1

We are in the process of hiring a new helpdesk tech, and I have been put in charge of the process. I’m currently going through submitted resumes and getting ready to start setting up interviews. I’ve spent the entire morning going through Spiceworks threads on IT interview questions, and borrowed quite a few questions and ideas, but am looking for feedback on my overall list.

I’ve never been on the interviewer side of the table before, so any other feedback and advice is greatly appreciated.

I am also looking for feedback on whether the questions seem appropriate for an entry-level position, and also that the phrasing of them isn’t awkward or misleading. (All the “test” questions seem common-sense to me…but I’ve been working on/with computers since I was 5…)

A little more info on the posting - the listed requirements are: familiarity with basic Windows troubleshooting (7 required, XP a plus), familiarity with Office 2010, CS skills, good verbal/written communication skills, problem-solving skills, ability to prioritize tasks. We also listed a whole bunch of things that would be a bonus, but not required to apply, including knowledge of AD, VMware, Spiceworks, databases, etc.

After discussing the things on their resume with them, below are the questions I plan to ask:

  • What do you feel is the most important skill you’ve learned or refined in the last year?
  • What has been the most difficult project you’ve worked on? Tell me a little about it.
  • What are some things you like/dislike about your current/former coworkers?
  • What is your favorite OS to work with and why?
  • What are your current/future education plans, if any?
  • In a task group, do you prefer to work as a team member or take the lead?
  • What made you decide to work in IT?
  • You have an hour of down time between projects and there are no open tickets. How do you keep yourself busy?
  • You have a user with consistent login issues in the mornings. Each time they call you remote into their PC to show them how to correctly log in. They call you today for the 5th morning in a row with the same issue. How do you handle the call? What might you do differently this time?
  • A user stops you as you walk past their desk and asks for help on a problem that has you stumped. How do you respond to them?
  • This position will be 25-30 hours per week, 4-5 days per week. Will travel to and from work be an issue? (I felt this was important as many applicants are 30-40 mins away, and I want to make sure they’re willing to make the drive before moving to a second interview.)
  • The CEO stops by your desk and leaves his phone, asking you to fix his corporate email; he hasn’t received an email since 6pm last night. As soon as he leaves, a customer service rep runs over and says all of the phones in the company just went down. A third user approaches you saying he can’t access one of the shared drives to retrieve a presentation he needs for tomorrow. What do you do and why?

In addition to these, I was planning to have a written quiz to give them that asks some super basic questions, and some that are a little more involved. I plan to let them know that they can use any resources available to them in the conference room. (This includes myself and my colleague who will be there, and the computer in the room if they choose to use these.)

  1. What do DNS and DHCP do?

  2. How do you change the speed and pointer settings for the mouse?

  3. A user calls saying “The internet is down on my computer.” What major troubleshooting steps would you try to narrow down the problem?

  4. What do the below keyboard shortcuts do?

Ctrl+V

Ctrl+A

Ctrl+P

F5

Alt+Tab

  1. How do you pin programs to the taskbar in Windows 7?

  2. A user’s HP computer crashes, and when they try to boot back up it will not start. You notice the LED on the front of the computer blinks red 4 times, pauses, then blinks 4 times again and continues this pattern. What is the problem?

  3. How do you map a network drive in Windows 7?

  4. How do you access the registry?

  5. Where is a user’s profile (Documents, Desktop, Favorites, etc.) stored in Windows 7? In XP?

  6. How do you release a computer’s IP and request a new one through DHCP?

  7. How do you rename a computer and change its workgroup or domain?

  8. A user calls you saying they accidentally clicked a link in a spam email that slipped through to their inbox, and now their computer is acting “weird.” What are your first troubleshooting and damage control steps?

  9. How do you set a static IP address on a Windows 7 PC?

The last thing I have is a box of parts from an old PC (mothorboard, RAM, HDD, video card, etc.), an Ethernet cord, VGA cord, and DVI cord. I plan to number them and ask them to label them, so that I can gauge what they’re familiar with.

