Phone interview

andy4tech

During a phone interview if the interviewer asked about my level of troubleshooting skills as per cisco switches and routers,what is the best answer for this question.another question,as a network engineer of your company if there is a loop in your network what do you do first.

Thanks.

4_lom

The best answer is honesty. They ask those questions to determine the level of your knowledge and how appropriate it would be for the job at hand. Now, if we were to give you answers to the questions that you are asked, we would be doing you a dis-service. The reason is, if the employer hired you based on questions that you already had answers for, you may not actually be the right fit for the job.

The best thing you can do is be honest. If you don't know how to answer a question, tell them you don't know the answer, but you know how to get the answer. Also, for your second question, please specify what you mean by "loop". Is this a voice network or data network?

tprice5

Phone interviews are generally done by HR staff with typically no IT experience. Your answers will be reviewed by an IT professional. If you have provided satisfactory answers, you will be asked to come in for an in-person interview and sit down with an IT professional so they can pick your brain. If you lied about anything in the phone interview, it will come out.
Like 4_lom said, be honest. It will save you some embaressement and keep you from wasting everyone's time.

andy4tech

I talked about using osi model that is using the botttom to top mode of troubleshooting but i think the interviewer still not satisfied.

Its a data network(network loop)

xbuzz

Well, i'll preface this post by saying I don't have much experience, but if the loop was a broadcast storm brought on by a failure of STP, I would probably start by disconnecting the redundant links on the switching devices that are causing the loops, which should allow the network to at least be useable, until the real issue was found. My reasoning being, is that if that is a broadcast storm, STP isn't doing it's job for some reason and the only way to stop loops in that scenario is to disconnect the links that are causing it. Sure you won't have the redudant links for awhile, but at least the network will be running.

In regards to the troubleshooting question, it all depends on your experience. If you're already in the industry, maybe you have troubleshooting experience on production networks, which is probably the best answer they are looking for, but obviously don't lie if you don't have that kind of experience. Maybe you're just starting off, but you might have a home lab. You could say you're constantly setting up your home lab in different ways and enjot troubleshooting issues that come up, or you like doing the same with rack rentals. Maybe you've done a course with the equipment so you got some experience troubleshooting when things didn't go right. I'd also say how i'm constantly trying to get better at troubleshooting, whether it is trying to come up with a better model of how to troubleshoot, to increasing your knowledge on the technology and getting hands on time network equipment.

You could even give a previous job that isn't IT related, but in which you had to troubleshoot as experience. As troubleshooting is really a mindset and a methodical approach to a problem, and that mindset can carry over to other jobs fairly well.