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Questions for Entry Level PC Techs?
Rick Zeman asks: "For the first time ever, I have to interview and hire (I'm not management, so an exception is being made) what we call a 'PC Technician', which is an entry-level IT person. While actual computer knowledge and how we do things can be taught, how to think, and the aptitude for troubleshooting can't be. In the readers' experiences, what are the best (legal in the US!) questions to ask an entry-level candidate to really evaluate them? They don't have the resumes, the skills, or the experience yet, so I think they have to be judged on other factors that are harder to qualify."
"Find the power button on this computer. "
I kid you not... this one should filter out 95% of the cruft.
Take a pc apart, put it in a box, see if the ycan get it together again. Put some spyware on the hard drive, and a couple of viruses. see if they can get it up and running.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
For helpdesk IT, play dumb, set up a system with windows broken, sit in front of it, don't let him see it, and have him walk you through getting it running.
For hands-on IT, same thing, but let him sit in front of it.
Video Production Support
Dont worry about the technical skills, you can teach them that. Responsibility, problem solving, and ability to learn along with social skills are more important and will lead you to a candidate that you can teach to do what you need.
I'm not sure what is entailed by 'technician', but I'm assuming that they will need *at least* some troubleshooting skills. Even non technical ones. I remember when I got a job doing tech support and the preliminary interviewer asked me a question: "I'm thinking of a product in a grocery store, find out what it is in less than 15 questions."
They didn't care that I had any IT background; they could provide me the training to fix issues, but I needed first to have the skills to find out what they were. I would suggest following a similar pattern. You've got people with little experience, skills, and knowledge concerning the subject matter, but the basics of logical deduction will get you the most value as an employer.
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
So many of them turn out to be duds, miscreants and/or thieves. You might want to give them a watered down programmers aptitude test to start. Whatever you do make sure you follow up on those references from former employers and teachers. It only takes one wise ass to give the entire IT dept a bad name.
Since most business still run Windows, you need to find people with enough skills to fix the same problems over and over. Printing, Outlook, and antivirus/antispyware are the base standards. Ask if they know what Active Directory is, and what its used for. The best question, imho, is still to ask what is the quickest way to find out which version of Windows a user is running. (winver.exe ...btw). If they can answer any questions about those, that will filter out most of the riff-raff.
Give them a rather nasty technical question, even something that is beyond your experience or is totally made up (SQL Server on Slackware 4). Instead of asking them for an answer ask what steps they would take to find the answer. An entry level anything is going to have to learn a lot on the job.
Entry level implies that you want someone who can grow, so try and find out where they started and how they got there. Should show you a little about their learning style and curve.
The rookies will also run into situations that they haven't been trained for. You need to see if they can step through it and get a partial solution before going up a level and that in the interest of customer service they can recognize when they're getting in too deep and need some help.
Please explain to me your home network.
If they don't light up and say something that they consider cool, do not hire.
Worst Sig Ever
"What is your home computer setup like?"
give him a big box of junk parts, see how many working computers he can get in a couple hours. At least two you would think. Award bonus points for testing the power supplies before attaching them to the mobo and devices, just leave a meter laying around see if he grabs it. Watch for stuff like putting on the grounding strap first, etc.. Throw in some ringers in the box of course, and a mobo with bad (bulging or burst) caps, see if he spots it. Stuff like that there. That and just talking to him about computers should weed out the posers. Ask him to brag on the machines he's built, see if he knows off the top of his head all the parts, etc, then do the hands on test after you get your field narrowed down a little. You didn't mention what environment he might be working in, but if windows, then see if he can troubleshoot normal consumer click on anything FUBARS. In fact, you can have fun with that, just stick a working non firewalled vanilla install of ths or that windows installation on the net for an hour and go find the dodgiest links you can find and click on everything. Install a ton of screensavers and whatnot. Give the final test on that machine, see how clean he can get it, and what tools he asks for for troubleshooting. That should be enough to go through the selectees. Even if they can't get everything, you'll see if they can proceed in a logical manner.
In addition to good trouble shooting skills. I think every technician especially those in telephone tech support should be able to be able to describe some in the simplest of terms and be able to be polite and non-condescending while they do it.
