Interview prospective peers

[Tea]

Around for a while, yes. But this is Tannin after all. I think you mean around and not really dead yet (nobody knows why) and still comprehensively refusing to learn anything about anything invented more recently than papyrus. He seems to like it that way.

 

[Mercutio]

Tea/Tannin: ROFL!!!

I found it strange he had no idea on WAIK, especially since he has passed the Vista Install/Configure exam, which does include WAIK.

OK, yeah, that's pretty sad.

Truly, as an instructor I really do appreciate the demands of the certification process, in that it tests what should be knowledge specific to the subject matter. Too many people just study the answers they need to pass the tests, sometimes without even minimal comprehension of the material. I don't like those guys, and there are enough of them out there to give those of us who are certified a bad name.

I always do tell my students that their certs might as well be toilet paper if they can't back it up with actual skill in the field.

 

[Sol]

For my money (job, whatever) you might be asking the wrong questions...

I don't remember ever hearing/seeing the name WAIK before but I doubt I'd have any trouble finding and using it if I needed a custom install disc for Windows.
Similarly I studied the OSI model (briefly) at Uni but I'd have had to look it up to remember what it was. (I remembered the basics but not the acronym or the actual layers involved)

You seem to be testing people for what text books they've read and courses they've taken, and I guess that's fair to a point in that it tells you if they're lying on their resume but I've always kind of thought that became obvious pretty quickly anyway.

I've had some terrible interviews where people basically tested weather I'd read the same books as them on a subject, and I'm actually glad I didn't get those jobs, I could have done the job in my sleep but they didn't think I had the skills because I didn't answer exactly as they expected.

Not that I think I'd do any better thinking up interview questions (If I had any brilliant ideas I'd probably have posted them already), I just wanted to point out that just because someone looks a bit blank when you ask them what OSI is doesn't mean they don't know an network stack back to front (or top to bottom I guess...).

If you asked someone how they would go about installing Windows 7 on to 30 machines and they didn't even think of using a tool to create a custom install DVD then that would be a bit rubbish (Unless they had some better plan instead I guess). Not knowing what the tool is called, or even not being entirely sure it exists, both seem pretty forgivable. (But then I work for a company which is terrible with acronyms... Product to acronym is often a many to many relationship)

I'd come up with a similar example for OSI if I could think of any practical use for it...

 

[ddrueding]

I was chatting with some friends who happen to be physicists with PhDs. It turns out that they have about the same degree of built-in skepticism about people with PhDs as we do about people with certifications. It seems to boil down to the following:

That you felt the effort to get the PhD/Cert was justified shows that you actually know nothing about the subject. That you continued all the way to the end means you learned nothing along the way.

 

[timwhit]

I thought OSI stood for Open Source Initiative or Office of Strategic Influence.

Wikipedia seems to think it can stand for a number of things as well.

 

[Handruin]

During the interview, could not explain what the OSI model for networking was**, had trouble describing some network protocols (like IMCP, IP, BGP), admitted has zero knowledge of IPv6, had no idea on RAID levels, had trouble naming the different versions of SBS2003 (std, premium) and MSSQL server (express, standard, workgroup, etc), and didn't know what WAIK was?

** For the OSI model, the answer I wanted was: The model described the different levels on which a network stack (within the OS) is made of, and describes the functions that each level do. If they mentioned it had 7 layers, and that the bottom was the physical layer and it flowed up to the top application layer, then the better. (I don't expect anyone to know the 7 layers off by heart, but they should know what the model is).

I thought OSI stood for Open Source Initiative or Office of Strategic Influence.

Wikipedia seems to think it can stand for a number of things as well.

He asked about the OSI Model which is specific.

 

[timwhit]

I like Sol's approach of asking questions that require the interviewee to think rather than regurgitate facts. Asking questions like, what would you do to diagnose a problem in a specific scenario or how would develop a plan if someone gave you X to get done in X weeks. Now, walk me through that plan.

Hands on lab tests like David mentions are decent as well. If the person is interviewing for a developer position at my company we regularly give them a pseudo code problem and ask them to solve it.

