Nervous Mistake

tkerber

Hey guys, so recently I got invited over to interview for an entry-level security gig--which I was extremely excited for. I thought the interview was honestly going pretty well. I ended up being a lot more nervous than I thought I would be since there were three people interviewing me instead of just the one that I saw in the email. One thing that really bugs me is I was asked probably about 10 or so technical questions. I know I got almost every single one of them right but ONE which was how many usable hosts in a /25.. I answered 510, I don't know why, I was just really nervous and already fatigued from the other questions at the time. This really concerns me because I'm a networking major and I totally know how to subnet (/25 =126 usable). Now I'm thinking the employer either thinks I'm an idiot or maybe realizes I was nervous. I'm debating mentioning it in my thank you email. What do you guys think?

devilbones

I would just mention that somehow in an email. I had a phone interview and the guy was asking basic questions. He asked what the 'A' in CIA was and I could not think of it. It totally escaped my mind at that moment. He understood.

Nafe92014

Being nervous is a natural encounter of life. Everyone gets nervous at some point . Heck, I had one interviewer ask me if I was nervous before he lobbed questions at me (he could tell I was a little bit cause of my posture and eye movement). There were a few times where I stuttered to answer a question. He just chuckled and totally understood .

networker050184

They know you were nervous. Trust me, everyone's been in your shoes. Don't stress about it. Good luck!

dustervoice

If you've answered all the other questions correctly then they will know its down to nervousness especially if the other questions are more difficult and who knows they might not have realized that you gave the wrong answer.

Danielm7

Try not to sweat it too much, especially if you got everything else right. On the plus side you weren't going for a network engineering role.

With that said, I had a 15+ year Sr Systems Engineer ask me if you can "fit 1000 IPs in a /24" a month ago...

dustervoice

Danielm7 wrote: »

With that said, I had a 15+ year Sr Systems Engineer ask me if you can "fit 1000 IPs in a /24" a month ago...

You should have said YES ofcourse you can but with 744 IP conflicts; but hey who cares conflicts are apart of life!

dustervoice

devilbones wrote: »

He asked what the 'A' in CIA was and I could not think of it. It totally escaped my mind at that moment. He understood.

How could you forget this ? 'A' in CIA stands for Amnesia

Mike7

Danielm7 wrote: »

With that said, I had a 15+ year Sr Systems Engineer ask me if you can "fit 1000 IPs in a /24" a month ago...

Yes, with NAT and private IPs.

tkerber

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I just sent my thank you email without. For the life of me I couldn't find a way to make the email still sound professional and sincere when adding in the part about that question. Hopefully if the recruiter calls me for a follow up I could possibly just mention it to her.

Also LOL at the CIA acronym, I feel your pain. I am studying Security+ now and that is like page number 1.

thenjduke

Mike7 wrote: »

Yes, with NAT and private IPs.

I like this one. This made me chuckle but you know what it is a honest mistake.

markulous

The job I got now I totally spaced some questions. I couldn't remember what a FQDN stood for.

Then they said, "Oh I see you have a Linux+ so these questions are going to be super easy. What command will show running processes on a linux box?"
Me: Umm.....

But I guess I impressed them enough in the troubleshooting questions.