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Tips for technical interview?

astrogeek

I had an in-person meeting for a network administrator position recently that went well, but the hiring manager wants to setup a technical phone interview soon. I'm somewhat of the mindset that "either I know it or I don't", but I don't want to come off unprepared so I'm reviewing what I think I should before I have the interview. Can any of you guys & gals offer some advice for preparing for this interview? I don't have a lot of experience in technical interviews, and I really want this job so I definitely don't want to blow this!

I'm not sure what exactly will be asked, but I'm going over previous projects I worked on at my current position so they are fresh in my mind. I also Googled some common technical interview questions to get a better idea of what to expect, but I don't really know how advanced the questions may be.

If I'm asked about something I'm not familiar with, what would be the best way of answering those questions? I want them to know that even if I don't know something I'm capable of learning relatively quickly, but I know there are going to be things they need the person to do on day 1, not sometime later on when they figure it out.

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Comments

lsud00d

They will be looking at two things:

1. Do you know the answer, and
2. If you don't, how would you arrive at a possible answer

Be able to talk through your thought process, reference similar things for comparison purposes, offer various sources where you would search for an answer, etc. You're not expected to know everything, otherwise you wouldn't be applying for that job. Demonstrate that you can efficiently resolve issues both known and unknown.

astrogeek

Thanks, that make sense. I already mentioned to the hiring manager about some of my technical weaknesses, but I'm still going to assume the technical interviewer will ask about those anyway and those are the questions I'm most worried about. I don't have any server side experience but the new job will require working with SQL databases and Active Directory.

If I get hit with a lot of questions I'm stumped with would it be appropriate to emphasize my desire to continue learning in that direction? Honestly if I get this job and it's at the pay I'm asking for I'll want to sign up to WGU as soon as possible, I've even been eyeballing a subscription to CBT Nuggets so I can go through some of the server series to speed things up. I just don't know if I should be mentioning this to the technical interviewer or hold that for the hiring manager. I did mention in the first interview that I can pick things up quickly, but I didn't mention wanting to sign up for WGU.

YFZblu

lsud00d wrote: »

They will be looking at two things:

1. Do you know the answer, and
2. If you don't, how would you arrive at a possible answer

Be able to talk through your thought process, reference similar things for comparison purposes, offer various sources where you would search for an answer, etc. You're not expected to know everything, otherwise you wouldn't be applying for that job. Demonstrate that you can efficiently resolve issues both known and unknown.

+1 - This pretty much covers it.