 

[LiamC]

I know a guy who was asked to describe what he knew about SDLC in an interview. He went into quite a lot of depth about SNA (mainframes--look it up), OSI and layer 2 protocols. SDLC--Synchronous Data Link Control

The interviewers wanted to know about the Software Development Life Cycle. He got the job anyway.

Don't need a SAP basis sysadmin do you? Sorry, only Solaris/Oracle/DB2

 

[Chewy509]

I like Sol's approach of asking questions that require the interviewee to think rather than regurgitate facts. Asking questions like, what would you do to diagnose a problem in a specific scenario or how would develop a plan if someone gave you X to get done in X weeks. Now, walk me through that plan.

Hands on lab tests like David mentions are decent as well. If the person is interviewing for a developer position at my company we regularly give them a pseudo code problem and ask them to solve it.

I agree with that as well, and some of the questions do revolve around "how would you do the following task". A simple one was troubleshooting no internet access, where running 'ipconfig /all' shows you have an IP address of 169.x.x.x. What would be the possible causes for fault? (Based on the above, you haven't been able to obtain a DHCP lease, so would look for connection issues to the DHCP server, possibly set a static IP address, or check to see if DHCP server was running).

My favourite one is, what steps would you take to diagnose a faulty or failing HDD?

All in all, there are about 5-6 questions on what the resume says they know (to confirm what they have written), and then 5-6 questions on "how do you do this, or what steps would you take to do this". The last 2-3 questions are about their personal interest in IT, eg, what is your home PC, did you build it yourself, etc.

If we had the resources/time to setup a lab, and ask them to do stuff within the VM, it would be good, but alas, juggling other things at the same time, makes it a little difficult.

Anyway, the feedback and criticisms you guys do give is greatly appreciated, as it make me want to give the applicant the best opportunity to present themselves.

 

[Chewy509]

Similarly I studied the OSI model (briefly) at Uni but I'd have had to look it up to remember what it was.

How long ago was that. I do appreciate facts are forgotten over time, but this particular applicant completed his MIS (networking) last year (as in 4 months ago). I would expect someone to have not forgotten in such a short time period.

 

[Chewy509]

Don't need a SAP basis sysadmin do you? Sorry, only Solaris/Oracle/DB2

Unfortunately, we are a Microsoft only shop, so Win2K3 server, MSSQL2005, IIS6.0, etc... (much to my dislike).

 

[Howell]

Since you mention you deal with Citrix Farms, wouldn't it be fair for you to know the underlying disk architecture and how/why it was setup up that way? Or in the case of routers, know about subnets, and how routing actually works in IPv4 and IPv6 (in the case you needed IPv6).

I guess I never saw this.

It depends on the experience. Setting up a Citrix farm is not the same as administrating a farm. If an admin has 5 years of administration I would expect that admin to have setup a test farm and built it up to a working environment from scratch. But the admin likely has spent much, much more time on maintenance and admin tasks and it may have been 6 months since the last test install. They would be more likely to know which version of .Net is incompatible with the Citrix tools.

On the other hand Citrix engineers/consultants spend far more time on the interactions with disk and network infrastructure and consultants in particular see a wider variety of implementations. I would not expect them as much to remember which admin tool in which version Citrix has the printer policies. I would expect them to know how licensing works but not expect them to know the commands to install new licenses.

A long time ago, I made a contribution that I assume is still embedded in Smoothwall. You can actually find some ramblings on the topic here in the archives. I understood conceptually what I was trying to accomplish but I did not know the syntax. I sent my stuff to a guy who did know syntax and fixed a couple of my errors. I described that exact scenario at the interview last gig and helped get me the job.

Re the interviews: I guess I would ask a lot more why questions than what questions?
Ask a question, get an answer, ask why that is an appropriate answer. Or show a diagram of an implementation and ask why someone might choose to set it up that way.

Nonetheless, You have my sympathy. Its not easy finding the right fit.

 

[Howell]

He asked about the OSI Model which is specific.

And to reduce confusion further its full name is ISO/OSI model.

 

[Howell]

: (
Late to the party as usual.