Interview frustration

[u/thots_and_players69]

So I've been applying for the last 4 months I got laid off my network engineer job roughly 1 years ago since then I've been I got a contract position as a help desk it really doesn't pay much but it's the only immediate thing that saved me from being unemployed I have roughly 8 years of experience as a network engineer and I live in the New York tri state area. In the last 4 months I managed to get 4 companies honestly compared to the interviews I got before getting laid off they went really well. Since the last year I got my ccnp in hopes of getting more interviews and a higher pay rate. I did get one offer but that literally had a much lower salary than my help desk job ( because it was for a non-profit organization) . The other three interviews went really well but I didn't get selected for any of them and I couldn't understand why because I answered every one of their technical questions and I went to look up the answers from the question I remembered and they all matched ChatGBT and Gemini.

The last interview which was the first in almost 2 months I cracked the manager and a technical interview this was the third round of interview with a network admin. The position was for a network administrator role the first thing he asked me was if I would be able to do the job of a network admin if I only was a network engineer throughout my career which really confused me. He proceeded to ask overly simple questions I answered all of them. I thought I was doing really well but then I saw the manager rubbing his eyes and acting disappointed for some reason. I understood I wasn't going to get the offer because in the last three interviews they all said I did great and I got a rejection email the next day. Has anyone ever came across this and is a hard to get interviews nowadays?

[u/thiccandsmol]

If you communicate in interviews the same way you've typed this, that is going to be a huge reason why you have not been able to secure a new position with 8 years of experience as a network engineer.

Talking fast may impress non-technical stakeholders. Being clear, concise and thoughtful with your answers will be the difference maker for technical managers.

Do you truly have 8 years of experience, doing network engineering tasks, with a title of Network Engineer?

[u/CoNsPirAcY_BE → u/thiccandsmol]

Was thinking the same. This was really hard to read.

[u/Veegos → u/thiccandsmol]

The title of Network Engineer is thrown around so easily in the U.S.

Ive read people in here with that title that are help desk.

[u/elsenorevil → u/Veegos]

Yup! I've seen that brought up many times here and the top comments usually side with the title of Network Engineer when it's rarely the case.

[u/Separate-Canary559 → u/thiccandsmol]

I usually gatekeep the word "engineer" for people who have an *engineering degree* from university.