Edit: Bolded a phrase above for clarification.

Also, for clarification, none of these questions are meant to be used as disqualifiers. I’m not necessarily interested in whether they know all or none of these things; moreso in how they approach the questions.

Edit 2: clarified travel question, and added the last bullet point question.

15 Spice ups
2

Here are two good ones:

Have you ever been terminated from a position and why?

How you keep up to date with new technology and tell me about a recent technology that has caught your interest?

3

I would replace “favorite” with “most proficient”. Applicant could be highly skilled in Windows (relevant to your interests), but favorite is Debian. Personal preferences are less valuable in what skills they actually have.

1 Spice up
4

Heck, I’ve been in IT for 20 years and I cant name some of the short cut questions. Hope you wouldn’t turn me down for building a 2nd DR with site for the complete replication of the datacenter using VMware SRM. =)

5

Those look pretty solid, I’ve found greater success in weaving all of it into a conversation. People relax and the truth and their personality comes out. I’d drop the quiz questions, stump the chump rarely yields positive results. One question I’d add would be to ask them their greatest IT screw up and before they answer give yours. It lightens the mood.

7 Spice ups
6

I think those are all good questions. Here are a few that you might consider as well.

  1. How do you install a network printer?

  2. User reports that his printer isn’t printing, or it’s printing only strange letters and numbers, what is the most likely problem?

  3. User reports they can’t get online, after verifying the network cable is plugged in and they still are not getting a connection, what would you do next?

  4. What network troubleshooting skills do you have? (kind of goes with #3.)

  5. (this would depend on what e-mail server you use and if it’s in house or outsourced) What e-mail servers have you worked with? Do you know how to troubleshoot issues with Exchange.

  6. Do you have any experience with virtualization? What products did you use?

  7. How do you remove unnecessary programs from running at startup?

Good luck!

1 Spice up
7

Question #5 is completely irrelevant to any helpdesk whatsoever, this isn’t a technical question but rather silly question. Along the lines of how to change wallpaper.

Question #6 is again irrelevant…because I’m personally familiar with dell computers, so an HP computer’s led indicators and patterns are not something I commit to memory. Come to think of it, Idk what they mean on a Dell either…unless I need to research it.

Ask open ended questions: User calls you, the PC won’t boot, what is the first thing to do, tell me how you would tackle this situation. Based on their answers proceed to ask then what?

8

I would be careful with the “like/dislike about former coworkers” question. But if they just talk smack on their former coworkers then you know you probably don’t want them working for you. You could rephrase it to something like, “If there was one thing you could change about your previous job, what would it be and why?”

I usually ask why they want to work for my company. Usually along the lines of, “Of course, everybody needs a job for income. Beside that, what is it about XYZ Corp that makes you want to work here?” If all you get are platitudes, then you know they don’t know much about the company. But if they talk about how they’ve heard about/read about the management, culture, etc. and think they would be a good fit “because…”, then you know you have someone genuinely interested.

I also like to ask them what they like to do when they are not at work. Be careful how you phrase the question so you don’t step into any of the illegal things to ask about (marital status, sexual preference, religion, etc.). However, the applicant may mention something that reveals some information (“My wife and I like to go antiquing…”), but you can’t use that in your hiring decision. The real purpose of this question is to determine how well this person will fit in with the rest of the team. For example, your team might play video games with each other online at night. If the applicant also likes online video gaming, then there’s a likelihood that he will fit in. But if the applicant likes to sit at home with his cat and watch movies, then he might not be a good fit.

I set up a scenario where a ticket is assigned to them: “It doesn’t matter the system, how you got the ticket, or any of the mechanics of the ticketing system. Just assume that you now have a ticket. What do you do?” I am looking for clues about customer service in their answer. I follow up with, “How do you know when you can close a ticket?” If they say they did the work so they close it, that’s the wrong answer. Again, I am looking for a customer service answer like, “The user tells me that I have resolved their issue.”

