I’m a 53 year old African American having difficulty gaining networking jobs in my area of Charlotte, NC. I’ve been in the Tech industry since 1989 with many OEM certs, MCSE, MCP, A+, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology. The MCSE and MCP are not current. I have baseline Cisco routing skills but no CCNA and little workplace experience except working manager positions at satellite centers where WAN responsibilites were outsourced to providers..
Most of my experience has been on the hardware break-fix side, but the last 6 years has been devoted to developing networking skills.
Everyone has humble beginnings in that no one engineer walks into the door knowing it all, but some companies are willing to give them a chance. I must admit, there are proportionally less African American network engineers in the market than white or Indian counterparts and employers tend to look at me as an oddity. What factors weigh greatest against my odds:
Age?
Race?
Experience?
Salesmanship?