What do you ask in an interview?

Due to the overwhelming response to this discussion I have come up with a few questions of my own. I developed these in conjunction with some information I found on the net, and at Tech Republic. Any other ideas would be apreciated.

... and look at your rejected stack. I have 18+ years in the IT trade, and right now I'd take a lower paying job in my hometown, just so I wouldn't have to drive 50 miles round trip everyday.

The technique I use when inteviewing helpdesk technicians for my department is known as "competency based interviewing". The goal of this technique is to ask questions that encourage the interviewee to "tell stories" from their experience that demonstrate what they have done in their previous roles. Key phrase to look for is "I did xyz" rather than "We did xyz".

I have a team of 5 helpdesk consultants supporting 300 employees directly (30% remote workers) and a further 3000 within the EMEA region. During the 6 years I've been here, I've only had one person leave, and two transfer to back-office teams. In my opinion, the technique works!

I recommend staying away from leading questions or standard questions that have a "right" answer. These are really easy quesitons to prepare for and dont really tell you anything about the qualities and character of the candidate. One thing I have learned during my time managing teams is that it is a lot easier to teach someone about a technology than it is to train them for the right attitude or outlook.

Lots of good (and free) information on Competency Based interviewing can be found doing a quick search on Google for the term.

Wish you luck!

Hi jc2it

Besides general appearance, politeness and pesentation, the candidate must be able to prove his/her achievements. In other words, if he/she worked on a successful project, what were the factors that contributed to the project being a success? Budget, resource planning, customer satisfaction and how were these measured? Do not look for the technical stuff but methodology and approach.

One of my favorites is to ask where the candidate sees himself/herself in 2-3 years time. The answer may give you some indication of what type of person you are dealing with in relaton to the job.

Lastly, I feel it is vital that the candidate has a good understanding of the position he/she is applying for and the company/organisation they 'potenially' will be employed by.

Hope this helps
Rubens

Hire the first person you think might be smarter than you so you dont have to train them

Many people have years and years of real-life experience. For example, they may have begun taking computers apart before they graduated high school and then, through necessity, took jobs doing whatever they had to do to make a living. In the background, they could have went to night school to get their degree [sometimes just a piece of paper telling the world they went to school for something they already KNEW how to do through experience].

Though they might not have had an "IT" job title, it doesn't mean they don't know A LOT about how to troubleshoot, upgrade, or repair PCs.

Angell French

or last night, depending on how you look at it. :)The level of technical skill needed depends on the type of Service Desk, but generally it isn't very high. As a starting point, let's say you're looking for a Level 1 Service Desk person who pretty much just records the calls and follows the troubleshooting scripts.

Obviously, there is no need to ask a bunch of technical questions for those positions. These are your front line troops who will have first contact with your customers, so that is where you should focus. You need to ask questions that will generate discussion so that you can evaluate their people skills. Give them some difficult situations and see how they respond. If you're not good at reading body language and other non-verbal signals, make sure someone who is sits on the interview panel. Of course, if you have a specific tool that you use, then you may want to throw some questions in about it to get an idea of how much training they will need, but this should be secondary to their soft skills. There is no worse situation in a Service Desk than having an already upset customer run into a unhelpful and/or rude Service Desk person. Those encounters go nuclear very quickly and the fallout has about the same halflife. The more smooth talking folks you can get answering the phones the better.

Now if you're looking for Level 2 people, then plan on longer interviews because you're sill going to be asking the soft skills questiongs and you'll ratchet up the technical questions a notch or two.

Just as a point of reference, our pay scale for Service Desk runs from $30K to just over $40K. The folks at the top of the scale have 5-10 years of experience, at least.

Since you're interviewing for a help desk position (assuming level 1 support), the person you hire is going to need to be able to solve problems, not just run through decision trees. Take a common problem (like a user cannot access any network resources, e-mail, or the internet) and ask how the candidate would tackle it. Even if they don't have the best technical answers, if they have a problem solving method/process that is going to be a good indicator of how they'll handle the job. They can always learn the technical details later.

what they do with it. IMHO, if you want to keep up to date with technology, it can't just be done in a 8 to 5 job. I like to see that the person is genuinely interested in computers and learning and keeping up to date.

