IT interview questions

[Chuckster]

Hi all,

Could you list me questions you would ask an a person in an interview. As the NM is off this week, I was asked for a list and I don't really know where to start apart from the obvious one: why did you apply for this job?

[marco84]

The usual open questions like - What would you bring to this role / school?
And most probably some kind of prioritisation of workload question.

[elsiegee40]

Originally Posted by Chuckster

Hi all,

Could you list me questions you would ask an a person in an interview. As the NM is off this week, I was asked for a list and I don't really know where to start apart from the obvious one: why did you apply for this job?

What role is the person being interviewed for?

[ahuxham]

Ask things, like (Can you explain to a child(teacher)) what DNS, DHCP, RIS, WINS, AD mean.

Do you find menial tasks boring, can you cope with repetitive tasks. (Printer issues, toner changes, network cables unplugged, power not turned on)

Previous experience that may/may not have had, other things may include parts of the job they enjoy and excel at.

Any specialist knowledge they have, what areas they show profound skill, (MCSE, Comptia Linux+) skills assosciated with those quals. (Domain migrations, upgrades, server management etc etc)

Do they understand profiles, GPO's, settings, remote deployment software, backup software.

Assosciate a broad enough question to cover the areas you currently have. (You may have a vanilla network, you may have a RM network etc etc)

Switches, basics of TCP/IP, VLANS, Fibre etc etc, can they troubleshoot a dodgy fibre convertor etc.

Do they find documenting easy? (I struggle documenting things)

What about there profiency in Office applications etc.

Are they competent with a phone, answering and making calls, etc

[Jiser]

Questions I have been asked in school interviews are:

1) Why that particular school
2) Strengths/Weakness
3) Prioritisation
4) How would you deal with a 'bad' child
5) Where you see yourself in 5 years time
6) Tell me about yourself
7) Teamworking

All obvious stuff really.

[Midget]

1) Why that particular school
2) Strengths/Weakness
5) Where you see yourself in 5 years time
6) Tell me about yourself
7) Teamworking

Jiser> i think these questions are useless and insulting, and any interviewer who asks those questions shows themselves up as someone who doesn't know about the job they are interviewing for and have no great experiance of interviewing.

As about the job at hand and ask them how to do certain things they are going to be doing if they get the job.

If you are going to be a BSF school, how about "There is a printer in the corner, change the toner in it."

Questions about computer and networking components.
A is happening and so is B, what do you do first? (network down and head giving presentation or whatever you want)
Ask about their previous jobs, this gives you an idea of whether they are good people to work with or if they enjoy what they do (ie talk about it with feeling as opposed to 'meh it was awrigh innit')

You've got to work with the person, so you may want to find out what their interests are (music, football team, blah blah)

[witch]

Originally Posted by Midget

1) Why that particular school
2) Strengths/Weakness
5) Where you see yourself in 5 years time
6) Tell me about yourself
7) Teamworking

You've got to work with the person, so you may want to find out what their interests are (music, football team, blah blah)

I don't think the questions are useless and insulting at all - and after all, your question about the person's interests is surely the same as question 6?

There may be a difference between junior/middle and senior school but I have never been asked very technical questions.
I do agree with asking how you prioritise work and how you deal with angry teachers etc.

[Jiser]

Yes I agree and don't agree that they are useless and insulting. People usually just BS, yeh my strength is my "bla bla" and my weakness is "bla bla" and in 5 years time i want to still be here but in a senior position.

I agree also that is more relevant to ask what they will be doing if they get the job. However fact of the matter is those are the questions which were asked to me in each of my 3 interviews at schools as well as 6 interviews I have been to for I.T. jobs in the past (obviously the children aspect removed when not in schools).

You should have heard the questions asked when I went for an INternship job at J.P. Morgan, tell me they wern't insulting and pointless... All I can say tho is they were alot worse than the ones I listed above!

Obviously an interviewing panel wants to know why you want to work for the school? Wants to know about you? Wants to know what team working situations you have been in before? + What you think your strengths and weakness are - which may be related to technology? e.g. I don't know about domain migration but I am willing to learn but I know how to use AD and how to setup a VLAN. So tell me how they are pointless mr.midget.

