Matt Simmons <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'd rather ask (and answer) open ended questions.A Everyone always
> asks "What is the TCP three way handshake", but my favorite question
> is, "Why is it important to understand the three way handshake?"
To followup more constructively...
Now that I am the Director, I rely on the rest of the staff to get a
handle on if the candidate has the more specific technical skills and
knowledge. They can usually smell BS pretty well.
We use open-ended questions.
For the more technical aspects:
* Dive into a project listed on the candidates resume or that comes up
in discussion. If the candidate gets stuck on "well, um, we deployed
$thing" and can't tell us more about it, then they don't know. If they
seem to know what the issues were, the tradeoffs, the surprises, the
challenges, and how they worked through those issues, then they know
what they are talking about.
* talk through a trouble-shooting session. Give them an initial
scenario, and see what questions they ask, what things they check, what
assumptions they make... customize it for the level of applicant, but
everyone has to trouble-shoot.
* give them a "from scratch" question -- for example, "you are hired to
put together the IT infrastructure and staff for a new academic
department [we are a University, you could use a company about your
size too] What are your considerations? What do you need? ..."
Again, see what questions they ask, what assumptions they make. It
will show alot about how much they have thought about the "big
picture"...
* ask similar questions about process
Hope this is helpful to someone,
--david
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