So I think a good suggestion would be to have the potential employee walk you through fixing something on the phone. A dial-up connection or Network TCP-IP setup (non-DHCP) would do. and don't let them off the hook make them describe EVERY Step. and act as computer illiterate as possible.
"I don't code the things you use, I make the code your things use better."®
Be an asshole to them. If they can't deal with it then there's no way they can deal with an idiot who just lost half a days work because there was a problem before they saved. Other then that, test how well they can read/search for directions. If they can do all that, they should be fine.
I'd set him up with a scenario such as a user calls with something generic like "I can't get to yahoo". Pretend you are the user and he'll need to ask you questions to try and narrow it down. Simple things like "can you go to any other websites?", "is your email working?", etc, etc. Nothing specific to your network, but generic.
You might want to throw in some trick questions as well. Things that come up in the real world like users lying. My favorite case of a user telling a flat out lie was "I can't print". I respond with "can you print anything at all? Is the printing moving or making noise when you hit the print button?". She responds with "No, nothing happens. Can't print at all". I get there and of course she lied and can print just fine. It was a dot matrix printer with pre-printed fields and they were using the wrong form so the fields wouldn't line up.
I'd throw out there stuff like that, but don't hold them too strongly to it because it's an interview and they probably would be too scared to call you out as a liar.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Seriously, I have found on many occasions that entry level PC Techs stink from lack of bathing.
They don't have the resumes, the skills, or the experience yet, so I think they have to be judged on other factors that are harder to qualify.
I tried to think of a good answer, and had decided on "fix this PC" (where it has some glaringly obvious problem that should take any decent tech under five minutes to find and fix, such as a dead HDD), but then re-read the part I quote above...
What requirements does this job have, that you expect applicants lacking the skills and experience to do the job?
I would agree completely that overall familiarity with PC architecture and problem solving skills in general matter far more than having the LED error codes for a Dell Dimension 4300s memorized - But it sounds like you expect to not only interview, but hire, completely clueless individuals.
At the very least, you should have no trouble finding people who can demonstrate simple tasks such as installing RAM or setting up a modem connection on XP. Don't settle for less in the hope that you can train someone up the level of basic competency the job demands.
Unless, of course, you plan to have these people do nothing but take calls and read scripts - In which case, for all our sakes, just make sure they can read and speak reasonably clear English. Although that particular "test" would probably break the law, you can easily give it in a roundabout way that answers the question without raising any eyebrows.
1. What is the Device Manager and how do you access it? 2. What are the differences between IDE and SATA? 3. What is the process of installing Windows XP on a blank hard drive? 4. What is Safe Mode? 5. What does RAID stand for? 6. Why should a PC tech wear an anti-static wristband? 7. How do you reinstall a printer driver? 8. What is POST? 9. How do you access "msconfig" and why would you use "msconfig"? 10. How do you change the screen resolution?
Anyone who wants to be a PC tech should be able to answer at least 8 of these questions. You can train them, but they must have some basic knowledge. For entry level tech guidelines, I would consult an A+ certification guide. In fact, you should buy (at company expense) an A+ certification guide and use questions from there. After you hire one of the applicants, give them the guide as a reference for their job. You did say they were entry level after all.
How, kemosabe. Boo boo boo boo boo boo!
How ya like dat?
Most people that interview with me hate me for it - but in return I've yet to hire someone who didn't do a good job...
You first ask a few simple questions so they relax a little - repeat that if they don't know its alright - just say how you would figure it out... Then you move on to questions you're certain they don't know... and ask how they would troubleshoot it. There are always the basics - like ask the user when this first happens, ask exactly what is slow and so on - that shows how they go about a new problem - and in the end, that's what matters. Don't go by how correct their answers are - but how they answer it. If they try to BS their way around it. If they admit they don't know or if they come up with a million different answers. You want the ones that come up with many different things - even if many of them are wrong - it proves that they have the right attitude.
Peter.
I spent the last year in Paris working at a school as an entry level technician and often had to solve problems that I didn't know anything about. The skill to doing this is being a fast learner and also to know how to go about solving a new problem.
I suggest you give them a problem which they probably don't know how to solve and ask them to talk through their process. This could involve some quick research on google or using common sense, etc etc. Its feasible that someone with very little tech experience could do this job as long as they have a quick brain and good common sense.