I have found that the interview portion (although it is not easy) is not the hardest part of the Interviewing process. In my opinion the hardest part is distinguishing the first from the last. Someone?s impression of themselves may sway your decision and you may let the best candidate out the door without even knowing it. Therefore I use an evaluation sheet with a weighted points system (More on that in a minute) that helps me decide who is the best candidate for the position. This gives me an objective look at how each candidate did in the interview. At the end of this sheet I put my comments, like he dressed appropriately for the interview, or he was very technical, or easy to speak with.
On the evaluation sheet, I decide what qualities I am looking for in a candidate. I am a very team oriented Manager and feel that the new employee needs to be able to fit in with the team. Therefore I rate things like attitude, communications, and personality before the technical (with the right person, you can teach the technical).
Here is a sample:
Description Weight Raw (1-100) Weighted
Attitude for customer service 10 X 90 = 900
Verbal Communications 9 X 75 = 675
Personality 8 X 90 = 720
Technical Expertise OS 8 X 70 = 560
Technical Expertise PC 7 X 80 = 560
Cope with conflict and stress 6 X 80 = 480
Team work 6 X 90 = 540
Technical Expertise Network 5 X 70 = 350
Appearance 4 X 80 = 320
Self Evaluation 3 X 90 = 270
Totals 815 5375
As you can see I rate the highest quality to lowest qualities. One candidate can have a higher Raw score but not be the best candidate for the job.
Also you should also check with your HR department. THERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS YOU CAN NOT ASK.
Best of luck!
Preston
One other thing, if the candidate is promising, make one other person interview the same person using the same grading scale and see how they fair with that person. If the numbers are within 100 points of each other then you both seen the same person.

We try to ascertain whether the person has a good work ethic, is a team player and is willing to learn. We try to gear our questions and our reference checks toward this. For entry level jobs, we sometimes hire interns from the local two year college. After observing them as interns, we determine who we want as permanent employees and encourage them to apply for our jobs.

There would be different questions for different positions, and I won't go there, but offer my two pennies worth on your current situation...
I would think that one of the skills would be the soft skills of communication, i.e. not just reading from the standard script, but listening to the reply. Therefore, I would engage the candidate in conversation - find out what they are passionate about and allow their 'real self' to come through and offer up some questions about that where you are confused/unknowledgeable. A) This will help you find out if they are natural listerners and helpers; b) This will help you find out how they deal with people who aren't as 'smart' as they are.

The second thing is the simple statement/question "I've interviewed tweanty good people for this position - why should I choose you?". Notice I didn't ask how they would help the orgization or whatever, just the Why You? This allows you to find out if they've listened to what you've described as YOUR needs for the position and not just some canned answer they have been practicing about how they can help the organization and the bottom line, etc. that they read in the interview books.

Good luck!

The first think I think of when hiring for a help desk is who is going to be turning to them for help. This includes a wide range of people, many if not most of whom have limited knowledge of computers. They are, probably, all under tight deadlines and a lot of pressure to get things fixed. Together this means their questions and their descriptions of the problem they are having are going to be less than precise, and occasionally off the mark completely. On top of that, they are going to be upset, frustrated, under stress because they have that big meeting coming up in 20 minutes they need to prepare for, etc.

Technical skills are important but people skills are vital and a willingness to patiently work with that client caller to find out what the real problem is, is the most important of all.

I look for people with good written and verbal communications skills who are likely to be patient and calm when dealing with people who are anything but. Beyond that, I appreciate looking for the simplest explanation/problem resolution and moving on from there.

An earlier comment mentioned loss of all network connectivity for a help desk caller. My experience is that most of the time this happens it is because someone accidentally tugged out a wire (think cleaning crew, etc.) and plugging it back in again fixes things. Look for someone who will identify the loose/unplugged wire, simple solution to test first, instead of starting out with a complex fix that can cause more damage than you want to think of. That can help you limit the need for (self inflicted) help desk escalation too. I admit this is a sensitive example for me, as it reminds me of a time someone fried the superblock of a UNIX computer in our system, with critically important data on it because they did not spot that loose wire before going for the most sophisticated, arcane approach they could think of to fix things.

jc2it,

When I hire for Help Desk or customer service positions, I don't
ask technical questions (I leave that to others). I do a little role
play. This sounds funky and it's not super comfortable but it is
really effective.

I'm not only looking for technique but I'm looking for talent.
How does one recognize talent in a customer service person?
Part of it is their ability to place themselves in a position where
they may not know the answer, will need to understand the
customer's motivation and circumstance and use creative and
innovative ways of helping the customer.

Role playing is difficult for many people. For candidates who are
exceedingly uncomfortable, I take that into consideration but it
is a measure of whether they're a good fit for the position.

I sit with my back to the candidate and encourage them to look
at a wall or something other than me (as though they were on
the phone and could not see the customer). I give them a brief
set up. And then we go.

I've used:

1) I'm a blind person in Manhattan. You're a traveler's aide
person. You're going to have to help me find my way to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.

2) I'm new to the area and I'm trying to find a good Chinese
restaurant.

