What Is a ‘Free’ or ‘Unattached’ CCIE Number or Status ?

Cisco Partner Status

A Cisco Partner is required to have a cer­tain num­bers of Cisco cer­ti­fied indi­vidu­als, this includes CCIE, CCNP, CCNA, Sales Associates and so on. Its a very good sys­tem that ensures that a part­ner has enough people to cor­rectly sell and sup­port Cisco products.

The exact details of the require­ments change reas­on­ably often, but the main one for us, is that a large Cisco part­ners must have a cer­tain num­ber of CCIE’s.

The Partner status is asso­ci­ated with pur­chas­ing power with Cisco so it is really import­ant for the Partner to main­tain that status.

Recruitment Hassles

Over the years, there have been short­ages in CCIE num­bers and part­ners were temp­ted to ‘poach’ cer­ti­fied CCIE from other part­ners. The prob­lem was that a com­pany might have com­mit­ted a lot of money, time and sup­port to that can­did­ate, only to watch them walk out the door. (Or maybe they didn’t, but they cer­tainly don’t want to lose their CCIE’s).

Queue the busi­ness people moan­ing about loy­alty and over­paid tech­nical staff (while con­veni­ently not noti­cing how much they were get­ting paid).

Keep in mind that ‘mak­ing’ a CCIE® usu­ally takes two to three , and only one in twenty people who start, actu­ally even get to attempt­ing the exam (my guess­tim­ates) much less pass the CCIE lab exam.

Second, it became a game of musical chairs with a escal­a­tion in money and bonuses to attract scarce can­did­ates. This was fine for CCIE® people in the early days, but the cost quickly became unvi­able and a new sys­tem came into play.

There might also have been some unscru­pu­lous activ­ity to impact a com­pet­itor by ‘steal­ing’ their people so they couldn’t make the required num­bers with Cisco.

Status Transfer

The basic idea is that once someone joins a com­pany, you get a request to “attach” to the Partner CCO. Your cer­ti­fic­a­tion status is then added to the reseller.

If you leave that Partner for another Partner, your status does not trans­fer for some time, typ­ic­ally between six months to a year. This allows the com­pany you left enough time to train or recruit someone without los­ing status.

The new Partner does receive the bene­fit of your cer­ti­fic­a­tion for six months to a year and thus their Cisco status can­not be improved by poach­ing from other companies.

Cisco also made a com­mit­ment to Partners not to recruit their tech­nical staff unless the per­son can gain permission.

Free Agents

Free Agents are those indi­vidu­als who don’t work for Cisco Partners. They work at End-​​User sites, as freel­ance /​ con­tract, or pos­sibly Cisco them­selves and their cer­ti­fic­a­tion is not linked to any Cisco Partners.

This means that they can count imme­di­ately towards a Cisco Partners cer­ti­fic­a­tion status, or can be recruited by Cisco. I have heard other terms for this e.g. unat­tached badge, free badge, open status. Cisco has a policy of not recruit­ing from part­ners — if you want a job with Cisco, don’t work for a reseller.

Recruiters like Free Agents

For very large Cisco part­ners, your status isn’t par­tic­u­larly import­ant as they have so many people it doesn’t much mat­ter. But for smal­ler Partners it cer­tainly does. So if your status is attached, you are less attract­ive as an employee. And get­ting per­mis­sion from your boss to get an open trans­fer to go to a com­pet­itor doesn’t hap­pen too often.

A recruiter wants to make money by pla­cing you into a job. They are more likely to make money with free agents for Cisco Partners as they are, in gen­eral terms, more desirable.

Conclusion

When you are look­ing for new jobs, make sure you under­stand your value in the mar­ket­place. A Free Agent CCIE can reas­on­ably ask for more money, and expect to get it.

This is only one fea­ture of your suit­ab­il­ity for job though, con­sider other skills like com­mu­nic­a­tion and busi­ness nous as well.

Let me know if any­thing isn’t clear. I will try to clarify.

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