The next most important thing is social skills and the ability to get on with their users. I know how common it is to have to deal with people who know nothing about computers. You could play the role of a retarded user, or even better, get someone else involved who really is a novice and get your interviewee to train them to do something. You observe their social skills and how they interact with the novice.
1) Ask them hard question, get them to talk through their process of trying to solve it
2) Give them a task of training a novice to do something, or act as a novice yourself. Ask very novicey questions to see if you can frustrate them. Patience is a virtue needed for IT tech jobs.
3) Get them to talk through a spyware infestation, a virus infestation. Make up some hypotheticals to ask them. Example: Someone calls you up and say's their internet is broken, what do you ask them first? Go through the scenario step by step and see what they do.
It's fairly easy to see quite quickly who are the people who are sharp thinkers with good inter-personal skills. It's also fairly easy to pick those people up who know what they're talking about. Ask them to recommend a virus scanner, if they say Norton, kick them out of our office immediately! They should know about programs like AVG, Avast, Stinger.
Ask them some open-ended questions that make them talk about themselves and their strengths. Based on their responses are they intelligent and articulate? Do they bounce all over with no direction, or are they able to apply logic to progress to a conclusion, even if it's just to build a strong case for why they're good for the job? Ask them some tough questions that they won't know the answer to. Not to make the interview miserable, but to see if they're capable of coming up with creative ideas, and more importantly -- are they capable of saying "I don't know, I need help here." Ask them how they would handle a situation where they seemed to be spending a lot of time fixing very similar problems. When you ask questions do they always jump to technology, or are they capable of grasping that sometimes the best fix for a problem isn't a tool, but a process, or training, or involving the right people. There's nothing more counter-productive than the PC technician who fiddles with dials for hours and always fixes the problem eventually but has no idea how he did it and next time around the same problem still takes hours to fix. You want someone who is willing to document, and share knowledge, and constantly improve, and follow & improve processes.
Hey it worked for Haliburton.
You are correct, computer knowledge and how things are done in your organization can and should be taught. This means that the individual you are going to hire needs to have a good work ethic, troubleshooting skills, and have excellent customer service skills. This individual is going to be the physical representation of the IT department for the majority of the company. You want someone who is going to come off as courteous, intelligent, and hard-working.
What questions you ask are not as important as how the candidate answers the question. Are they confident of the answer they provide? Are they too serious, or are they friendly in their interview? Are they able to create a rapport with you during your conversation? Do they come across as someone who knows what they are talking about? Would you want this person to represent your department to all the other employees in the company?
I haven't lost my mind!
It is backed up on disk...somewhere...
An important skill is the ability to give instructions without actually physically SHOWING how to do something.
For instance, teach them how to do some simple Origami (better yet, use something they already know how to do). Then have them write out instructions on paper and have someone not experienced in the process use the instructions to complete the task.
The ability to communicate a step-by-step process is critical, in my opinion.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
you located? I'm always looking for another job. Shoot me an email.
"Why do you want to work in IT"?
If the answer starts with money, s/he will probably not work out. Everyone of course needs to earn a living, but if the only reason a candidate is seeking a position.
To be a good technician, you have to enjoy technology. You have to spend more than 8 hours a day thinking about it. A guy who was in my Windows Server class last semester was working on a BS in Business but thought that it would be a good idea to persue a degree in CIT as well. He bitched and moaned about the work. I told him that IT just might not be his field. Having the degree will increase his chances of being assigned the kind of work that he hates.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Ask them the same question six times during an interview, pretending each time to not understand the answer - that'll give them an idea of what support is like.
Of all qualifications, the one that a person must have to be successful in this business is a passion for technology. For entry-level people, this could well be the -only- real qualification you need; everything else is learned.
Ask them how they decided on computer technology as a job, or as a career path.
I've found people are surprisingly candid when you ask this - some will tell you straight up that it was a good-paying job they thought they could do.
Others will tell you that they've been tinkering with computers since they were 12, in the computer club at school, etc.
If this is a 9-5 job for the candidate - or they've heard it's an easy way to make good money - keep looking. You want the kids who live and breathe this stuff.
