Option in US & Europe

Quite a lot of security work involves communications with others -- such as explaining policies to users, explaining security concepts to management, and presenting business cases as to why particular actions should be funded or undertaken.

Thus, in the US, it is fairly important for computer security personnel to be able to communicate clearly in English.

I apologize if this comes out sounding like a 'flame', but: If what you wrote is typical of your written communications, then your command of English is not as good as would be desired for security personnel.

- You did not put a space between 'CCNA,' and 'CCNP' and you did not use a conjunctive such as 'and' or a colon-list format. For example,"I'm a CCNA and CCNP".

- Your "Presently undergoing" omits the subject of the sentance ("I") and the verb of the sentance ("am") -- "undergoing" is a "participle" that needs a verb to be complete.

- "papers" are not something that can be "undergone" -- one can only "undergo" a verbal (that is, a noun of action, such as "surgery" or "anesthesia" or "an examination") or a participle (such as "wallpapering").

- "I'm having" is "I am having" which is Present Continuous tense ("I am having cramps") or Future Momentus tense ("I am having my car painted on Friday"), but is not suitable for the simple Present tense verb of possesion. "I have almost 2 years [...]". Saying "I'm having" for the simple Present tense immediately marks you as a someone who is not a native speaker of English.

- '&' is a bit archaic, and is usually used only in legal forms and trademarks and advertisements.

- As "opportunities" is plural, the verb must also be plural. That is, one would write "Are there any such opportunities", not "Is there ".

- You did not define the varieties of opportunities that you want to be the referant for the "such" in "any such opportunities". A fair number of native speakers of English would make the same mistake, but it is a mark of lack of mastery of written English. Some potential employers might go as far as to interpret it as indicating that you are lax on consistency-checking and might suppose that that laxity would carry over into your security work.

- "Pls" and "u'r" are not used in formal communications and "u'r" in particular would seldom be considered acceptable. ("Pls" might be acceptable in some less-formal business communications. In a message in which you are appealing to potential employers, "u'r" would be considered the worst of these points by a fair degree: a lot of people would be willing to overlook phrasing such as "I'm having" but would be turned right off by "u'r". I suggest you immediately discard "u'r" from all of your public technical communications.

I don't know about Europe, but there are many opportunities available in the U.S. See

for listings of many job opportunities.

You would probably be well qualified for the jobs that are considered "highly technical" in nature (don't require much communication with people), but would need improved English language skills for other more "people oriented" positions.

Good luck with your efforts.

Thanks VIC, for u'r advice. For my language concern, yes--------- as i wrote this letter i thought of using shortened words i.e when u read those words, u wud ( like this one instead of would) feel u got the meaning rather than looking for correct spellings. Also i used shortened words as i thought i was writing a casual letter to a group rather than being formal to any Executive or to any indivudual. I think i have been able to make u understand my point of view of using such words & sentences which Mr. Walter wasn't able to decipher.My casual approach to this group have flown over the understanding level of Mr. Walter

Nevertheless, Mr. Walter has a very valid point. If you use this kind of juvenile "shorthand" language frequently, it will become comfortable to you and it will eventually slip into you business letters or resume. If I read a resume that had such shorthand, I would just throw it away on finding the first occurrence and not waste time on it.

Ordinarily I never reply to *anyone* using such shorthand. I was tolerant in your case because you seemed sincere and I thought that not being proficient with the language, perhaps you were unaware of how inappropriate such usage is.

Good luck with your search.

Well said, and worth repeating.

In article , Sabya wrote: :Also i used shortened words as i thought :i was writing a casual letter to a group rather than being formal to :any Executive or to any indivudual.

:>Any Executive from IT Companies; u'r opinion will be highly crucial.

Unless an organization is quite small, or is looking for an executive-level position such as CIO (Corporate Information Officer), then it is not the Executives that do the hiring. Someone has to: create the job description; create the interview questions; determine the "right" answers; find suitable candidates; conduct the interviews; evaluate the interview responses; write evaluation reports on each of the candidates; and make "recommendations" as to whom to hire.

In many organizations, those tasks [except perhaps actually finding the candidates] are usually handled by experienced senior security personnel. In my organization, that means me -- -effectively- *I* am the one who hires security people for our organization.

If a candidate that I was considering for work in our organization displayed an apparent weak command of written English, then the candidate would have to be technically brilliant for me to consider them. It is *far* harder to teach the skills of good communication than it is to teach someone what (say) "elliptic curve cryptography" is. And if the candidate also had difficulty in accepting and working with constructive criticism, the candidate would pretty much have to be a famous innovator in their field for me to consider hiring them.

