Interview questions

[whatwhat]

I need to interview some folks this week for a level 1 IT support tech job.
Do you think these 10 questions are reasonable to determine this?

1. Name one undersea cable local ISPs use for international connectivity.
2. What is the fastest consumer DSL connection Telkom offers?
3. Which provides faster graphics performance? Nvidia GTX 980ti or Intel Iris Pro 6200?
4. What are Sea Sonic most well known for manufacturing?
5. If I talk about ZFS what am I referring to?
6. Which display panel technology generally provides better colour accuracy, a TN panel or an IPS panel?
7. Does the new 4th generation Apple TV support a native 4K resolution?
8. What is the name for the latest available Android version?
9. What does FaceTime do?
10. Which company is developing the HoloLens?

lol. This is peacocking, trying to impress the person you want to hire with your random knowledge. Usually by a junior manager with no experience, or someone who thinks they are a manager. If this was for a position of a keyboard swopper or similar type of tech support, they are just going to leave the interview puzzled and annoyed at you.

Have a discussion with the guy about the work he is going to be doing, how he would fix issues you've seen that were hard to fix, etc.

Leave these sort of questions for the MyBB weekly polls.

 

[DA-LION-619]

lol. This is peacocking, trying to impress the person you want to hire with your random knowledge. Usually by a junior manager with no experience, or someone who thinks they are a manager. If this was for a position of a keyboard swopper or similar type of tech support, they are just going to leave the interview puzzled and annoyed at you.

Have a discussion with the guy about the work he is going to be doing, how he would fix issues you've seen that were hard to fix, etc.

Leave these sort of questions for the MyBB weekly polls.

Gawd no!

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Thanks for the feedback guys. This is the first time I'm interviewing anyone for an IT position so I am a noob and would rather not be doing it but there is nobody else to do it so I don't have much choice.

@whatwhat, I have no intention of trying to impress anyone. I'm honestly trying to figure out their level of interest in the industry.

@dj thanks for the detailed reply, I don't intend on making this a five day affair for each person, I have limited time. I'll see how it goes with the first batch today without the questions. If I struggle getting a fix on them I'll reconsider with the next group.

My first guy is over qualified for the position, but he's been told specifically it's for a junior position so let's see how it goes.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how it goes

 

[DJ...]

Their level of interest will not correlate with success in the role. I promise you. Work backwards: what makes a good employee in the role? What traits do they need to have? What are the specifics of the job spec? Now go looking for the right qualities...

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Their level of interest will not correlate with success in the role. I promise you. Work backwards: what makes a good employee in the role? What traits do they need to have? What are the specifics of the job spec? Now go looking for the right qualities...

That's kind of where I disagree. There are so many people that finish school and go study IT because they were told the market needs it or they didn't know what else to do but they have absolutely no interest in it.

I've seen many people like this that just sit there and work their 9 to 5 and leave and never learn anything new. I'm looking for somebody that when there is nothing to do will actively go and inspect things and go "Ooh, what does this do" or "I'd like to know more about that". Without being interested in your work that rarely happens without supervision, which there will be none because they're a one-man IT department for a small office.

 

[whatwhat]

Thanks for the feedback guys. This is the first time I'm interviewing anyone for an IT position so I am a noob and would rather not be doing it but there is nobody else to do it so I don't have much choice.

@whatwhat, I have no intention of trying to impress anyone. I'm honestly trying to figure out their level of interest in the industry.

@dj thanks for the detailed reply, I don't intend on making this a five day affair for each person, I have limited time. I'll see how it goes with the first batch today without the questions. If I struggle getting a fix on them I'll reconsider with the next group.

My first guy is over qualified for the position, but he's been told specifically it's for a junior position so let's see how it goes.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how it goes

It gets easier the more you interview, so don't worry about it. Also, everyone has a different opinion on how to do it.

Look it really depends on what he is going to be doing. Make a list of the top 5 most difficult/challenging tasks that someone in his position would do, and throw them at him. Like DJ said leave out some parts and see how it works with what he has.

Also, spend time seeing how the person up-skill themselves - is he self motivated and will do it himself, or does he demand the company pays for all training before he learns something new. How does he handle angry people shouting at him, or when he ****s up royally.

 

[R13...]

You could just ask each candidate how many cats they own.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

It gets easier the more you interview, so don't worry about it. Also, everyone has a different opinion on how to do it.

I don't intend on doing this very often, I'm doing this as a half-favour for the company I left last month. Couldn't find somebody in time before I left and I'm the only qualified person around.

 

[Jay_Bee_Kay]

I believe that instead of rating people on their knowledge of the industry, rate them on the quality of their answers. This gives you a better idea if they're passionate about any of this stuff or not.

+1

Carefully crafted questions based on the above should easily set you up to differentiate between those who "jumped on the IT bandwagon" and those who really have a passion for what they do.

 

[animal531]

Yeah, as the others have said, firing straight up questions one after the other makes for a bad interview. The same as when you're talking to someone at a bar, if you're just firing questions at them you're probably not going to get very far. If you ask me about A and then jump to B then I'm still thinking about A...you're going to make me/the candidate get nervous and mess up. Am I answering correctly because I've read up for the interview, or because I have experience with what you're talking about?

Rather talk to them about where they come from, why they're doing IT. What about it interests them? What experience do they have? Based on what they say you can then make up questions and direct them. For example they say that they spend a lot of time online. Then you ask which ISP they're with, what they think of them, recent outages, do they know which undersea cable they use? How does an undersea cable connect to land and get routed? Etc.

Move naturally between topics, from there you can talk about hardware and work in your other questions. Don't make the questions into a test of what you know, make it about exploring their knowledge base. If they seem to know more about a certain field, then ask more around that.

Edit: One of the most important determining factors for employee success is culture. You spending time trying to figure out if they'll be a good match as a person for the company and people is one of the most important areas you need to cover in the interview.

 

[ponder]

You might as well just throw a dart and hire the guy it lands on.

That sounds like fun

 

[whatwhat]

I always find that a good opener in an interview is to ask the person their opinion on anal bleaching.

Guaranteed to get rid of the nerves.

 

[crysis]

If you asked me these questions for a Lvl 1 entry level IT position I'd walk out.

You people always want the applicant to ****ing know everything from A - Z in the IT field for a ****ing noob position like Tier 1 IT Support.

Let me guess, salary is less than R15k p/m but the poor oke must answer these bull**** questions.

What the sweet f.ck does Question 7 & 9 even have to do with a Tier 1 position?

Tell you what, add Question 11.... Detailed explanation of how one does a colonoscopy.

Because that has as much ****ing relavance to all the other bull**** questions.

I quit. I'm not working for you, EVER!

Exactly! All tech support need to do is tell the customer to turn it off and on again. No need to actually be interested or follow IT trends to know what the #### they are talking about when communicating with those in need of support.