Is it normal to get asked extremely simple questions in interviews?

mxmaniac

I'm trying to get my foot in the door in IT. I have my A+ and Network+, and a bit of experience as a internet and voip installer.

I had a couple phone interviews, and it seemed sort of strange that they each asked such basic questions. One asked "do you know how to find the ip address of the computer from the command line (ipconfig /all). And another asked, do I know what DNS is.

Its kind of strange because obviously if I have my Network+ (which I make clear), then I would know those things. And also, both positions "preferred" degrees, and "preferred" 1-3 years experience, and a whole other list of things they wanted.

So it just seems strange why would they ask the most basic questions of all?

Zartanasaurus

They are trying to screen out people who are full of crap.

markulous

Actually I overheard a guy here interviewing someone over the phone asking those same exact questions today. As the above post said, they are weeding out people. If it sounds like you are reading it off of a website or you can't answer the basic questions, then you don't get an in-person interview. You can always drill them with tough technical questions in the in-person interview.

JockVSJock

Its happened to me.

Once I got hired I asked a few of the team members why the questions were so basic.

Their reply was that everyone they were interviewing couldn't even answer the basic questions, and had inflated their resume.

Kai123

Some people would have a CCNA but fail at some of these questions.

Sometimes, people might have a cert but not the experience (and the confidence) to answer simple questions. I know of a guy who had no IT experience but was certed up and was hired for his certs, but ended up making a mess of everything for a good while.

It only takes a couple of minutes to ask the questions anyway, no harm in them asking.

Kinet1c

Yup, you're going to get basic questions. They'll ask you about troubleshooting network: ping/traceroute/mtr/dns/subnetting - so they can get an idea of your thought process and troubleshooting technique.

Archon

Phone interviews as mentioned help screen for the people full of crap and for the type of people the company wants. I had a 1hr Skype interview for my current Systems Administrator role to which i had no technical questions and was offered the job a few days later.

Danielm7

I worked somewhere and they were trying to hire a Sr Security Engineer, most of the people on the phone couldn't even answer what really common port numbers were. These were people who said they had 6-7+ years in security and a networking background. Even those questions screened out a lot of people.

LeBroke

Danielm7 wrote: »

I worked somewhere and they were trying to hire a Sr Security Engineer, most of the people on the phone couldn't even answer what really common port numbers were. These were people who said they had 6-7+ years in security and a networking background. Even those questions screened out a lot of people.

I honestly don't see what questions like this measure other than rote memorization. You honestly rarely need to know what port X does except for what you need at the moment, or the absolutely most common ones like 22, 44 or 80. The rest? If you don't work with them on a daily basis, you'll probably never remember them unless you go through the effort specifically to learn them. Except the question remains - why?

It's like asking a biochemist to list R groups of amino acids. Do they use the information daily? Yes. Do they actually need to know it? Not really; they'd end up memorizing a few easy ones and ignoring the other ones until they need them. Information like this is easy enough to look up.

Danielm7

LeBroke wrote: »

I honestly don't see what questions like this measure other than rote memorization. You honestly rarely need to know what port X does except for what you need at the moment, or the absolutely most common ones like 22, 44 or 80. The rest? If you don't work with them on a daily basis, you'll probably never remember them unless you go through the effort specifically to learn them. Except the question remains - why?

Because they were very common ones like 21, 80, etc, for someone who was claiming to analyze security logs all day not to know common ports they'd see on a daily basis is a pretty good sign they also wouldn't recognize anything more detailed. These were people who said they were actively working as senior level security analysts who had never heard of shellshock or any of the big public issues that were even on CNN.

JamesKurtovich

Kai123 wrote: »

Some people would have a CCNA but fail at some of these questions.

I agree with this. A former co-worker of mine has his Network+ but couldn't tell you anything about the OSI model and failed answering a question concerning the model in an interview (he got the job anyway).

philz1982

I don't do the memorization questions. Outside 80 and 443 I have very few ports memorized. Yet I design, implement, and troubleshoot massive scale technology deployments. Why memorize what I can Google in 5 seconds.

