I use to do a lot of PCI/DSS network installs. I’d get new trainees often. They’d brag about their network plus and their Cisco certs. The first question I always ask is ‘what does a DNS do? Like why do we need one? Do you know what it stands for?’ And never once did I get a correct answer.
I once hired an engineer into a role in one of my work centers who, apparently, had already finished his CCNA and CCNP.
On his 3rd day on site we asked him to log into the net and familiarize himself with the layout of devices.
He struggled to get logged into his tacacs/radius account, but eventually did. When he was logged into his user account he came back and asked me how to get logged into the switches.
I told him to use his tacacs account via whatever shell he wanted.
He gave me a blank face.
I opened the shell application he had installed (it happened to be a gui terminal, secureCRT). I told him to ssh in with his tacacs.
He gave me a blank face.
I typed in a connector and got to the user prompt.
He typed his tacacs credentials and logged in.
He gave me a blank face.
I told him to just cdp around.
He gave me a blank face.
He had no idea how to do _anything_ on a network.
This was the day I realized no degree, or certification, means literally anything.