Good interview questions for a junior network admin

[ctyrrell (Colin7944)]

will this person be straight from college/school?.. or will they have real world experience?

[jburnison]

I feel this one really depends on what the Junior is going to be doing.

Assuming anything with AD: What can Group Policy be applied to?

Maybe ask for a couple basic networking questions, like how long a Cat 5 Cable can be, how to diagnose (And potentially fix) network bugs, things along those lines.

[ryanbrown (Ryan_B)]

What is the difference between a layer 2 and a layer 3 switch?

[ryanbrown (Ryan_B)]

Test them on port numbers. DNS, HTTPS, TCP, FTP, etc…

[alexfiala]

Describe the steps needed to automatically update java, without pop-ups, for users on your domain.

[ryanbrown (Ryan_B)]

In your own words, how would you describe the function of a router/switch/firewall etc…?

[davidcox (Austinmtlhd)]

You know this isn’t an 8 to 5 job. If systems crash it could mean working for days at a time to recover. Are you OK with staying till job is done.

[ryanbrown (Ryan_B)]

Please post the job description, otherwise we have no way of knowing what your new junior network admin will be doing.

Some network admin job postings are actually more geared towards systems administration, and often just a jack-of-all-trades, fix-everything IT guy.

Job description would help us help you.

[arichardson9066 (amrichardson)]

What will this person be doing? What systems will they be working with? What level of knowledge/experience should they already have? Is it more important that the person you’re interviewing be able to tell you what the letters DHCP stand for, or is it more important that they can understand how it works and how to troubleshoot network issues related to DHCP? Is what they know now more important that what they can learn, or vice versa?

[jimmygrollman7529 (Jimmy9008)]

@ryanbrown

Test them on port numbers. DNS, HTTPS, TCP, FTP, etc…

Bleugh, I hate that one.

I’m not a networking guy but have been asked this myself before… I still dont know them off by heart. I could guess, but I don’t have them to memory and would not be 100% sure ← but it doesn’t mean that I am not as good as people that have put them to memory or that I am not possibly even better.

Ask the person what the services are, how to troubleshoot, what the purpose of the service is (the useful stuff that shows they know what they are talking about)… don’t ask to recite numbers. All that shows is that they have committed it to memory. Not that they have a clue about the services…

Hell, why ask them for a list of numbers that, if it were so important, they would have printed and pinned to the wall?

#rantover ha

[arichardson9066 (amrichardson)]

@jimmygrollman7529

Bleugh, I hate that one.

I’m not a networking guy but have been asked this myself before… I still dont know them off by heart. I could guess, but I don’t have them to memory and would not be 100% sure ← but it doesn’t mean that I am not as good as people that have put them to memory or that I am not possibly even better.

Ask the person what the services are, how to troubleshoot, what the purpose of the service is (the useful stuff that shows they know what they are talking about)… don’t ask to recite numbers. All that shows is that they have committed it to memory. Not that they have a clue about the services…

Hell, why ask them for a list of numbers that, if it were so important, they would have printed and pinned to the wall?

#rantover ha

Amen. I have the Wikipedia page that lists common TCP/UDP ports saved in my favorites. I don’t need to know by heart what port NTP uses if it only takes me a few seconds to look it up, what’s more important is understanding what NTP is / what it does and WHY it’s important for Company A’s network, etc.

BTW here’s that link for anyone else who wants to keep it handy. It’s also very useful for tracing down weird protocols sometimes if you see any on your network and you don’t know what they are. List of TCP and UDP port numbers - Wikipedia

[jscharbrough]

Depending on the level of experience you’re looking for in a junior admin, I’d be asking them basic troubleshooting questions.

GPO application.

What are the steps you take if the internet suddenly stops working (either for one user, for a department, etc)?

If you can do this…bring a switch to the office and a bunch of different cables and tell them to plug the switch in and turn it on. Make sure to include at least one RJ-45 cable in there for fun. I’d be very curious to see if they could do it.

I’d also ask them a really tough question near the end, one they almost certainly wouldn’t know. Not because you’re trying to prove your intelligence, but to see how they can handle something they don’t know how to do. What sites would they go to to source the problem? What people would they ask? If you’ve told them there’s documentation available, would they ask for it?

[jimmygrollman7529 (Jimmy9008)]

@jscharbrough

Depending on the level of experience you’re looking for in a junior admin, I’d be asking them basic troubleshooting questions.

GPO application.

What are the steps you take if the internet suddenly stops working (either for one user, for a department, etc)?

If you can do this…bring a switch to the office and a bunch of different cables and tell them to plug the switch in and turn it on. Make sure to include at least one RJ-45 cable in there for fun. I’d be very curious to see if they could do it.

I’d also ask them a really tough question near the end, one they almost certainly wouldn’t know. Not because you’re trying to prove your intelligence, but to see how they can handle something they don’t know how to do. What sites would they go to to source the problem? What people would they ask? If you’ve told them there’s documentation available, would they ask for it?