Good hygiene and communications skills count - but you can get a feel for those in the first 5 minutes of the interview
Another good question is asking how they learn new technologies. If they tell you they learn by going to 2-day seminars that their manager approved - keep looking. You want someone who's not afraid to use the O'Reilly or the Google, and keep wrestling with the tech until they get it.
I interview senior-level developers in my job; and I still ask both of these questions in every interview.
I've been in a similar situation, i've hired several apprentices for my company.
In case you're unfamiliar how an apprenticeship works:
It's part of one of the possible education roads in switzerland. At age 16, you start an apprenticeship in a company, which usually is 2-4 years (depending on the amount of skill of the job required). An apprenticeship requires attendance at a public school for one or two days a week. The pay is usually very weak, from 450 - 1000 CHF / Month. At the end of the apprenticeship, there's a standardized test.
Since people start at age 16, they have no qualification whatsoever (except that they finished public school), and as an additional drawback, you can't fire apprentices unless they SERIOUSLY fuck up (stealing from the company or something like that, or fucking up in school several times in a row).
The only thing i've paid much attention to is interest. Interest in IT can vary, e.G.:
An avid gamer, maxing out the performance of his video card, by working with lots of settings? Creating custom ini files for you game?
A young Linux zealot, telling my windows is a bad thing.
Writing programs?
Young, interested people are raw diamonds. They don't understand professional IT yet, and they have a lot to learn. While it is my job to help them to learn, the bunch of stuff is what they have to do alone. Just provide the infrastructure and support. It doesn't matter much what kind of skills they already have, since most of them don't help on their job - but most of my apprentices are more up to date on PC/Consumer hardware than iam.
Interest is all that matters. Someone who is willing to learn will be able to do everything you want him to, it just takes some time.
There's an important second skill, and that is social skills. You always have customers, be they internal (like in an enterprise) or external (in my case, SMB support).
An apprentice will have to learn how to deal with customers. In my case, i go to customers with them, let them stand aside (for about half a year). After that, they will have the skills to solve small problems on their own. The next step is to learn to deal with the customer. Delegate tasks, have them solve the problem on their own, report to the customer. And as a last step, send the on their own way.
This process takes about 3 years with an apprentice - you can shorten this ALOT if someone has at least a bit of previous experience.
And another tiny bit i've learned. Never solve a problem for your apprentice, if time is not critical. Give hints, push them in the right direction, let them figure out the solution on their own.
Never lie to them - while it is sometimes necessary to adjust the truth for a customer, never lie to your apprentices - there's nothing worse than learning the wrong things.
Can I speak to your supervisor?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Complex calculus. Programming language grammar (give example EBNF, and tell if it comforms). The market is horrible for anyone technical, and you'll have many very qualified technical people willing to work for near minimum wage. It beats flipping burgers for them. You can get the best for just a bit over minimum wage. It's really bad out there for technical people.
Entry level to my mind means a user facing role, desktop support or such. The single most important thing for them to have is social skills - i'd rather hire someone that the users get on with and has difficulty with the tech than someone who irritates the users enough to start complaining to managers. You can get a feel for social skills in a 10 min chat. If you have a friend in the marketing department or whatever ask them to help you out with a social appraisal. The tech side of it is easier.
What about locking all the 1st's in a single room with a pile of PC equipment, a webcam, and the diktat that the one to come out with the greatest number of working PC's wins. The result would be amusing to watch, I suspect, though cleaning the bloodstains off the floor later may be a bit messy.
-b.
Imagine you live in a shared house, with a shared computer. The computer using dial-up (POTS/PSTN) to connect to the internet. You come home and there is a Post-It note on the computer saying 'Internet Not working'. Talk me through the logical steps you would take to solve the problem.
The correct answer I use is 'Password has been corrupted'. But we are really interesting the steps. They can use any operating system they like. The important thing is they check simple things like - is the phone line connected to the computer, dial-tone, handshaking... etc. It is a good question to differentiate between candidates, the weak one jump to maybe phoning the helpdesk (The the candidate that is a premium rate number) or start re-installing drivers. The best people will tell you each simple step.
