Network KingsAsk Network Kings

I have a 16 years of experience as a NOC engineer and a NOC lead. I am learning a lot of courses but after upskilling on multiple technologies my profile gets rejected.

asked 18 hours ago 1 2by Anand Iyer
0

I have completed CCNA, CCNP and Cisco Viptela SD WAN. I am learning Palo alto firewall the problem after learning multiple technologies as well I have a fear that my profile gets rejected due to a lack of experience nowadays many people are mentioning a lot of things in their CV inspite of having a little experience or no experience. I do not want to follow that path so I will be finding a job based on practical knowledge in the sense where I will learn and work on labs.

3 Answers

NKAI

AI generated · 18 hours ago

NKAI Reply

Where you stand

You are not a fresher — 16 years as a NOC engineer and NOC lead is real, hard-won operational experience. The rejection pattern you describe is usually not about lack of knowledge; it is about positioning. A CV that lists CCNA, CCNP, SD-WAN and Palo Alto without a clear target role reads as "generalist NOC" to recruiters, and generalist NOC profiles get filtered out of senior engineering shortlists.

Two things to fix, and neither requires faking anything:

  • Pick one direction and go deep. Your background (routing, switching, NOC operations, Viptela SD-WAN) points naturally to enterprise routing/switching plus SD-WAN, or to network security. Spreading across both keeps you in the same rejection loop.
  • Convert experience into evidence. Labs are the right instinct. Build documented topologies — OSPF/BGP/MPLS scenarios, SD-WAN policy and failover, firewall rule migration — and write short notes on what broke and how you fixed it. That is honest, verifiable, and it is what separates you from people who only list keywords.

On the fear itself: recruiters do screen for depth. A 16-year candidate who says "I run BGP and SD-WAN in production and here is my lab proving the edge cases" is far stronger than one listing 10 tools. Do not pad the CV — narrow it.

Your Roadmap: Network Engineer

Roadmap

  1. 1

    Networking Foundation4 months

    CCNA, Juniper JNCIA

  2. 2

    Enterprise Routing, Switching & Troubleshooting8 months

    CCNP ENCOR, CCNP ENARSI, Real Troubleshooting — Routing, Real Troubleshooting — Switching

  3. 3

    Choose a specialization track12 months

    CCNP Security, Palo Alto, SD-WAN, CCNP SPCOR

Stage 1 (months 0–4) Networking Foundation — refresh and formalise fundamentals; you likely already clear this quickly given your CCNA. Stage 2 (months 4–12) Enterprise Routing, Switching & Troubleshooting — this is your real gap-closer: deep OSPF, BGP, MPLS plus structured troubleshooting, which is exactly what senior interviews probe. Stage 3 (months 12–24) Choose a specialization track — commit to one: Network Security (Cisco ISE/ASA/FTD, Palo Alto, Fortinet) or SD-WAN & Service Provider (SD-WAN, CCNP SPCOR). Given your Viptela work, SD-WAN is the shorter path; security is the larger market.

What it pays in India (market ranges, not offers)

  • Junior Network Engineer / NOC: ₹4–7 LPA
  • Network Engineer (2–5 yrs): ₹9–18 LPA
  • Senior / Network Architect: ₹20–35+ LPA

Next step

Start with CCNP ENCOR at https://ott.nwkings.com/learn, then ENARSI. Realistically, 6–10 months of focused lab work plus a tightened, single-direction CV is when the first salary jump becomes achievable. For free lessons, follow https://www.youtube.com/@nwkings/videos. For batch and fee details, speak to the Network Kings counselling team — I cannot quote those here.

--- Suggested video from our YouTube channel

Learn with Network Kings

  • Affordable self-paced courses: https://ott.nwkings.com/learn

Live batches

AI

Anand Iyer

0 rep · 18 hours ago

Companies are asking for hands on experience I would 60 to 70 percent of companies are only asking for hands on experience, there are only 30 percent companies who are ready to hire people.

AI

Anand Iyer

0 rep · 18 hours ago

This is the current skillset required by the companies.

Current network engineer skilset required

Firewall: ASA, Palo alto, checkpoint, fortinet and Barracuda Load balancer: F5, A10, netscaler Azure Cloud: Azure networking, azure firewall, Vnet ACI: Leaf and spine switches, APIC controller WAF: Fortinet, barracuda Cisco Nexus data center: 2K, 5K, 9K switches NSX: Firewall and load balancer AWS: Route S3 aviatrix cloud sd wan: cisco viptela, versa sd wan, aruba sd wan

Routing Switching: TCP/IP,subnetting, VLANs, STP, OSPF, BGP, DNS, NAT, VPNs, packet flow and Wireshark, Cisco Viptela SD WAN, Versa SD WAN, Prisma SD WAN,Cisco DNAC, Cisco ISE, Cisco Meraki, juniper, nokia

Network Security: Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco NGFW, Segmentation, zero trust, SASE, ZTNA, IPS/IDS. Palo alto alone is now a baseline expectation in most security job posting, not a bonus skill

Application Delivery: F5 BIG-IP LTM, WAF, DNS/GTM, SSL Offloading, load balancing, reverse proxy, persistence, health monitors

Cloud and Hybrid infrastructure: AWS, Azure, VPC/Vnet, cloud networking, cloud firewalls, WAF

Automation & Devnetops: Python, Ansible, Terraform, Git, APIs, postman, JSON/YAML, CI/CD basics

Observability and troubleshooting: Wireshark, tcpdump, splunk, ELK, Grafana, netflow, logs, packet captures, root cause analysis

Realistic Expectation from yourself

Routing Switching: CCNA or Juniper(JNCIA), CCNP, Cisco Viptela SD WAN , Cisco ISE

Network Security: Palo alto or WAF

Application Delivery: F5 or Netscaler

Cloud: AWS, cloud networking

Automation & Devnetops: Python

Data center: nexus switch, ACI and APIC

Your answer