A colleague of mine likes to ask, “What would you consider a good pay raise?” The answer he looks for is “Any raise.” He uses it to see how loyal the person is likely to be to the company.

3 Spice ups
9

I agree. But if the question is asked, the answer I would look for is, “I’m not sure. I would Google the error to learn more about it.”

10

*"*4. What do the below keyboard shortcuts do?"

I would reword this to “What do the below default keyboard shortcuts do in Windows 7 (or other OS)?” - While it should be implied, it’s sometimes better to clarify than to have to worry about questions later.

*"*6. A user’s HP computer crashes, and when they try to boot back up it will not start. You notice the LED on the front of the computer blinks red 4 times, pauses, then blinks 4 times again and continues this pattern. What is the problem?"

I’m not sure about this questions since your original asking didn’t ask for HP computer related experience. Maybe include something like “if you don’t know, what process would you take to find out.” or something like that?

1 Spice up
11

I very much agree with this. The bullet questions are good, some of the really specific ones seem kind of trivial. Why quiz someone on something that they can google in literally 2 seconds? Knowing what those 4 blinks mean on an HP computer won’t make them a better tech in my opinion.

The rest of it is pretty good though, and I think you did a good job with the first questions. More open ended questions, try to get them troubleshooting things in their head, see how they work through a problem. The ability to troubleshoot is so much more important than memorizing things.

12

I like to throw in a question that is much too hard for the position to see how they respond when they don’t know the answer. Wire order on a CAT6 patch cable, etc. Using Google-Fu to find out is the answer I’m looking for.

13

Some years ago I had applicants for a helpdesk position replace a computer’s CD drive. The computer in question was SCSI and the drive was IDE. My main concerns were to see the process they followed, see how far they got before noticing the compatibility issue, and especially to see their reaction to encountering something unexpected.

14

One thing I was asked in my interview for my current job is:

You have 3 people come up to you with all high priority problems… 1 user says they can’t get on the internet, the CEO of the company says he can’t get his email, the third user says they can’t access the shared drives. Who do you help first and why?

It will help test their problem solving and critical thinking skills… Doesn’t need to be completely inclusive… I think I asked if the CEO’s email had previously worked, trying to find out if the problem is new, or maybe he just got a new computer and is having issues with the transition :slight_smile:

Apparently they linked my answer! :slight_smile:

15

Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo?

Who was the best Dr Who?

Are you a Beatles man or an Elvis man.

Those questions tell me as much as having someone regurgitate the OSI model.

5 Spice ups
16

I like them. Here: let me try them out. It’ll give you some sample answers to see if the questions are getting at what you want them to and allow me to practice my answering skills at the same time. I’ll shoot you a private message with my answers.

1 Spice up
17

I was actually asked that by my current boss when I was interviewing.

His other question was “What’s a browncoat?”

18

My concern about some of the skills questions you’re asking is that many people, myself included, are visually oriented and may not be able to tell you how to do some of these things, but they could sit in front of a workstation and do them in a snap. Some of these things are almost like muscle memory.

I also think maybe you’re using these questions as disqualifiers. If someone doesn’t know how to pin a shortcut to the task bar or request a new DHCP address, is that going to mean they won’t be considered? I think you might eliminate some capable candidates who can easily learn those things. Maybe they’ve never been the one to deal with those issues in their previous environment.

19

If release/renew is beyond one’s technical scope, one should not masquerade as a technician.

I don’t care what role a person has had, if they are unfamiliar with that function, they have not had meaningful exposure to IT - much less have usable skills.

I would def use that as a disqualifier.

OTOH, I have Cisco questions and database questions that are pretty generic; but not knowing most of them would not disqualify someone.

I do advertise for generalists in networking and user support, so not knowing the answers to ANY of those?

I’d be really tempted to chide them for wasting everyone’s time.

20

Q: The OSI Model is often represented as 7 layers. There are actually 9 layers. Please tell me what layers 8 and 9 are.

A: The Religious and Political layers. They exist in every IT department in every company, without exception.

2 Spice ups