Re: [SAGE] Tests for Systems Administrator interviews.

["Mark C. Langston" <mark@bitshift.org>]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:54:17AM -0700, Strata R. Chalup wrote:
> 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?


Even worse, I tend to have so much stuff crammed into my head, that my
answer to that sort of thing would be, "well, if the tools you're used
to aren't there, I know there's a patch directory around somewhere.  I
don't remember the exact location, but I'd probably either find the
exact name of a patch I know is installed and search likely locations on
the filesystems for it, or find a relevant manpage and do some detective
work."

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.


-- 
Mark C. Langston            GOSSiP Project          Sr. Unix SysAdmin
mark@bitshift.org   http://sufficiently-advanced.net    mark@seti.org
Systems & Network Admin      Distributed               SETI Institute
http://bitshift.org       E-mail Reputation       http://www.seti.org