Either of these, after the setup, starts out with variations on the
following:

Me: "Hi, my names is Susie and I need to . Can you
help"

Typically the candidate will start out by asking pretty expected
questions. Depending on my mood or my impressions of the
candidate I may throw them a life preserver or I may step up the
level of difficulty.

Certain benefits from this: If I'm doing a team interview, the
others around the table get a chance to sit back and "Not" think
about what the right answer is.

Also, the candidate has to know that they may not have the right
answer. I don't care as long as I, as a faux-customer, feels
they're being helpful.

It shows me how creative they can be when it comes to finding
or discussing resources for solving the problem.

Good luck. I hate interviewing.

Go to www.monster.com and login as if you were a candidate looking for a job. Then go to their career advice (I think) section and run an interview simulation for an entry level or technical role. It will give you a good idea of what to ask and what types of answers you are looking for as well. I would even make a grid and scoring mechanism so you can rank your candidates on a 1 to 5 scale (1 lowest 5 highest) the candidates you rank the highest overall scores are those you want back for second interviews and or make an offer too... this site can also help you define general roles and responsiblities

One question that I like to ask when hiring Help Desk techs is similar to the game many of us played with kids - 20 questions. There are several reasons for this, which I will explain after I briefly go over the game......

I set up the scenario that I am at a grocery store buying one item. Using 10 yes or no questions or less, find out the exact item I am buying.

I will usually write down something like batteries, light bulbs, or shampoo. Something that you can get at any grocery store, but not a food item that you normally associate with the grocery store.

The reasons - 1. It shows me how they react to somthing they weren't quite expecting (you know, the typical "describe a difficult situation you have dealt with and how you overcame it....blah, blah, blah) Having worked on the Help Desk to start my IT career, the unexpected pretty much describes every day. 2. It shows me their deduction skills by the type of questions they ask. Good deduction is crucial to good troubleshooting. I would probably not hire someone who started asking me specifics like is it eggs, or milk, etc. Rather I would hope they start off very broad and narrow down, like is it a food item, is it intended for human consumption, etc. Someone who asks too specifically to start will generally latch on to the first clue presented and run with it rather that trying to get a handle on the whole picture and then narrow down. 3. The game will usually lighten the atmosphere a bit. Most interviewees are pretty nervous, and I try to get them to loosen up so I can see their real personality. Most will have fun with the game and they loose some of the stress and tightness. 4. I want to see if they will ask me questions later on why I might have played the game. Someone who actively participates in the interview by both answering and asking questions, is someone who will probably best support my users effectively from a customer service and technical standpoint.

I know I rambled a bit, but hope that this helps. I know this does not replace the traditional technical or experience questions, but I think it is a simple way to give you a better picture of the qualifications of the candidate.

I'm increasingly frustrated by hiring managers who look at the
alphabet soup on a person's resume rather than their real-world
experience.

As a customer service professional in IT, the brunt of these
hiring decisions impacts my effectiveness. When I or my staff
have to argue daily with sys admins with runny noses that,
contrary to what Microsoft says, something bad wrong is INDEED
happening on client machines, then someone just made a really
bad business decision.

Give me a person in his or her 50s with some experience outside
of MCSE certification testing any day of the week.

I tell you now: corporate america is painting itself into a corner.

This may be controversial or unorthodox, but my experience says the content of the questions asked is irrelevant -- as long as the complexity of the questions require the interviewee to think. The interviewee's answers will reveal aptitude (high or low) for understanding and formulating complex concepts. That is the main quality you want to see. Secondly, you want some experience or education relevant to the job responsibilities, but this is only a secondary consideration. Don't hire anyone with tons of experience who can't formulate complex concepts! That will be disastrous for your company, and you will have to fire the person or live with the dead-weight of an unproductive, highly experienced, employee. In my 20 years of hiring and firing, I have found this principle to be true 100% of the time, even though the interviewer's judgment is partly subjective. That is, in all cases where *my impression* was that this interviewee is intelligent (regardless of experience), that person proved to be highly productive, low-error-rate, fast learner, and bright with suggestions to improve processes. Every time I went against my *impression* of the interviewee's intelligence, and hired based on the employee being highly experienced with a resume that was a "perfect fit" for the position, I got an unproductive employee who had ego issues (because of so many years' experience) and resentment when confronted with low productivity. I don't mind egos, unless they're mixed with low productivity. As an employer, when you have seen *no exceptions to the rule* that valuing an impression of intelligence (over experience) brings success, and valuing experience (over intelligence) brings failure, it is foolhardy to hire based on any other criterion. (of course using common sense to hire people more or less within the given field) Ironically, therefore, the most impractical thing you can do is hire solely on practical experience. This may upset some highly experienced people, but only those who are not intelligent enough to see the point. A small company's survival depends first upon the aptitude and abilities of its employees, while experience can be gained in the long-term. But hiring without scrutinizing aptitude, just blindly hiring people with good resumes, will *always* sabotage your company, and it will fail. Also, avoid bloated HR-speak -- an intelligent interviewee will immediately see you are incompetent. Do *not* define the role too precisely, except to tell the interviewee that they must be able to adjust and adapt to ever-changing expectations and situations. Generally speaking, ask the interviewee "scenario questions" that require perceptivity in grasping the subtleties of your question, as well as require on-the-fly formulation and articulation of a complex answer. I would adapt this same principle of interviewing and use it for any job, from entry-level sw-test asst. to lead developer to CIO. Good Luck!

