Interview Hints

[NetworkGroover]

I think its not even worth asking people technical questions as they can be completely book smart and that is it.

Generally, I will do a phone interview with them and see where they are at.  Why they are leaving etc etc.

I will then do a in person interview and try to grasp what their environment is like then try to ask them what happens if you do this that or this and see how they think.  That is really the best way to find someone who can think and not just copy something into a router and call it a day.  So when it breaks they have to escalate to you because they cannot think on top of their head.

+1

Oh - hey man did you send me an email the other day?  I saw something in my junk folder from you that seemed weird, but way too close-to-home  to not be from you so figured I'd ask... sorry forgot about it in the crazy schedule I've had lately.

[wintermute000]

I think its not even worth asking people technical questions as they can be completely book smart and that is it.

Generally, I will do a phone interview with them and see where they are at.  Why they are leaving etc etc.

I will then do a in person interview and try to grasp what their environment is like then try to ask them what happens if you do this that or this and see how they think.  That is really the best way to find someone who can think and not just copy something into a router and call it a day.  So when it breaks they have to escalate to you because they cannot think on top of their head.

I agree with this.

I also like to do whiteboard sessions and ask how they would design/route/whatever in scenario XYZ with the view of there are no correct answers, but looking more for their justification. You would be amazed at the number of mid-high level candidates that look confused when you ask them for an alternative or ask them to change the design to eliminate X. The classic is asking a candidate to design a dual WAN site - half of candidates only seem to know a design where the HSRP default GW is on the WAN routers. When I ask for drawbacks to this design, what happens when I want to flick some traffic to a WAN link on router 2 whilst router 1's link is still up, etc. they look at me blankly. Some don't even know the existence of alternatives (VRRP, GLBP), or what happens if the core switches are a stack. Don't usually need to go into what happens if its VSS vs Nexuss 5/7k ROFL

In my last last position I remembered interviewing a senior ISP engineer, he could not answer the classic 'why do I need MPLS' scenario of two eBGP routes with a non BGP router in between (I would have accepted a GRE tunnel or pseudowire or even a new BGP enabled VRF as an answer but senior SP engineer I was expecting MPLS chops.... in any event he couldn't even identify the problem of the non BGP router not having any BGP routes, yes I explicitly even signposted it saying 'no redistribution from BGP to OSPF' and drawing it on the whiteboard and circling it LOL). 

[deanwebb]

I can barely spell BGP, let alone MPLS, so I apply for security jobs.

But I'm now on the asking side of the table, and I get to talk with lots of guys from India for positions that we have there. Most of them are very good at following a script for level 1 support, but it's a rare applicant that shows an ability to vary from the script.

BTW, working at a major global means that you MUST know how to speak English well enough to be understood, which can be a hurdle for native speakers that forget how not everyone else in the room is a native speaker.

[Nerm]

I once set in on an interview for a candidate that was applying for a senior level sysadmin position. The guy had an impressive resume that included over 10 years of Windows server administration. Sadly he bombed the interview because when asked what a GC was he said he didn't know and then when asked a question about Exchange he said he didn't have much experience with networking. If he was applying for a jr level job right out of school with no experience I could understand but jeez. I mean really how can you have 10 years experience in the Windows server world and not know what those two things are.

As I mentioned before I love the idea of doing real world scenarios on a whiteboard in an interview or similar. If you do this then make sure the person doing the interview knows his stuff lol. I was in an interview for a job a little over a year ago that I really thought sounded interesting. The company was one I was really interested in working for too. Anyway during the interview they asked if it was ok to do a whiteboard session and I said sure. Now keep in mind this was an interview for a senior level position. We spent the next half hour with the interviewer drawing very basic stuff on the whiteboard that wouldn't stump a geeksquad tech. Literally one of the things on the board was he wrote 192.168.10.0/24 and 172.16.0.0/30. Then asked me to write the subnet masks for these networks and the usable IP range. They offered me the job and I turned it down even though the salary was out of this world good. I found out later (I knew the guy they ended up hiring) that their only senior engineer had quit suddenly and I was being interviewed as his replacement. The guy doing the interview was a junior engineer that had only a couple years experience, but he was the most seasoned junior they had to assist with the interview process.

[deanwebb]

I saw those ranges and instinctively thought, "RFC 1918!"

Made me feel good.

[that1guy15]

As I mentioned before I love the idea of doing real world scenarios on a whiteboard in an interview or similar. If you do this then make sure the person doing the interview knows his stuff lol. I was in an interview for a job a little over a year ago that I really thought sounded interesting. The company was one I was really interested in working for too. Anyway during the interview they asked if it was ok to do a whiteboard session and I said sure. Now keep in mind this was an interview for a senior level position. We spent the next half hour with the interviewer drawing very basic stuff on the whiteboard that wouldn't stump a geeksquad tech. Literally one of the things on the board was he wrote 192.168.10.0/24 and 172.16.0.0/30. Then asked me to write the subnet masks for these networks and the usable IP range. They offered me the job and I turned it down even though the salary was out of this world good. I found out later (I knew the guy they ended up hiring) that their only senior engineer had quit suddenly and I was being interviewed as his replacement. The guy doing the interview was a junior engineer that had only a couple years experience, but he was the most seasoned junior they had to assist with the interview process.

