Interview questions...

[spoon_]

My company is getting an apprentice to work with us for 3 months and I gotta interview them...

They will be working within the IT department, doing what they can kinda thing...

Few candidates have been shortlisted [by me based on location/experience factors] for interviews early next week, now the question is - what should I put as interview questions?

I have few ideas but don't really want to come across as highly demanding or plain silly.

All candidates are CompTIA A+ and N+ certified so they "should" know the basics.


Any ideas?


Adrian

[TheAnimus]

Ask them something simple, but obscure, see if they say "err I'd just google it" (right answer)

This sort of thing only matters if they have to work under stress mind.

[kalniel]

There's no such thing as a silly question

Just match the questions to the attributes that would be most useful to the job - do they need to be able to solve problems creatively, or do they just need to demonstrate good knowledge of established procedure?

What kind of personalities would fit best in your team?

[TheAnimus]

I was actually asked at interview once:

Cheesecake or Donut?

My response:

Are they mutually exclusive?

I passed

(i should point out this was all a bit of a tongue in cheek HR formality)

[kalniel]

I was actually asked at interview once:

Cheesecake or Donut?

My response:

Are they mutually exclusive?

Well done. There are so many PC pitfalls with that question

"I prefer a bit of crumpet" not always being the right answer

[scaryjim]

What kind of "anything they can"? Support? Networking? Hardware? Programming? If they're on apprenticeships are there any specific requirements that your company need to provide them with? Does your company have any large projects in the offing that they'll be most useful on?

You really need to tailor the interview to the kind of job they're going to be doing. Get a few questions in there to try to find out about *how* they work, not just what they can do. And try to have something a bit abstract to see how they react - jobs always throw up something unexpected so see how they cope with something out of leftfield - panic, calm, frustration, humour - these will all tell you something...

I think if it's a general support job I'd be inclined to ask something along the lines of "It's a quiet afternoon and there are no support calls to be dealt with. How do you use your time?"

[spoon_]

There's no such thing as a silly question

Just match the questions to the attributes that would be most useful to the job - do they need to be able to solve problems creatively, or do they just need to demonstrate good knowledge of established procedure?

What kind of personalities would fit best in your team?

All of them chaps are straight after the school so might be a bit tough on them to demonstrate good knowledge of established procedure... That's just me thinking though..

Being able to solve problems creatively? Absolutely as there will be plenty of these.

What kind of "anything they can"? Support? Networking? Hardware? Programming?

Its gonna be mostly Support i.e. helpdesk 1st line.

There are few projects going on but whether they'll be considered or not it will depend on their knowledge. Not for me to decide though.

[G4Z]

I always like to ask which IT related websites they read. I think you can garner an idea of how much enthusiasm somebody really has by what they read on a daily basis.

[scaryjim]

Then ask a few specific technical questions to get them started. It's been a while since I went for a 1st line job so I can't remember many of the usual questions - the one that springs to mind immediately is what it means if a caller's computer has an IP address starting 169.254. Ask them what they'd do if someone called up and reported a problem as "my internet's broken". Ask them how they'd deal with a caller who was insisting on having their problem dealt with urgently, and keep pushing them every time they come up with an answer to see how they react (and how long it takes them to refer the call upwards to a supervisor). Ask them how they'd react if one of the other team members was always complaining about the job.

that should give them a few nightmares

EDIT: Oh yeah - and what Gaz said - very good question.

[zulander]

Ask them about motivation.
We have a kid here 21 never had a job before on the job for futures scheme and im on the verge of going balistic at him.
He seems to have good basic skills but he is bone idle unless u hover over him and ask him to do stuff constantly and even then he likes to back chat. All he does is sit and read the internet. So id try and find out how they keep going what they like learning about and do they like fixing issues for other people because this lad although he seems quite good skills wise in the office as soon as he goes to other places on site he gives out advise such as "your keyboards hot because the sun is out" or "your machine is old and rubbish thats why its slow" the last one on a 1 year old duel core Dell laptop.

[Barakka]

For a technical position I usually end the interview with a couple of scenario questions and tell them "This is to put you in a scenario to see how you react in a given situation, I am not assuming you know anything more about our systems than you do, there is no right answer it is simply to assess your thought process"

My favourite is "You answer the phone to a senior manager who tells you they can't get the the reports they need, what do you do or say"

This gets some interesting answers ranging from "well I don't know how to troubleshoot it as I don't know what you use" to "Press F5 and click the next button" (on what I have no idea !!)

The best answer i've had was "I would ask them for their name, details of the reports they are looking at or for, what they are expecting to see, and what they are seeing. Then I would tell them that I would look into it and get back to them" Perfect answer as far as i'm concerned, and he had no IT experience, was a qualified geologist - he got the job!

Just an idea for you.... you can either keep it vague like the question above, or be specific, like "Someone calls to say their pc can't log on" so you can see their troubleshooting process, but that could be tricky in your situation as troubleshooting processes are generally learnt from experience which yours won't have....

[g8ina]

I always loved to ask "what are your streangths and weaknesses" - I know its an old chestnut, but some answers can be quite revealing. eg : "My main weakness I suppose is I can be a bit overenthusiastic about what Im doing" - brilliant, turned a weakness into a positive strength.

[Mblaster]

I always loved to ask "what are your streangths and weaknesses" - I know its an old chestnut, but some answers can be quite revealing. eg : "My main weakness I suppose is I can be a bit overenthusiastic about what Im doing" - brilliant, turned a weakness into a positive strength.

The problem with that question, is pretty much everyone goes into an interview with an answer prepared that is rarely true and just some bull **** that sounds good like 'I work too hard' etc.

Ask them if they have any questions. One thing I'd look for is for them to be asking questions about the systems you use, and the work they'll be doing. Shows that they are interested and have some knowledge of the area if they can come up with the good relevant questions.

[mcmiller]

Surely you should be looking at attitude and how they will fit in more than their knowledge as they all have the same qualification, and even the cleverest person with a poor attitude isnt going to do anything.