Job interview question

[thelostboy]

Hello All

I have just currently applied for a role as a desktop support engineer and I am hoping that I will be asked for a interview.

So I decided to start a thread to ask people any of the interview questions whether they are technical and general, the one I have been asked are below.

I think if we get a bunch of all of them then people will go in alot more prepared and hopefully get that dream job and all get a start in IT.

If people want to provide sample answers that would be great.

Here are my questions

Technical

What is a VLAN?
What AD do you currently use?
What ports does POP3, SMTP, FTP ete use?
What are the network classes and can you give me an example?
What is the difference between a Switch and Hub?
What is the difference between SSH and Telnet?

General

Can you give my an example of a time you have delighted a customer?
Can you give my an example of a time you have disappointed a customer?

I think this will great a thread for everyone

[Moncky]

I had an interview with a well known navigation company. There was only one question in the technical interview.

"Here is root on a box which is on our dev environment. Tell me about it!"
Jesus. I started with uname -a and cat /proc/cpuinfo and then thought where the feck do I go from here.

As the interview progressed I was asked about various things I uncovered. probably the toughest tech interview I have had.

[jlego]

Do you currently work for a company? Are you starting in at entry level? If I was in entry level, and an employer asked me what AD i currently used, I would probably tell them I don't use an active directory server at home..

what default* ports do pop3, smtp, ftp use.

i think if you are going for support, they may ask you a question like this:
a customer calls, does not have internet access. what is the first thing you have them check?

answer: the most simple thing first, is it plugged in? (you would be surprised how often an ethernet cable is unplugged or a modem is unplugged.)

i dunno things like that

-shrug-

[Moncky]

That was not an entry level job. I work for an isp when I went for the tier 1 job I was asked fairly simple stuff that your average 12 year old could answer. I would expect a desktop support job to be the same. Stuff like what is the difference between IMAP and POP? Where do you alter the up settings. How do you recover a recently deleted file?

The questions will be tailored to the specific role. Don't be afraid to say you don't know. You'd be surprised how well saying you don't know the answer will go down. Especially if you demonstrate how to find out.

I feel you are trying to second guess your interviewer before your even in the door. The important thing to remember is that if you are at an interview they want to employ you. They will push you to see how knowledgeable you are, but in my experience this has been to gauge how much training you will need. In the case of my interview above I didn't get the job, not because I was technically inept but because I would have needed a little more time to get up to speed with some of the systems they used.

I hope the above helps, but you won't be offered pre packaged answers by me. Google will tell you all you need to know. Find out what systems Thu use and what for and do some reading.

Good luck