[Midget]

1) Why that particular school

The majority of the candidates will not want to work for the school for any other reason than they are currently hiring (Obvious exceptions being people with kids/family in the school, but then is that a plus?) so that is pretty redundant

2) Strengths/Weakness

This is a pointless question and always has been. You are not hiring a salemans so why would you care about their ability to sell? Asking someone to explain their weaknesses is totally and utterly pointless because you will never get a real answer.

5) Where you see yourself in 5 years time

This just lets you see if they are a Sycophant saying "oh still here definately" whilst everyone will know that very few will stay in a <£20k job for 5 years. They'll be taking the experiance and running. Although you may get a joker saying "head".

6) Tell me about yourself

On it's own is a stupid question. Ask leading questions such as what do you do on.... do you do.... what do you think of ....

7) Teamworking

I assume by this you mean "tell me about a time you worked in a team" or other equally silly question that doesn't really help you unless you are looking for a new NM and want to know about their leadership skills. People who can't work in a team won't say they can't, and unless you are hiring 25yos you won't get many usefull answers anyway (unless they're scouts or some talk of them once being on the school football/netball/rugbybasketball team.)

[pete]

"What sort of marine animal would you be, if you could choose?"
"We like people to work long hours here, would you be happy working long hours?"*

*uncompensated long hours, and not just one-offs for busy periods - all the time.

Those earned the interviewer a look of disbelief and (admittedly along with a few other clues I'd picked) me cutting the interview short with a "thanks, but I really don't think I'd like to work here".

So, make it clear that you're not David Brent or candidates will just run for the hills.

Generally you (as technical person) need to find out:
1) Do they have the knowledge to do the job?
1a) If they're missing some of the knowledge, how fast can they pick it up / is the lack offset by other factors?
2) Do they appear to be a sensible, intelligent, well-adjusted member of the human race?
3) Do I want to work with them?

[Jiser]

Ditto to pete and midget!

[Friez]

Where you see yourself in 5 years time

I hate this question with a passion. It's the blandest most generic interview question designed purely to catch out a candidate, and my view of the interviewer drops a few notches every time I ever get asked it as it clearly shows they've just googled some questions rather than think up questions they'dd really like to ask the candidate.

No matter what your response, it is likely a lie. Most companies want you to hear some gumph about you working hard for them, or getting experience in their field, or even aspiring up the ladder (careful with that, going for the bosses job and all).

Nobody really answers what they really want to do. People's plans generally don't coincide with the model answer this question forces candidates down.

Myself, I'd like to see myself on a nice tropical beach with a drink in hand, laptop to the side, being fanned down by beautiful ladies but something tells me that isn't going to happen, and I certainly couldn't mention that in an Interview (except for that one time I was certain I didn't want the job).

Most people go for a job because their current conditions are far from ideal (need more hours, or need more pay, or need a job to pay the rent, and so forth). Obviously one goes for a job interview in a field that interests them, but at the end of the day none of us really think where we want to be in 5 or 10 years time, we can't predict the future.

Most of us will be outsourced anyway. That'll go a storm I'm sure.

</rant>

As for me, I would ask questions relevant to the job. For example, what sort of skills do they have for the job? Are they familiar with Active Directory? Do they have any experience with repairing computers? How did it go? Did they have any difficulties? If so what did they do to sort it out? Have they worked in a team before? What do they think about working with children?

Questions relevant to the job are the things that stand out in my mind as being relevant to the interview. Otherwise, you're just interviewing any random pleb that manages to drag themselves off the pavement.

You need to be sure you're hiring someone who can actually do the job, not someone who revised the top 10 interview questions they read off of some site they found from google.

[Midget]

Hear, hear

[Jiser]

Spot on there friez! Funny thing is tho so many companies still employ these stupid questions, specially graduate schemes.

The amount of times they ask you them...I mean why, whats the point!! IMO in the future interviews should be informal and a judge of how well you will get on with the rest of the team and how well you can do the job. Instead of sitting in front of a panel, let them shadow or do the job for a day.

[Midget]

Jiser (that sounds FAR too dirty btw) - you changed your tune quickly

Chuckster> are you able to suggest a written/practical test?

ask some questions on how would you do this, giving them time to think and then write and answer.

show them a computer and ask them to remove the RAM/CPU/HDD and identify make/model