I am more concerned with your analytical thinking process and your ability to communicate technical concepts to non technical users. Anyone can Google.

philz1982

I have to admit though that ip/ifconfig and DNS are pretty basic....

LeBroke

philz1982 wrote: »

I don't do the memorization questions. Outside 80 and 443 I have very few ports memorized. Yet I design, implement, and troubleshoot massive scale technology deployments. Why memorize what I can Google in 5 seconds.

I am more concerned with your analytical thinking process and your ability to communicate technical concepts to non technical users. Anyone can Google.

That's basically my point of view as well.

Danielm7

Right, and that is the level of questions they were asking that people couldn't answer. It wasn't super in depth, a few basic things then mostly how do you handle processes.

VIDEODROME

I just had an interview for NOC level 1 and had fairly easy questions.

What is a MAC Address and how would you find it? How do you connect to an AP in Windows? (For some reason every time I mention I use Linux people need reassurance that I know basic stuff in Windows)

My hope is when this happens it's a sign they like your personality and attitude. Or they feel you have an analytical mind that can troubleshoot. So they give you easy technical questions thinking you can be trained on more advanced stuff later.

This is actually the second time I interviewed at this place. I think I did better because the first time they seemed to be digging for harder questions.

hurricane1091

I have taken paper tests, tests on computers, been asked questions that are simple (how to get the IP), been asked more open-ended questions (User says internet is not working, walk me through the troubleshooting process), etc.

The job I have now though? Never asked one single technology question at the interview. CTO said he could just tell I had a high aptitude, which is good I guess. They are most about that. Not what you know, but that you're smart/resourceful/can learn and figure out new things.

I've scored 90+% on tests for jobs and not gotten hired. Wore suits, asked questions, etc. I think my problem was that I had all these networking certs (Net+, MTA Networking, CCENT (now CCNA), etc) and I was interviewing for roles like traditional help desk and entry level support. So it was obvious knowledge-wise I was kind of ahead of that, and I wanted to do networking and you could tell I would quit sooner than later.

tkerber

To be honest this doesn't surprise me. MTA and Network+ are low level certs and it's not impossible for people to cram and **** those without actually understanding the underlying concepts.

Also, people lie a lot. People lie about experience, education, certs, everything.. Honestly, unless you have a mid-level cert or Master / Expert level cert it's not going to hold much weight in my opinion. Now if you were applying for a Network Engineer position and had a CCNP and they were asking these questions, then I would be looking for different companies.

gorebrush

My favourite interview question I had, this was about 60 minutes into a technical interview... Out of nowhere, the current guy asked "Are you willing to go and buy chips" - i.e. a bag of proper english fries for all you American cousins...

That was quite funny, because I was firing on all cylinders about AD and networking then that came up.... It was good.

Can't beat Fish n Chips!

Mishra

In my interviews, I start with basic questions and move on to more advanced questions if you are getting them.

Some of the basic questions I rarely get a correct answer to:

What are some basic Windows services that is installed as a part of the base operating system?
What is the AD schema and what does it do?
How many hosts are in a /24?

I want to list out of the ports I have memorized for fun

20/21 - ftp
22 - SSH
23 - Telnet
25 - SMTP
53 - DNS
80 - HTTP
110 - POP
143 - IMAP I think... I used to know this
443 - SSL
1433 - SQL
1494/2598 - Citrix
3389 - RDP

pevangel

tkerber wrote: »

Honestly, unless you have a mid-level cert or Master / Expert level cert it's not going to hold much weight in my opinion. Now if you were applying for a Network Engineer position and had a CCNP and they were asking these questions, then I would be looking for different companies.

Mid-level and expert level certs can be dumped too. Length of experience also doesn't tell the whole story. You can never tell just from someone's resume how good (or bad) they really are. Mid/Sr. Network Engineers who are full of crap are the reasons why we started doing phone screens with basic questions thrown in.

Deathmage

This is why I say getting the CompTIA trifecta is kind of useful for anyone starting out in IT, these basis questions are common knowledge when you get all three of them.