I like Damion's approach of gauging the candidate's agility and outlook
rather than outright technical knowledge. Here is why:
Most of the technical filtering should have already happened by the
time you sit down with a candidate. Whether that is through a phone
interview or a short technical quiz that is presented to the candidate at
some point in the process, you should already know that they have some
basic knowledge (e.g. the TCP handshake question).
The interviewer should still follow that up with some "give me an example
of a time when..." or "How would you go about troubleshooting this
situation" questions to make sure the candidate did not blow too much
smoke, but I don't see that as the primary goal of the interview.
By the time you sit down with the final candidates, I think you want to
focus on how they will fit into your environment, from both a business and
personal perspective. Try to see how they think and adapt to situations
that they might run into in your environment. Try a random or
off-the-wall question like the appliance one.
I think it is also important that one or two existing employees that would
be working with the candidate are present in the interview so that they
can get a sense of the person they might be working with. Ask for their
opinion and take it into consideration before deciding.
This process worked well the last time we hired an admin at my current
employer. I am not a manager, but I was involved in the interview
process. When it boiled down to two technically qualified people, my and
another admin's opinion determined the choise based on how we thought we
would get along better with one over the other. That employee has been
with us for 2 years now and I think we chose well.
I won't ramble any further as I am by no means a professional interviewer,
nor do I have a better "perfect question" to offer. I just like the logic
behind Damion's approach and IMHO, it's an example of a good question to
ask.
-Nate
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010, lo...@damion-alexander.org wrote:
>> To keep it simple: If you could ask a candidate for a network admin
>> job one thing, just ONE THING, what would you ask? (And why would you
>> ask * that *?) Or to ask the same thing another way: Thinking over
>> your career, what do you WISH you'd asked?
>>
>
> Once they have passed the basic technical questions to make sure they
> didn't fudge their resume, I tend for more abstract questions. So for
> every interview I have done I ask the candidate "If you could be any
> kitchen appliance, which one would you be and why?".
>
> The question serves multiple purposes:
>
> - Can they think on their feet? Since this question is rarely heard of
> (so far), it catches people of guard (and many of the initial
> reactions have been priceless). This gives some measure of how they
> respond to a situation they've never seen or heard before. I rarely
> measure time, but if they give up easily that doesn't fare well. If
> they give the name of an appliance and can't come up with at least a
> basic reason why, then I would worry if they would just spew answers
> to customers/coworkers with no comprehension of why they were giving
> that answer.
>
> I've actually had a CIO candidate refuse to answer the question. Since
> he had pondered for a while before that, everyone came to the conclusion
> that he would not do well when things hit the fan.
>
> - How do they view themselves/How do they operate? For the more
> complete answers (i.e. more than 'cause it's cool'), you can get some
> sense of how they operate and/or how they view themselves. For
> example we had two candidates for the same position give an answer of
> Dish Washer. The first 'liked to throw everything in and make it
> clean'. The second 'liked to line everything up nice and neat, so
> that the water reaches every surface, etc'. The second response (and
> how he said it) caused some concern because it gave a sense that he
> preferred a degree of order that our environment just couldn't
> provide. Compared to the first who seemed to accept some level of
> chaos.
>
> - Do they have a sense of humor? Not saying you need to be relaxed and
> groovy all the time and recite Eddie Izzard lines. But if you can't at
> least smile at the little things from time to time, how are you going
> to fare when you deal with customers and/or co-workers?
>
> In the end with this question you really have to go with your gut. If
> their reaction or response raised a red flag, then chances are that they
> might not do well in your environment.
>
>>
>> Lisa will need to quote you in the article. Ideally that's name,
>> company, title. But if necessary we can be circumspect as long as it's
>> clear that the source is for-real
>
> Damion Alexander
> Systems Administrator
> Higher Ed.
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