I usually pick some really specialized procedure from a non-technical venue, something that Google isn't going to come up with. (Like how to operate a 1921 Model-T)
I would ask them how to do the task, and invariably they would immediately come up with Google. And I would reply with "you can't find that", now what would you do?
I'm hoping they head in either or both of two directions:
1- Find web sites related to that specialty, and do some reading in there to try to understand more about the knowlege domain so you can better phrase your searches or reading.
2- Find an actual human who might know something about it, and talk to them. (mechanic friend, museum folk)
I've had to interview folks for this position several times. The most important thing to me is that they don't create more work for me than they'll unload off of me.
I like to (in sight of the candidate) create a new account and login under that account. Then I reach back and unplug the keyboard right in front of them. "Can you browse to www.cnn.com now?" is the question after that setup.
The correct answer is for the tech to reach to plug the keyboard back in or ask if they can. That's full credit there. Tell them that, and then ask them if they can think of any other ways. Since its a new account it won't be in the browser history -- but seeing them check is extra credit. Finding a textfile and copy/pasting the characters out of it or using charmap is also good for extra credit, along with a remote desktop connection, ... (as an interesting side-note I developed this test before being assigned a Pri1/Sev1/Blocking bug by an overzealous tester at Microsoft which I root-caused as her unplugging her keyboard cable).
For my second question I like to (again, in plain view of the technician) edit the boot.ini file on a system in such a way that it rendered unbootable. Then shutdown/restart, and ask them how they'd fix it. Yank the HD and put it in another machine, alternate boot media, ...
If there's any chance they'll ever work on hardware set them up in front of a junk PC (make sure it's an easy one to take apart/put together -- not some obscure system of latches to get the case off -- they can learn about those guys on the job and should not be graded on never having opened some vendor-specific box). Tell them to pretend that the simple NIC on the table is a prototype board the developers need installed, and as such is very expensive. Ask them to handle the physical install of the card, and talk you through what they're doing. The big thing is they should either ask for a static strap or mention that "it's just pretend so I'm going to just ground myself to the chassis before I pick up the card..."
If your entry level tech can get full credit on all of these they're probably safe to turn lose without supervision. Partial credit for good attempts and thinking aloud about the problem (ask them to when you give them these problems) should mean they need a minimum of supervision. If they bomb out on all three then they need a babysitter and you should probably move on to the next candidate since they're gonna break more than they fix.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
People often forget details in interviews.
When I interviewed for my current job as an ISP Technical Support Representative, I completely forgot what DHCP stood for. But I did remember what it did. "What does DHCP stand for and what does it do?" would be a good question, and give far more weight to the "what does it do" part. Only worry about the "what does DHCP stand for" part if you have to decide between two closely matched candidates - the one that remembers that may be a little better when under real world pressure.
I agree with the comments about being social. You could train a monkey to do most entry level tech jobs. The social part of interacting with the customers is a lot harder to train for.
- Do you have a PC at home? More than one PC? Did you assemble your PCs yourself?
- Do you have a laptop? Have you ever serviced its interior yourself?
BUT take care not to fall into the Expert Junior Trap: Companies look for talent, they find the talent and hire it to a junior position, but leave the talent in their junior position for months or even years. In the end the talent gets mad from boredom and does one of the following things:- Learn slacking skills to avoid the boring work and do something else with their 9-5 time instead, like e.g. contributing to open-source. This is common among underpaid or demotivated expert-junior staff (they would resign professionally if the company were paying them enough). Sometimes the expert-juniors may try to communicate their thoughts to the management in various ways, but they get either ridiculed or ignored.
- Resign or cause you to fire them and get a better position elsewhere or start their own company.
- Leave their brain at the gate at 9am and regain it at 5pm, usually for contributing to open-source.
Employers must understand this expert-junior complex and deal with it. Someone with no work experience, even without a degree, may be more skilled than their managers. Also note that the performance of an employee at work depends on pay, the other employees and managers, position, expectations, economic level, and the presence competitors in the job market. Even if they don't show their expert self at work, they may be experts in their own projects where they are intrisically motivated. The management must seek to create such an atmosphere where employees, even junior ones, can be intrinsically motivated to do their job. (BTW I study for an MSc in Management, including a good amount of HRM)In my case a quick "I would search in google the problem" is the answer I'm looking for.