I have interviewed and hired many people in the IT area. Many of the interviews I have been through are a lot of wasted talk and questions, which only tell if you are a salesman not a technical person. Select the 3 best candidates by looking for the basic skills in their resume. Judge if they are a personality match. Then, my personal technique for the meat of the interview is to explain the job in as much detail as possible; ask any questions which come up about their resume and then basically determine if they really want this job. Judge them by the basic conversation not a bunch of prewritten questions. I hope you are successful in your hiring effort.
Finally, answer EVERYONE who takes the time to submit a resume. Prewritten e-mail form letter is fine. TT

I interview alot. I have a diverse team and have interviewed for tech writers, programmers, tech gurus and help desk staff.

I would not reject those over experienced resumes. You may chose to do a telephone screening - call them - tell them about the rate of pay (a range) the type of work, the challenges (briefly) and ask them if they are still interested. If they are, interview them - make a point of asking why with all their experience they want this job. You might get some suprising and interesting answers.

Technical skills can be taught to people with a basic technical apptitude. What I want to know in an interview is do they have the other skills needed for the job.

One of my management mentors taught me long ago that there are three things you focus on for a new hire - Can they do it?, Will they do it? Will they fit in?

Hopefully the resume will let you know if they can do the job, and you wont interview someone who from the resume looks like they can't do it.

Will they do it speaks to motivation. The question would be - tell me about a time when you went beyond your job description - what was the circumstance, what did you do, what was the result.

Will they fit in speaks to whether they would fit into the team and the corporate environment. If you have personel clashs and conflicts, ask them about a time when they experienced something similar. Gauge them on their approach to conflicts. You can ask questions regarding adaptability.

Hope that helps.

James

A good Desktop Support person has the ability to multi-task and pick up right where they left off. I like to simulate this by asking a "scenario" question (maybe a simple troubleshooting task) and then interupt their thought process by taking them into another scenario. I will then wait to see if they pick where they left off on the first question. It really shows their thought process and troubleshooting skills. If they can't handle it, then desktop support is not for them.

Can you ask that? Also, can you ask how many work days did you miss in the last 12 months ?(for any reason except vacation). Just my 2 cents based on many years in the business hiring young guns.

10 extra questions to help you make the best help desk hire

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10878-6025840.html?tag=search

13 useless interview questions? and what you should ask instead
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10878-5941882.html?tag=search

And there are some good "what not to ask" items here
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10878-5700598.html?tag=search
and here

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5138-10878-729462.html?tag=search
Good luck!

I think you should ask the basic technical questions like what is DHCP,DNS,TCP/IT,Networking protocols,Active directory etc.Also most important for a IT Helpdesk person is to have good communication skills and be cool headed to handle irate or angry user's. You could give him a scenario and ask him how he would react to it.Also he should a very good team member, becoz Helpdesk requires high level co-ordination between the team to handle diff kinds of issues/escalations etc.
Hope my reply has helped a bit for your selection.
Regards,
Sujit

I think the best questions are those that strip the applicant to the bone ethically and professionally.

Thus, ask what they'd do to solve a specific, typical or potential problem, a real event your enterprise has experienced or expects.

Here is how you will find out not just what training and education he or she has, but *far* more importantly: how fast they think when on the sword tip, how they can implement their know-how.

Implementation is the key, not training or education. Without implementation intelligence, based on case studies or actual experience, the expertise means little.

Ask *many* of these tech situation questions, not just "what would you do if you saw another employee stealing or sexually harrassing someone?"

Throw away the template interviews and create your own customized, company-specific, focused questionnaire.

