Need suggestions for tech related interview questions

brad-

We're looking to hire another employee and i have a set of questions, but i was wondering if you guys had any favorites not on my list.

The position is a sys admin type, but we have exchange, sql, isa, cisco, and everything else that goes under a windows domain.

For the tech specific questions, i would like to snag some book questions to highlight an overall level of at least familiarity with some of these technologies, but what would you guys do to get the most out of an interview?

demonfurbie

ask him if he knows the dod network model, its not on many if any certs the only people ive been able to get an answer from are true network geeks.

Akaricloud

I always like the method of asking a related question or two that they're very unlikely to know the answer to. How they respond will reveal a lot about them.

If they're able to handle it calmly and propose how they would go about figuring it out then that's great.

If they freeze up, make up an incorrect answer or just leave it at they don't know then you might want to consider passing them up. You know on the job they'll run into this type of thing and you want someone that can go beyond their current knowledge to get the job done when necessary.

I just had a job that did this to me during my 2nd interview. I got asked what port remote desktop uses(which I actually was able to answer haha) and what some random acronym stood for. I've got a 3rd interview scheduled where I'll make sure to bring up what the acronym actually stands for so they know I took the time to learn it.

shodown

Since you are covering all of the above, I would only suggest going deep into the area's that they are considered strong in. The things that you mention that aren't on there resume I would just pass over or maybe talk about them, but wouldn't use them as a way to weigh them in or out.


For the above poster that said I would pass up is somebody that said "I don't know" people who are honest about there skills and talent are hard to come by and when you say you don't know learning can begin.

Onto the questions for cisco

1. Ask about the OSI model
2. Basic Switching (Spanning Tree, Vlans, trunk port)
3. Basic routing, OSPF, EIGRP, Static Routes
4. Basic access-list,

That should be for a interview when a guy will have much more stuff do than CISCO. When its a CISCO only position then you should turn up the heat.