications right now—a lot of people doubt the value of certifications, claiming folks who have them don’t know anything, the certifications are worthless, they don’t reflect the real world, etc.

I will agree that we have a problem with the depth and level of knowledge of network engineers at the moment. We all need to grow up a little, learn technologies rather than CLIs, and actually learn how to be engineers. On the other hand, when you interview someone, or when you are being interviewed…

Leave your ego at the door.

Is it really worth losing a really good hire because you needed your ego stroked by “beating” someone in an interview?

No, I didn’t think so.