^ this would be a great way to go…

[coreyfonseca (CFonseca)]

I agree. I once failed a phone interview for that very reason - because I couldn’t recite 10 random ports off the top of my head. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t capable of doing the job, and it’s something that anyone could find with a three second Google search, but because I couldn’t memorize something I barely use, I didn’t get the job. I find this to be a poor question and a poor way to judge someone’s abilities.

Questions obviously depend on the job role and responsibilities. Try giving the person a real-world scenario and ask them how they’d handle it. I understand that these aren’t specifically network-related, but here are a couple of examples that I’ve been asked in the past:

“The finance department has an application that they use to process checks. The server just went down, but the CEO just called and reported that his laptop is not working. Which situation do you handle first, and why?”

“We have 10 development servers and 10 productions servers. A number of updates are available for our servers. How would you install the updates and why?”

Questions like this may or may not have a correct answer, but it’s a great way to judge someone’s thought process and see how they’d react to various things. I tend to like these questions better.

[dalecrowder8377 (DaleCrowder)]

Please tell me what port number TCP is anyway lol, I got the other ones.

[ajustice (InevitableCheese)]

@coreyfonseca

I agree. I once failed a phone interview for that very reason - because I couldn’t recite 10 random ports off the top of my head. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t capable of doing the job, and it’s something that anyone could find with a three second Google search, but because I couldn’t memorize something I barely use, I didn’t get the job. I find this to be a poor question and a poor way to judge someone’s abilities.

Questions obviously depend on the job role and responsibilities. Try giving the person a real-world scenario and ask them how they’d handle it. I understand that these aren’t specifically network-related, but here are a couple of examples that I’ve been asked in the past:

“The finance department has an application that they use to process checks. The server just went down, but the CEO just called and reported that his laptop is not working. Which situation do you handle first, and why?”

“We have 10 development servers and 10 productions servers. A number of updates are available for our servers. How would you install the updates and why?”

Questions like this may or may not have a correct answer, but it’s a great way to judge someone’s thought process and see how they’d react to various things. I tend to like these questions better.

That’s exactly what I thought about all the above questions. Easy to figure out, but hardly a reason to be able to recite those kinds of factoids off the top of your head.

[68lrak (Karl86)]

@jscharbrough

Depending on the level of experience you’re looking for in a junior admin, I’d be asking them basic troubleshooting questions.

GPO application.

What are the steps you take if the internet suddenly stops working (either for one user, for a department, etc)?

If you can do this…bring a switch to the office and a bunch of different cables and tell them to plug the switch in and turn it on. Make sure to include at least one RJ-45 cable in there for fun. I’d be very curious to see if they could do it.

I’d also ask them a really tough question near the end, one they almost certainly wouldn’t know. Not because you’re trying to prove your intelligence, but to see how they can handle something they don’t know how to do. What sites would they go to to source the problem? What people would they ask? If you’ve told them there’s documentation available, would they ask for it?

This is how I’d like to be interviewed.

[dalecrowder8377 (DaleCrowder)]

I’ve hired and unfortunately let go many of “network” technicaions over the past 5 years. In every case it was because they just couldn’t handle the position. I really blamed myself for the same reasons the person asking this question is asking, because of not performing a good interview to get an idea of their skills. (and not knowing how to present the position I was hiring for)

Then I found http://ceb.shl.com/us , now when I’m hiring I ask every applicant to take the test of the position I think I’m hiring for and the results would speak for themselves. Interestingly I had every member of our technical staff take the same test and it told me exactly what I already knew about the knowledge of our existing staff.

I know this sounds like a commercial, and it kinda is, because the techs that I’ve hired using this test as a measurement have been golden.

Good luck!

[chaddhaselhorst5871 (TheMetalMan)]

@coreyfonseca

I agree. I once failed a phone interview for that very reason - because I couldn’t recite 10 random ports off the top of my head. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t capable of doing the job, and it’s something that anyone could find with a three second Google search, but because I couldn’t memorize something I barely use, I didn’t get the job. I find this to be a poor question and a poor way to judge someone’s abilities.

Questions obviously depend on the job role and responsibilities. Try giving the person a real-world scenario and ask them how they’d handle it. I understand that these aren’t specifically network-related, but here are a couple of examples that I’ve been asked in the past:

“The finance department has an application that they use to process checks. The server just went down, but the CEO just called and reported that his laptop is not working. Which situation do you handle first, and why?”

“We have 10 development servers and 10 productions servers. A number of updates are available for our servers. How would you install the updates and why?”

Questions like this may or may not have a correct answer, but it’s a great way to judge someone’s thought process and see how they’d react to various things. I tend to like these questions better.

If you have a phone interview why wouldnt you do while at a pc. As long as your good at bullshiting a little you can look up anything and seem like the it god we all fake to be.