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
It sounds like you were trying to be cute, but this points out the problem with the obvious solution: average computer users often won't know the answer, or might think they know but have the wrong answer, or even give you a nonsensical answer.
For example, what if the interviewer answered "guacamole", but was really thinking of wasabi? (I've seen people make this mistake in real life; it can be quite humorous.) In 4 seconds you got an answer, but it's the wrong one, so good luck doing anything useful with that information. OTOH, if you had asked "is it edible?", "is it plant-based?", "what color is it?", "is it spicy?", etc., you would have gotten to the correct answer, even if he didn't know the name of it.
This happens *all the time* at computer help desks. "What can I help you with?" "My firewall is blocking my virus checker from letting me install IE8..." If you take his word for it now, you're never going to solve the problem.
In fact, that suggests to me a better test: You have to troubleshoot a couple simple problems for different made-up people, and it's going to be randomly
- an expert who knows far more than you about computers
- a hobbyist who thinks he knows a lot, but is actually wrong
- a complete newbie who only knows computer buzzwords he saw on TV
If you can solve problems for people in all 3 classes (without knowing a priori who's in which class), and without pissing anybody off, you're hired.
Know what the hell PC Load Letter means.
I think that troubleshooting is often more of a talent than a learned skill.
You can teach it - but it takes strong deductive reasoning, curiosity, and imagination. They probably need to bring those things to the table, because training those skills takes longer than it's probably worth. If someone has those three things, and NO knowlege, but access to information, then that person will make a good PC tech. Training them in the knowledge and domain experience is more practical.
That's basic troubleshooting. At higher levels, of course, you want someone to be able to make decisions like "how to I fix this spyware problem; google to find out which regkey to delete? or reinstall the OS? - if someone always takes the harder approach, that can affect how fast they are at digging through a pile of trouble-tickets.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I get the first applicant in.
"Ok" I say "I'm just going to ask you some simple questions to guage your knowledge of Computing and Networking in relation to the Operations Field"
"Sure"
"Right. Question One. What's the best way to stop an individual posting nasty articles to news?"
"Close their account"
"Good - But can you elaborate?"
"Delete all their files, Change their password to `Knobhead' and Erase any backups of their account"
"Excellent. What is a killfile?"
"Uh. It's a list of usernames/topics/news items etc that you wish the news- reader to automatically skip so you don't have to wade through rubbish"
"Uh No. Remember I said pertaining to Operations. A killfile is in fact a file with a list of names of people you are going to kill."
"Oh. Of course."
"Never mind. What is DCE?"
"Delete, Close and Erase"
"Good. DTR?"
"DON'T TRY to RING. The Operator's watchword"
"Well done. DBMS?"
"Dont Bug My Supervisor. Probably the most important acronym around"
"You betcha. Ok. A user comes to you with a complaint about another user sending sexually explicit email messages to them. What do you do?"
"Take a copy of the messages, close the complainant's account (by accident) and extort money from the mailer by threatening to show their parents"
"Good. I think you'll do nicely. Hang onto this wire..."
"I don't think so."
"Excellent. You passed the final test. You start tommorrow. Please leave by that door so as not to disturb the other applicants."
BZZZZZEEEERETTT!
Electrified Door Handle. Gets them every time. I think it's the "Complaints Dept" sign that draws them to it like moths to a globe...
I push the body out onto the fire escape.
"NEXT!"
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
Not that anyone cares, but this book and site shows how to resolve problems. If your tech can follow that successfully, then they're ready for your companies particulars.
"You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise. It's crawling towards you. You reach down and flip the tortoise over on its back.
"The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
"Why is that?"
Thats really the only question you need to ask.
Old Godzilla or New Godzilla?
...to experience this.
Last time we hired someone, it was a higher level position than just simple "Tech Support", and the applicant was expected to know Active Directory. Though all of them supposedly worked or had worked in IT departments where Active Directory was deployed, none of them knew even the basics of how it worked. Some of them didn't even know what the hell it was.
Not sure if you are going to see this reply, but do you happen to live in a rural area? The talent pool in my area (which is rural) is extremely limited and it's *very* hard to find good people, despite the fact that the money we pay is very high when you compare it to the cost of living here.