The last time I ran a hire, I included a -specific- interview evaluation section on communications, and I set it up so that if the candidate did not get at least 7 out of 10 on that section, then the candidate failed, no matter how well they did on the rest of the interview. -Practical- security is part of Support, and Support is working with people, and that means communicating. A support person who cannot communicate well usually becomes a liability rather than an asset.

I know that the above could be construed as xenophobic or racist (since your first language is not English), but really it is not. At last count, people in our organization spoke 54 different languages. The worst communicators here tend to be the people whose native language is English: they tend to use the less-mature language of their youth, and to make cultural assumptions, whereas the people from elsewhere -know- that they have to put effort into communicating well, and actually

-study- the language rather than just using it "instinctively" (and getting it wrong.)

So, although it may not -seem- like it at the moment, I am trying to offer serious professional advice: that if you wish to work in practical computer security in the USA (or Canada, or other English-dominant countries), then you should put more effort into using higher quality written English; doing so is likely to advance your career interests better than simply getting another technical certificate.

Hi Vic, Only a foolish person would use such words or shortened sentence in the Resume.I dont consider myself adhering to such group of people who sticks to use such shortened paragraph's or sentences in an important self description paper or in Resume. Yes Mr. Walter have a very valid point. Actually let me explain u the whole situation to the cause of being so casual.

1- I was serious in one of the Yahoo Groups which i had subscribed earlier but received very poor & sarcastic remarks from couple of persons, 2- Evidently i decided to be casual at this group. 3- Got very Excellent persons in the form of Vic & Mr. Walter .Actually this was well calculated.

Thanks friends, you were really helpful to me . I would request to both of you to mail me directly to snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com Till then bye

You can't get much more formal than Telex, where PLS is still valid. However, I doubt that Sabyasachi Ghosh has any Telex background, based on the rest of his posts.

The main point is to not use abbreviations outside the fora where they are acceptable. Even if UR and L8R may be acceptable in SMS messages, don't use these abbreviations anywhere else.

In my opinion, it marks someone unfamiliar with formal communication, and who probably is a child of the SMS generation.

I was more concerned with the last paragraph which sounded rude -- like he was giving us the privilege of giving him information. The addition of "if pls" did not help. At the very least, the sentence has to be constructed as a question.

Regards,

In article , Sabya wrote: :Hi Vic, : Only a foolish person would use such words or shortened sentence in :the Resume.I dont consider myself adhering to such group of people who :sticks to use such shortened paragraph's or sentences in an important :self description paper or in Resume.

In the era of Google Groups, every posting you make becomes part of your resume. And I'm not just saying that either: there have been a number of articles written about people whose chances at at job were ruined because of something ill-advised that they had said years before.

Some HR (Human Resources) departments in the USA now consider it to be part of their "due diligence" to investigate postings (and web sites) from candidates, in an effort to avoid hiring people who might be prone to racist or sexist or other intolerant remarks (i.e., to avoid the possibility that they would make the same kinds of remarks in the workplace, leading to employees suing the company for civil rights violations). And of course HR wants to know whether the person can be trusted -- if they openly speak of pirating software, or of obtaining resources without paying for them (e.g., Dump questions) then HR is going to be slow to believe that the person can be trusted with sensitive company information.

: Actually let me explain u the whole situation to the cause of being :so casual. :1- I was serious in one of the Yahoo Groups which i had subscribed :earlier but received very poor & sarcastic remarks from couple of :persons,

That's Yahoo, not Usenet. I don't hang around any of the Yahoo technical newsgroups.

:2- Evidently i decided to be casual at this group. :3- Got very Excellent persons in the form of Vic & Mr. Walter .Actually :this was well calculated.

So what you are saying is that you trolled for responses; or, to use a different phrasing, that you manipulated us into responding.

Was it necessary to be manipulative? If you had done a newsgroup search on Cisco PIX VPN, you would easily have found my name and my frequent PIX postings in comp.dcom.sys.cisco . You could have posted a straight-forward question there mentioning me by name and I would very likely have responded.

Now you have certainly annoyed me; I was willing to overlook your email to me of the other day, but no-one appreciates being manipulated into responses.

The evidence before us is that:

a) You asked to be given the Dump questions -- which was not wise for someone whose potential job requires trust and discretion;

b) You failed to do simple research to find the best venue or approach to have your questions answered, and you failed to follow Usenet guidelines to review newsgroup mores before posting;

c) You deliberately (and completely unnecessarily) provoked people into responding, indicating that your social skills and your ability to "network" and build concensus are not your strong points;

d) You are overly concerned with what people with apparently high job titles ("Executives") think, instead of concentrating on what people with practical experience and credibility have to say;

e) Your written English is -still- not as good as a US or Canadian employer would want to see.

These factors are not likely to convince potential employers that you are the kind of person that they would like to see working for them.