I have always been a fan of asking your VAR to assist with the interview in these types of situations. Assuming the VAR is solid.

[NetworkGroover]

I found out later (I knew the guy they ended up hiring) that their only senior engineer had quit suddenly and I was being interviewed as his replacement. The guy doing the interview was a junior engineer that had only a couple years experience, but he was the most seasoned junior they had to assist with the interview process.

That's real world #$@# right there unfortunately...  I remember back in the day when we were going to be interviewing a guy for a position and since I had the most "Cisco knowledge", they wanted me to sit in on the interview.  I looked at his resume and was like, "How the hell can I interview this guy?  He's been doing networking for 8+ years and I haven't worked in an actual networking job a single day of my life!"

Well.. turns out I didn't have much to worry about because it was like a, "What NOT to do during an interview."  He came in a Cisco-logo'd long-sleeve dress shirt.  Ten minutes into the interview, I got kinda fed up and asked, "Are your certifications current?" - to which the answer was no on almost all of them that he had listed (without marking them as expired, by the way).  From that point I stopped asking questions and let the rest of the guys ask their questions - definitely recommended a flat-out "No" on hiring that guy.  Not even so much for his lack of, or unsharpened, skill set as much as it was his modus operandi to put on a facade and not put in the work.  I mean the guy couldn't even explain why a certain ACL wouldn't work given a hypothetical scenario of using WCCP to redirect traffic to a proxy (order of operations, permit/deny, easy kind of stuff that we often ran into with customers in technical support).  A CCNA or hell, maybe even a Network+ could do that (Mine's expired - don't remember if they covered ACLs in that cert).

[LynK]

Oh I am in the middle of them...

If you walk in to Jr level or higher position please know these:

Difference between VLAN and subnet and VTP
Difference between a router and switch and when to use them
What is ARP and explain how traffic makes it from A to B ( so many "CCNPs" dont know this...)
How do you locate a device in your network if given an IP address
What is the difference between a trunk port and access port (cisco land) or non-tagged and multi tagged ports (Everyone else)
What is a LAG or Ether/Port-channel (cisco land). What protocol is used for this.
  Explain the untaged vlan in this.

You hiring for any remote engineering jobs? 

[wintermute000]

(Mine's expired - don't remember if they covered ACLs in that cert).

HAHAHAHAHA I see you even listed it as expired in your signature.

They seriously need to stop ripping people off with the CompTIA crap.

[SimonV]

(Mine's expired - don't remember if they covered ACLs in that cert).

HAHAHAHAHA I see you even listed it as expired in your signature.

They seriously need to stop ripping people off with the CompTIA crap.

That was my first "networking" cert and was a good segway into the content. Way too expensive though, and completely worthless in the market  

[Nerm]

I agree that the Comptia certs are lacking and overpriced but I disagree that they are completely worthless. They are actually good for getting your foot in the door for an interview at a smaller company like the one I work for. Now for larger companies like what you guys work at then yes they probably would be useless for getting in the door there but people just getting started in the industry have a lot more choices than just large companies. Here I would take someone with a Net+ and Server+ and no degree or a non-IT degree over a guy with an IT degree and no certs.

[SimonV]

Okay, it has its value as an entry-level cert, and it's a good introduction to some of the topics, but what I meant is that there's no demand on the job market.

I'm A+ and N+ for life btw

[routerdork]

My A+ was free as part of my curriculum in Navy IT A School so it wasn't a bad deal but I didn't have a choice about getting it either. It hasn't helped me much since I got into networking but back in the day when I was doing more desktop/server stuff it was listed on plenty of job reqs as nice to have, one place I worked at had it as a requirement. Nowadays the jobs I'm looking at want CCNA and/or CCNP.

[NetworkGroover]

(Mine's expired - don't remember if they covered ACLs in that cert).

HAHAHAHAHA I see you even listed it as expired in your signature.

They seriously need to stop ripping people off with the CompTIA crap.

Well it started off as a joke.  I have/had a lot of certs, though I'm honestly going to let a lot of them lapse because they do me ZERO good right now and it's not worth the time/money to re-cert them.

Anyway, now, I guess it's not a joke.

Oh, and yes, it is quite the ripoff.  When the Gov't jobs started requiring Sec+, they jacked up the prices like over 100 bucks.. I think its like 275 or 375 now... ridiculous.  The exam is a joke - as are most CompTIA exams... ok strong language but in comparison to other exames it's true.  It's multiple choice memorization, and you can mark questions for review and come back to them later.  It's a very simple strategy for any CompTIA exam:

1. Get ExamCram book
2. Memorize
3. Sit down for test
4. Mark any questions you don't immediately know the answer to for review
5. Do the questions you do know the answer to, then go back and hit the ones you marked for review
6. Profit (questionable)

I don't think I've ever, ever even come close to failing a CompTIA exam... no offense to others who may have...

[NetworkGroover]

Okay, it has its value as an entry-level cert, and it's a good introduction to some of the topics, but what I meant is that there's no demand on the job market.

I'm A+ and N+ for life btw

You sure about that?  I thought the same thing, then I got a notification that my A/N/Sec were being moved to the new program, and have recently expired.