I keep a box of odd hardware pieces and adapters, connectors and cables. I have them reach in and pull out something at random and describe what it is and what it does.
I explain that good guesses are as revealing to me as actual knowledge or experience.
This is the only way I have found to determin apptitude for troubleshooting. I have had several "A+ certified" graduates fail the box utterly. I have seen MCSE's who could not tell a modem from a network card. And I have trained those who showed good deductive reasoning who went on to own companies or work for big name network and content providers.
Some of the box goodies:
ungerman bass 10 base 2 card
scsi terminators (active and passive)
coax terminators
cisco 2501 cable
null modem cables, (commercial 9 and 25 and handmade with rj45(hp keyed) ends.
offset (sun) serial adapters
propriatary sony cd rom
2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter
floppy drive, hard drives (ide, mfm, rll, scsi, sata)
heat sinks, variety
mainboard standoffs and riser card
breakout box , serial
various processors and ram sticks (sipp, sims, dip, piggyback dip, dimms ect)
crimpers, punch tools, milspec power "y"
66 block, 110 block
all varieties of centronics connectors used on printers, scsi, thicknet, for pc's, macs, sun, NeXt, and SG's.
fiber couplings, rca jacks and cables, RF connectors, (and a handful of CB radio couplers also)
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
In my experience the ability of a tech to *find* an answer is much more important than *knowing* an answer. Try to come up with a question that measures their ability to to do a little research on a given problem.
Try to find out how patient the candidate is. The hardest thing about entry-level support is that most users are utterly clueless about systematic troubleshooting, and getting information to troubleshoot the problem will be like the blind men feeling the elephant. It's hard for some users to explain problems logically or coherently. A good support person (I'd never make it) will be able to patiently elicit enough symptoms from a user to make a problem diagnosis. Also, this good support person will be able to methodically troubleshoot a problem step by step using a system, despite user hysteria. I could list potential scenarios all day - the user who brought in a file on a bad diskette (aren't they all?), the user who couldn't type "ping" at a command prompt, etc - pick some and see what the candidate will do! Or just get the office's clueless computer user (you know who this is) and have the candidate troubleshoot a live problem... you probably won't have to wait long...
I knew someone who was an MIT PhD in computer engineering. He was working as an aide at a nursing home. The guy could design a CPU from scratch, but could only find work changing bed pans. Look, everyone, please stay away from the technology area. Become lawyers, or physicians. This will not change--ever.
get one of your senior techs (the ones that have BOFH status) and pair them up
send them out on a few problem calls
1 when you hit the first fatality terminate both techs
2 if the BOFH is hung over the next day givem a pass
3 if the newbie is hung over dump him
4 if a customer lands up dead oops (dump the newbie)
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For some time in my last job I was in the role of hiring technicians being the most experienced technician / Engineer in the company. I would normally start either with a dumby system or a general scenario relating to the network. I would have them explain the steps they would take to fix it. Normally I would at least expect to hear the words "ping" at some stage. I would like them to check the device manager and the tcp/ip settings. Next I would have them configure a basic router. I wouldn't give them the IP, since that was the default gateway and they should know how to do this. They might want to turn the wireless on, or check security settings. They wouldn't need to know how to set up a NAT necessarily, or create firewall rules, but the simple ability to log into the router and understand basic networking terminology. 70% of our jobs came down to a network thing I feel that ANY technician is going to come up against network problems and this is the minimal knowledge they need. As we charged about $120 per hour to visit sites, so I would normally ask a more personal question too, like "If you went to a customers home who had a significant spyware problem that they required updates to fix, yet the customer only had a dialup connection, what might you advise the customer". This checks their sale skills, and how much they are going to piss off customers as I do find a number of techies to be a bit arrogant, and the last thing you want them to be doing is talking down to your clients. A diplomatic techie can often make up for lousy tech skills. and trouble shooting - that IS something you can teach.
I've found Einstein's Puzzle to be solvable by everybody I've considered to have a top-rate analytical mind.
The page I linked to claims a 2% success rate among college students.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Think about what is important in your environment. Build your questions around that. Don't pick things that are too unique though.