These factors are also not likely to attract the friendship of people in the field who hear about job opportunities before they are ever made public, and who might otherwise have been inclined to give you a reference or an "inside line" on the opportunity.

People with job openings write to me from time to time; if they are polite and sincere and it isn't a form letter, then I refer them to the people who have most impressed me with their knowledge, ability to learn, and willingness to help others. I do not hesitate to recommend people who do not have a lot of practical experience if I believe that person would be a good fit for the opportunity.

So I repeat: when it comes to technical newsgroups, you should treat -every- posting as forming part of your resume. People *do* assess others based upon their postings -- and "headhunters" and people who know of upcoming opportunities *are* reading the postings.

Dear All, Your approach to the above topic was very educative.

To Mr. Walter, You promised to help me but it seems you enjoy correcting/rectifying somebody in public .May be this is the way you deal with persons in US and Canada , but in India we have been taught to deal indivudually to anybody who needs help or requires correction/rectification because every single person have self respect and the art of correcting/rectifying in public specially the way you adopted (mentioning line by line), looks like humiliating in public.I must also thank you for your publicly "teaching" procedure.You are a person of high credential but i must mention that you have an "unique" way of treating subjects. Taking into consideration that my approach to this group was very poor and casual,your approach to my mail resembles my attitude but with highest possible aggression and technique. Dear Mr.Hagen, You have concluded too many options from too little things specially "the child of SMS generation" Dear Vic, I must thank you from my heart for your information.

That's not what I wrote. If quoting someone, please ensure you do it verbatim. The above reads like an accusation that my English is horrible.

As a prospective employer, I'd worry whether you would display the same negligence when quoting your superiors, or when copying critical data and commands.

Then I will. The polite English translation of miereneuker would be a person who has sexual relations with an ant (the insect, not your mother's or father's sister). Usually used to describe someone who pays too much attention to detail, someone who is usually ignored or someone with a small penis. I think that pretty well covers the gist of it.

In Holland we call a person who reacts in this way : miereneuker (I won't translate it in english) In other words: give Sabya a response which is worth it, or don't reply at all.

Sabya, in e.g. Holland there is 'plenty' work for CCNP. You can try

or check the websites of the big 'players', for example ; ,

Rolf

Dear Mr.Hagen, If you think i showed negligence to your comments,then i can't change your views but i can analyze what you wanted to say and what i meant.

1-I used shortened words (which resembles SMS generation according to you) as i thought to be casual; did i oppose to this comment? 2- But i vehemently disagree to the fact that you concluded """more concerned with the last paragraph which sounded rude -- like he was giving us the privilege of giving him information.The addition of "if pls" did not help"""----->>Neither i forced anybody for any information nor i was offering any kind of priviledge to anybody; Sir,It was your line of thinking and not mine.I meant to receive opinion against my subject rather than forcing anybody to give information.

Also,being an employer, if you can conclude me as "Child of SMS ...." not taking into account the self-respect of an employee,then the employee must revert back(though i feel i didn't draw any blend of conclusion except asking you to reconsider your comments).

Also since long we have been talking of unnecessary things in a technical group.Lets forget all non-technical topics and get into something very technical.I'm postings a few doubts in the group.Pls, if possible, do revert back.

Thanks in advance.

:>In Holland we call a person who reacts in this way : miereneuker (I won't :>translate it in english)

: Then I will. The polite English translation of miereneuker would be :a person who has sexual relations with an ant (the insect, not your :mother's or father's sister).

Thanks for the translation; my first-pass guess was for a meaning closer to "muckraker".

:In Holland we call a person who reacts in this way : miereneuker (I won't :translate it in english) :In other words: give Sabya a response which is worth it, or don't reply at :all.

I -did- give Sabya a meaningful response: that in order to best achieve his goals, it would probably be most productive to work on a few non-technical attributes.

The situation is little different than if he had been asking how to land a job, and instead of giving specific advice about which companies are hiring, I had said, "Say, I notice that when you go into interviews, that you are wearing casual clothes that are a bit worn out, and you'd have better chance if you were wearing better clothes; for example, there's a noticable hole in your left shoe, a mustard stain just under your neck on your shirt, that style of clothes are associated with Disco and aren't worn in business anymore [etc.]"

Successful careers are not, in practice, based solely upon raw technical ability matched with a good resume' distribution service: the non-technical points can end up keeping you from being seriously considered on the merits of your skills.

Our modern interview process -requires- that we examine non-technical skills (leadership, problem solving, concensus building, and so on). If someone does not do well on those areas that were earlier determined to be important for the particular position, then that person cannot be hired, even if they do very well in the technical areas.

Excessive verbiage is for people who can't convey their thought more precisely. Just because you're long winded, certainly doesn't mean you've said anything worth listening to.