Help writing questions for a job interview

zero-one

zero-one

zero-one

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2 Nov 2007
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231
Hi all

I've been asked by my supervisor at work to write some basic tech questions for an interview that is coming up. They just need to be basic hardware support questions to prove the person has worked in an IT support environment before. Just to sort the wheat from the chaff really. We get a lot of liars apply for our jobs! The job is tech support on an IT helpdesk.

I thought of a couple:

If someone calls saying that they are unable to print what questions would you ask them and what sort of information would you be looking for?

If someone calls saying that when trying to go on the internet they get "This page cannot be displayed?", what would you ask them and what sort of information would you be looking for?

Do you have any other ideas what i could ask them? I'm running low on ideas.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Thanks

George
 
to both of those questions, wouldn't a restart be the first suggestion?! why don't you just think about stuff that you get asked on a daily basis and ask that stuff to them?
 
I tend to ask them anything we are stuck on at the time, (extra points if you can ask them questions which you currently have a call in with the OS vendor and they are stumped on it) ...

.... I am accused of being a bit evil at times ....
 
Well you have asked them 2 software based questions remember to ask them a hardware based guess as well.

Something like
A user has called in saying there computer wont start but they hear a beeping noise that beeps about 5 times and then stops. What would you do to trouble shoot this issue and what could be the cause of the issue.
 
ask them about blue screen of deaths

a user has called saying his pc isnt booting up and is constantly restarting on the windows loading screen

followed by

Now that we are at the blue screen what information do you need and what do you do to resolve this problem

etc
 
How about asking them to outline a recent technical problem they encountered and how they went about solving it. They can then be asked to expand on a few aspects of the case to check they know what they are talking about.

Have you thought about asking your supervisor if you can be involved with the interview process? Maybe a short technical sanity check over the phone before the full interview stage.

Would be a nice bit of extra responsibility and good fun :)
 
As well as the suggestions already made (especially the post above about forums and sandwiches), how about assessing their powers of deducement with a more "off the wall" type of question....

"Imagine that when you get home tonight and switch the lights on, they don't work. What process would you follow to deduce what the problem is?"

See if they do the logical stuff of checking if other electrical appliances work, if other lights in other rooms work, if a fuse has blown, if the entire neighbourhood is in darkness, etc...
 
A question I got when at a job interview (admittadly not an IT job)
"If you could be any kind of animal, which one would it be and why"

The correct answer is something along the lines of a wolf as they are great in a pack, but can also hunt alone, and lots of other psycho analysis rubbish like that.

Better answer "I'd be a mouse as I like to hide away in holes if things get too stressful and I frighten easily"
 
forget that, be realyl evil.. get a desktop and monitor and keyboard not set up and ask them to set it up for you. Then make sure the HDD is a little loose inside and see if they can find the fault.

Then ask them to install the printer drivers for you.

Ask them if you need to log a PC onto the domain, what info do you need.

Ask them one of my fave questions to a 1st line support intervie.
If your CEO rings and says she cant print to her local printer, then you look at your job list and you see a otuside user can not send emails or log on, another user has spilt some coffee over his laptop and its not working any more, another user has rang in saying her 3G card wont let her send or recieve emails and then your boss rings you and says, what is your 1st job of the morning. then, no matter what they say, ask them to explain why they would do that job 1st in a voice that makes it seem they have made a mistake...

Lovely.

Other questions for basic stuff...

how do you find the ip# of a PC
how do you find who is logged into a pc
what does AVTK mean
what is a dot-doc file
what options will pressing CTRL_ALT_DEL bring up
how do you reset a users password
how many calls a day would you say a busy helpdesk has.

ColiN
 
How about some simple e-mail / Outlook related questions, e.g. to configure an e-mail account what bits of information would you need?

Answer:
Incoming mailserver type
Incoming mailserver name
Outgoing mailserver name
User account name
Password
 
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