Re: a question regarding resumes

[Mark Verber <verber@parc.xerox.com>]

> This is all well and good, but how would these questions change for an
> organization that is Computer Illiterate trying to hire a person that you're
> talking about.  What questions will they ask?  Are there outside hiring
> firms to aide you in this process? etc.

When I am interviewing someone for a sysadmin job, I evaluate the
person in three broad categories.

1. Personality and human skills.

Most sysadmins spend a lot of time interacting with other people.  If
the sysadm can't get along with the community then there will be
problems.  So I look to see how well the interviewer "clicks" with the
people they are talking with.  I also look for an understanding of
professionalism.  Do they understand the importance of keeping
commitments?  Do they understand the need for honesty?  Do they
understand basic principles of customer service?  Do they know what
they know, and not know?  I gather this data by talking with a
candidate about whatever experiences they have had working (be it as a
sysadm or something else).  I will steer the conversion into an area
that I know they are weak and see if they will concede
ignorance. [Sysadms who don't recognize the limits to their
understanding are very dangerous.]  I will explore some of there human
skills by stating "Everyone place seems to have few 'difficult
people'."  Then I will tell a short story about one of my 'difficult
people' to put the interviewee at ease and then ask the interviewee to
tell me a story about one of their difficult people and how they
resolved the situation.  I think anyone who has reasonable relational
skills is able to evaluate a candidate in this area.

2. Problem Solving

A lot of sysadm work involves figuring something out from a number of
clues.  I like to give the interviewee some basic facts, and then ask
what they think is an appropriate resolution is.  Ideally, the problem
is something that I can also use to evaluate the person's technical
expertise, but it could be anything.  Issues from daily life, of some
domain of knowledge you share with the interviewee: cars, photography,
woodworking, msuic, whatever.  As Elizabeth mentioned, the best sign
is when someone starts by asking questions.

3. Technical Knowledge.

It is impossible for someone who is computer illiterate to assess
whether someone has decent technical knowledge.  It is too easy for
someone to sound as if they know what they are talking about.  Since I
have some technical expertise, I do ask questions in their realm.  I
will mostly look to see if people understand basic concepts like
client/server.  I will ask a few detailed question to gauge how honest
the resume is (if they say significant experience, I expect they will
know some details), but I am doing this to gauge their honesty.  Quite
frankly, this is the least important area of interviewing for me.  If
a person has good problem solving skills and can learn quickly, they
can pick up wherever specific knowledge they need from books, man
pages, the web, classes, and conferences.  Beside, any "knowledge"
they have today will be obsolete in a few years anyway.  I am going
through my tenth platform transition.  [Note: I am counting all of
UNIX (V6-Solaris) as one platform.]  In my book, understanding the
system is more important than knowing some specific facts.

--Mark