Ask at least one question like "Tell me about a unique problem you encountered that you did not know too much about, what did you do to fix it and the process that you followed to accomplish this."
Don't depend too much on the litteral answers to the questions. Observe the applicant and see how they respond. Try to develop a good gut feeling about the person. What are your impressions about their intellegence? Their personality? What was your first impression when you initially met them? Believe it or not, "gut feelings" and "first impressions" are about 80% correct.
Remember, they are there to learn a bit about you too. Describe the work and the environment. After telling them a bit about the workplace, ask them if they think it is what they are looking for. Again, watch them as they formulate the answer. A little hesitation could be normal but do they wiggle or squirm? Do you feel like they really want the job?
Finally, there are not very many jobs out there that do not require good people skills and customer service skills. Spend some time on these aspects. They are every bit as important as the techie stuff.
One of the things that I also like to ask is about some of the jobs that they have held and liked, even the ones way back in high school. Sometimes, working at a McD or BK is valuable experience when you are dealing with difficult people or those who are in a rush.
i had every applicant fill out an employment form before i would see them, and most of my questions were based on the app, i.e. what did you do at this or that employer, why did you leave, etc. during the interviews i explained which equipment needed to be monitored, which equipment needed immediate attention, and what items required escalation to first or second shift. most of the time they would be watching blinking lights, and to fill their time they would need to do a few low level tasks, like turning screws to build new boxes, or disassembling old boxes down to the components. then i put a box with a disassembled computer in front of them and ask them to put it together for me. for extra credit they could load the os and get it on the network.
i had 7 people out of about 25 who could pice a box together, 2 out of the 7 were able to complete the extra credit and load the OS. i offered the job to one of the two who was a divorced out of work dad(the other guy lived at home with mom and dad). i've known that dude for a long time, he was my best hire at that company. we no longer work together, but we often email and aim, and the experience he gained working in my department has given him a huge leg up in the last few jobs he's had...
i wouldn't sugar coat the tasks or requirements or expectations to your applicants. it doesn't cost anything to have a hard/rigerous interview(except for your time) but it will cost your company a lot more if your pick is not good and doesn't work out: training time, paycheck, unemployment benefits, etc., so choose wisely grasshopper. your entry level tech is not your friend, so during training, give him/her shit work i.e. "see that cabinet full of tangled cables and jumbled parts? organize it by size, color, function. untangle all the cables. test all the hard drives and memory. i want it done by the end of the day/week/whatever." in fact many organizations(unofficially) give the FNG exceptionally hard tasks, even a kobayashi maru to see how they respond. it's cruel, but it's one way an shake out the chaff from the wheat, and it's a baptism by fire that can bond people together...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
...you fail it!
What so many people take for granted are great customer service skills. Look for someone that managed to last more than 2 months at a retail job. Other qualities to keep an eye out for, are people that have done volunteer work, and worked with a wide range of people (kids, adults, seniors, 'tards). We went through customer service training last year, and while I already knew everything being discussed from my personal experiences, it was really telling to see the technicians get instantly defensive when trying to deal with a tough *hypothetical* situation. Someone that would make a great technician should already be familiar with the following rules:
-Never take anything someone says about you a coworker or your department personal
-Keep your personal problems at home
-Ignore the customers attitude, and listen to what is being said between their rantings and ravings
-Your job is to solve computer related problems, not to teach a user manners
-Be first to apologize
Anytime I ever hear about one of my technicians, it's usually because they were terribly rude to the customer.
Give them a task. Give them a broken computer, and watch them try to fix it. Whether they fix it or not, *how* they go about the attempt will probably tell you more than any question you could ask them.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Whatever test you decide upon, make the test happen with JUST a keyboard. No Mouse. The sign of a well versed tech is that he rarely needs a mouse to do anything... That doesn't make him good, just well practiced. Your actual test should include settings to test his ability, but without a mouse you'll weed out the booksmart only types.
M
Always make this your first question.
"What is a one word definition of the phrase 'almost right'?"
If they give any answer but 'wrong', cut the interview short and see the next person in line.
It will save you lots of heartache later.
Have some assistant ask him for help for some really stupid problem (the classic broken cupholder broke off comes to mind), and see if he maintains his cool.
Have you completed Zork? If so hire them.
qz