I never like any interview; the normal question and answers session fullstop
I used broad level presentation-style interviewing process such as assessment of competencies of their behaviours/values (30%), technical (50% for technical position) and business competencies/presentation (20%).
To do that, I need to design a casestudy for the interviewees to go to different rooms separately and lay down their proposal of case studies given earlier in 45 mins.
Benefit of presentation style interview that we not only assess their technical competencies (for technical position) but also observe their behaviour/values as well as their business mindset in their presentation with style. We can ask as many questions as you like about their business proposal out of the case studies so you dont have to scrath your head to look for technical questions. You can really see their potentials and who has got more competencies in what area. You don't want to employ criminals (behaviour/values) for the interview though the technical is 100% competent?
It works..
Happy interview...

Watch out for people who are fresh out of one of those certification courses and think they know everything. Also, watch out for people who have never taken a class, but still think they know everything.

Like any good Kung-Fu Master in a kung-fu movie said, "The first step to enlightenment is to admit that you know nothing".

To me (as has been echoed numerous times in this thread) the most dangerous person is the person who knows less than he thinks he does.

Because this is a pretty basic position, I would hire a person who knows less, but knows exactly where the limitations of their knowledge-are (and is honest about it). At least I can work with that person and increase their knowledge.

Pull some examples from your tech support database. The weirder the better. Give her/him exactly the same information that your existing technicians had access to. Purposely leave out some crucial information, maybe the way your network is configured (such as static IPs or DHCP)

Ask her/him what he would do: not necessarily providing exact solution, but more the mental problem-solving process. Remember, in a Help-Desk position, you're after problem-solving skills, and not just technical skills.

If they ask some intelligent questions, like "What kind of method is used for IP Address assignment?", then they've scored some crucial points.

When s/he's done, tell them how the problem was really resolved (if different), and ask them to describe which method was better.

The answers that you get will vary, and the "mine is better" or "yours is better" answer is not what you should pay-attention-to. This question will always fluster the interviewee, and that is the whole point: In their mind, they're worried about disappointing you, failing the interview, or seeming too cocky if they say "Mine is better than yours". The point is to evaluate how they can articulate themselves and think clearly under pressure and uncertainty, because these are the same kinds of pressures they will encounter if they cannot quickly resolve a situation in the field, or don't understand what's going on in a particular issue.

Being articulate is very important, and making sure that the technician can accurately describe things to you (since you're no-longer on the front-lines) becomes crucial.

You've had a lot of feedback about question types, etc, and it's all hugely useful. However, as a new interviewer, you need to be aware of something incredibly important: you'll have made a judgement on the interviewee within the first minute of meeting them; their clothes, handshake style, what they look like, their tone of voice, etc, will all have immediately influenced your opinion of them before the interview has even started. If you're aware of this, you can use it to your advantage. During the interview assess the candidate against your initial impression and see how it changes. Don't let it be your final arbiter though - people deserve to be judged on the whole interview, not the first 30seconds or so. I've had initially dreadful candidates turn in to stars as they settle in, calm nerves and realise that I'm not the ogre interviewer from hell.

We've recently recruited Helpdesk Specialists for my company and we concentrated on a) evidence of excellent customer care b) evidence of excellent communication skills and c) technical skills - that was our order of skills requirement. I also made it clear that we were looking for candidates who were prepared to stick around - my Helpdesk is not for new ITers, it's a highly experienced, technical, customer focussed helpdesk that's at the heart of my team so it's 110% important to get the right person. To help me achieve this I give everyone a written test that combines both technical skills and customer care skills (I can give examples of written test questions if requested). It enables me to easily benchmark against other candidates and gives me a very good understanding of how they might fit in to the team (weak/strong skill set). If you want you could also use psychometric tests, but that may be overkill for a Helpdesk position.

Remember as well, that an unsuccessful candidate may get in touch and request feedback and certainly in the UK are able to request all written notes from the meeting. So, make sure your decisions are based on sound evidence and ensure any written notes can back up that decision. If you're worried about what questions you're going to ask, write them down and ask the same questions to all candidates, that makes it a fair process. Make sure all your questions are open questions by starting them with: Who, What, Why, When, Where or How. Avoid questions that can be answered "Yes" or "No".

One final thing: I usually interview alongside HR which enables me to listen to questions rather than always be trying to think up the next question and it also enables us to make a decision immediately after the interview.

Good Luck!

I feel the same way...But honestly, I would probably do the same for a high 5 figure salary and relocation. They can keep the porsche. I have been unemployed for several years. I just wish a company would believe in what I can do instead of thinking I forgot everything since I havent worked in awhile.

What can you bring to our company that none of the other candidates can bring?

If you're on the "hiring" end, asking this one question will reveal so many things that it almost renders all the others moot.

If you're on the "being hired" end, answering this question, whether it's asked directly or not, will make you the benchmark to which others are compared.