Re: [SAGE] Tests for Systems Administrator interviews.

["Strata R. Chalup" <strata@virtual.net>]

Gregg,

I think that a timed test might be useful as part of an initial 
screening, but as part of an in-person interview series it seems 
misplaced.  I'll admit to being strongly biased on this, given that my 
level of routine dyslexia has me using the man pages routinely even for 
things that I've known for years.

I tend to favor a process-oriented or problem-solving approach to an 
interview, rather than rote memorization.  I've run into too many admins 
who know the command line off the top of their heads, but run out of 
ideas almost immediately when their memorized solutions don't work.

A case in point, from yesterday at work-- a fellow admin who has several 
Sun certifications and seems pretty clued most of the time said he 
wasn't able to determine which patches were on a legacy system that we 
were trying to duplicate to run some legacy apps.  He said that the 
patchinfo command wasn't there.  I asked if he'd looked in the patch 
spool directory at all and he did a visible 'lightbulb doubletake'. 
"Oh, yeah...I guess we could do that!"  Whereas I myself need to do a 
man page run to remember which flags I want to use to get the patch 
listings.  Which of us would do better in your interview process?  If 
it's the guy who didn't remember that there's a patch directory, is that 
what you want?

You might find some useful stuff in my article on technical interviewing 
from a while ago, available at:
http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/2000-12/pdfs/chalup.pdf

cheers,
Strata

At 3:58 PM -0600 2004-08-23, Gregg Phillips wrote:
> 
>>  I am looking to augment this process by trying to learn the level of
>>  problem solving skills a potential candidate posses. I also believe
>>  this will show the depth of knowledge a candidate can show in specific
>>  areas such as DNS, networking, scripting. Finally, the ability to
>>  think on your feet will also show through in a timed test.


-- 
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Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ]                      strata "@" virtual.net
VirtualNet Consulting                            http://www.virtual.net/
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