Re: [SAGE] Tests for Systems Administrator interviews.

[Trey Harris <trey@eecs.harvard.edu>]

In a message dated Wed, 15 Sep 2004, Mark C. Langston writes:
> I've found interviewers absolutely abhor:
>
> a)  people who don't remember command names,
> b)  people who don't remember command switches,
> c)  people who don't remember file locations,
> d)  people who answer in general concepts and follow up with, "...and if
> I needed the specifics I'd check the manpages or other documentation,
> because it's been a while since I've done it".
>
> When you've got 10+ years' experience in a broad range of topics, and
> you're interviewing with someone who "drills down" on your resume, you
> tend to give d) a lot.  And they don't like it.
>
> They like even less the answer, "I just don't recall.  But I know where
> to look to find out."
>
> Honestly, I refer to the manpage for things like route(8), arp(8),
> tcpdump(1), snoop(1), and, hell, even ls(1) and other things.  Does that
> mean I don't have significant experience with them?  Or does it simply
> mean that I long since stopped trying to memorize things that were
> readily to hand or have all sorts of breadcrumbs and workarounds?
>
> I hate those kinds of interviews, particularly because I take such
> things to heart, and spend the next several days trying to cope with a
> sudden absence of self-worth.

I feel your pain, as I don't have much of an encyclopedic memory either.
But these aren't completely irrational questions for certain jobs.  If the
position involves front-line operations where seconds matter, you may
actually want someone who doesn't need to stop to consult a manpage.  But
these jobs are much fewer and farther between than the average tech screen
would suggest.

That said, I don't think it's ever really legitimate to ask such specifics
directly, unless it's a common need and there is really no workaround to
get the same job done.  (For instance, if asked how to install a new
kernel on Linux, I think it's completely reasonable to expect the name of
at least one bootloader to come up in the answer.)

When I interview someone for such front-line positions, I don't care if
the candidate knows the particular flags to a particular command.  But I
do want to know that given a certain trouble condition, they have a
workable response.

For the vast majority of positions, what's important is the result, not
the method.  (Best practices aside, of course--but I'm talking about
technical approach, not practices.)  For instance, as my toolsmithing
experience has grown, I've had less and less need for specialized tools to
do everything--it's often much quicker and more effective for me to write
a one-off for the occassion.

CPAN is my toolbox just as often as executables in .../bin are.  I'd like
to think that the average interviewer would accept my answer, "I'd write a
program that does X by means of Y and Z" as readily as "I'd use the
following five tools pipelined together with these twenty switches."  But
I'm uncomfortably aware that many interviewers would not.

I think far too many interviewers don't really consider what their purpose
is.  It isn't to determine whether you're smarter than the interviewee
(usually, notions of top-grading aside), it isn't to throw questions that
you've heard are good interview questions at the interviewee to see how
they do, and it isn't to pressure them with harder and harder questions
until they crack.

A good interviewer will start by interviewing themselves: "what is the
purpose of the position to be filled?  What skills does it need?  What are
important qualities for a candidate to have?"  The interviewer only needs
to do this once for each position.  Then the interviewer will look at the
resume with the answers to those questions in mind, and will highlight
areas of interest or concern.  Then (and only then) the interviewer will
talk to the candidate, keeping questions on-point given the prior to
phases.

But perhaps I'm dreaming--I think most interviewers are lucky to have
skimmed the resume before the interview, rarely tailor the questions to
the position, and almost never tailor the questions to the candidate.
(Except to seize on items the interviewer disagrees with in the resume and
challenge them, which I find a truly humiliating experience as an
interviewee and think is completely unprofessional.)

Trey