| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 04:11 PM | | Ok i get the point of technical interview questions, but there are so many services, so many tools, so many commands
How can one memorize and remember all these things?
After all system engineers use documentation and can always check commands or for mostly used commands, will be able to remember. Documentation is always there. Also how many times system engineers configure things everyday or setup something from scratch?
Point is these technical interviews ask you questions on stuffs they believe you should know and rightly so, but for crying out loud, how is one going to memorize commands or even steps to doing everything?
Please add your take. For those very good with technical interviews, please add your advice here. How do you remember these commands or things to do well in these interviews? And also how do you remember things on something you setup like a year ago? Sometimes they ask you for files or commands you mostly never really use because haven't found a use for. Now if need be one can run the command, but its like you don't know the command means you are not good enough for the job which is not true.
I mean i just want to get how everyone else feels about this.
Last edited by nokia3310; 03-18-2015 at 04:16 PM.
|
| Posted by iseletsk, 03-18-2015, 04:27 PM | | If you use it -- you remember it. So, technical interview is a great way to know what people actually know/use, vs 'what they have read somewhere at some point of their life'.
|
| Posted by funkywizard, 03-18-2015, 04:31 PM | | There's so much base level knowledge required to get technical work done, it does no good to say "oh I can look that up". Sure, look up the exact commands, but you need to understand the concepts on an incredibly wide variety of technical topics to effectively troubleshoot something. It can be a difference of a factor of 10 amount of time spent to solve a problem if you understand the underlying technology or not. Technical questions are there to get an idea of the breadth of knowledge you've been exposed to.
If it was easy to remember everything, they wouldn't need to ask. They ask precisely because it's hard. In many IT fields it requires years of deep experience to be useful. By useful I mean, you've encountered a similar problem before and you understand the inner workings well enough to relate a subtle symptom to the correct diagnosis of the problem even when given vague or inaccurate data by the customer you're trying to troubleshoot. Someone who can do that is like superman compared to someone who can "just look stuff up". Yes, the first person needs to look up the exact commands just like the second person, difference being the first person created the command documentation in the first place 3 years back when he first solved a similar problem. The second person is groping in the dark.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 04:40 PM | | What about something you setup like 6 months ago or maybe even a year and never really went through the configuration process and the interview question is about a particular step in the configuration or some settings?
How do you remember things like that? Also if you work with several tools and have used or tested several things, that also makes it difficult to remember things.
Anyways also these questions come from areas one really have no need to even touch and doesnt mean one cant do it if required.
Last edited by nokia3310; 03-18-2015 at 04:44 PM.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 04:43 PM | | I get what you saying but with a solid overall background a system engineer will be able to used to things in a week. And most of the times the problems become constant that you become the pro you mentioned. But those interview questions dont even let you get there, because you cant remember how to do one or couple of things then you cant do the job. Not rue.
I mean have a current job as a system engineer so ofcourse i do stuff everyday. I mean the only thing you are probably telling me here is that you have great memory. Which is great.
Also will like to actually setup an interview with you guys and see how much you guys remember. Remember there are so many things one can ask. I mean so many.
|
| Posted by iseletsk, 03-18-2015, 04:45 PM | | If you did it once six month ago, and they ask for it -- maybe you are not the right candidate, and they need someone who does it every other day.
|
| Posted by funkywizard, 03-18-2015, 05:25 PM | | I suppose it depends how good the test is. Are these questions asked by a reasonable human being? Can you give a human answer describing the process you would use to solve the problem? Or is it very rigid and expects an exact set of commands? Obviously I could see frustration at a very rigid test with right and wrong answers. But if it's a conversational interview, you had better be able to describe the steps and process without looking anything up for a decent percentage of the questions I give you.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 05:59 PM | | Well wish its a conversational interview. They ask you something you cant answer it..they can ask you 2 questions they dont get what they want..they move on
When last did you guys have technical interviews for a job?
Yes the interviewers sometimes dont act human because they expect you to know something because they know since they the one asking. I wish there is a chance to ask them a technical questions back to see how it feels. Sometimes they act arrogant like they know everything since they the one asking the questions. But it is how it is..nothing one can do.
I will give you a taste of the type of questions. Have you reduced the size of a partition before? am sure yes. Ok they ask you how do you resize a partition that is mounted without a restart. Now maybe last time one resized a partition is 6 months ago, yes one can explain the steps but sometimes they want you to give pretty close commands. They don't want english answers, why it is technical interview.
Also another question can be what do you use nsswitch.conf file for?
I mean these questions come from anywhere and they expect you to remember like you brain is a computer and can just query and get answer anytime
Last edited by nokia3310; 03-18-2015 at 06:05 PM.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 06:02 PM | | If that is what you think then you are with me and have no idea how technical interviews go or perhaps you haven't had one in a long time.
First of all most things people do everyday is monitoring and make changes or edit few things apart from troubleshooting things that occasionally happen.
So if you think you do everything everyday or everything within 6 months then good luck
When was last time you edited the kernel parameters of a server without restarting the server?
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 07:26 PM | | sorry if i sound defensive or offensive
I really want to know how everyone else is feeling about this
I mean technical interviews are throwing out the exact candidates that will perform excellently at these positions. Something has to happen because it makes no sense at all.
So people please drop your comments, experience, recommendations.
The question is do i have to memorize commands and steps of everything i configure and setup and know the sequence of the steps? How do i increase my memory of these things? I mean with several tools coming out, capistrano, func, fabric, chef, ansible, puppet how in hell do i remember all these things?
Either am the only one that feels this way and the interviewers are doing exactly the right thing or vice versa
|
| Posted by funkywizard, 03-18-2015, 09:07 PM | | One thing I can guarantee is that the interviewer is not doing the best possible job, because so many hires end badly. But what are they supposed to do instead? That's the hard question. Because you're going to get a ton of people applying for positions who aren't qualified, and a decent number who appear qualified, and really the point is to narrow it down as quickly as possible. Oh and do so without breaking any laws, good luck there too. So the point of the entire hiring process is to take a huge list of potential job candidates and filter it down to the one person you're accepting for the position. You almost certainly won't pick the best person but you have to pick one person and only one person so that means you have to exclude everyone else somehow. Having a dictionary mind doesn't necessarily make you the best candidate but it does do one thing which is help the interviewer narrow down their options substantially. And at least it's relevant to the job. True, there might be great admins who can't pass that test, but I doubt that anyone with no technical experience is going to pass the test. So at least you weed out the people who pretend to be qualified, even if you also throw a out a bunch of people who are legitimately qualified.
|
| Posted by jclutter, 03-18-2015, 10:05 PM | | We do technical interviews but only for basic to low mid things that the tech should know without having to look it up.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 10:41 PM | | I get your point, but what about people that are currently employed and are current system engineers? They are system engineers for a reason at their current positions and they are doing system engineering stuffs there. So isn't it smart to ask questions along the line of what they possibly do everyday?
And did i mention these are phone interviews? I mean not even sure what will happen in the in-person if they really want to weed people out so bad.
And the funny thing is you get the job and they make you do some petty stuffs. This always happen. They make you go through all these as if you will be refactoring their codes or redeveloping their whole infrastructure as soon as you get the job only to find out you will be doing some very repetitive stuffs everyday and that they use enterprise paid services for all their stuffs.
I really dont know why tech has to be this way. Lots of things that make no sense
|
| Posted by YUPAPA, 03-18-2015, 11:22 PM | | Does the company you're applying for really use all of tools you have listed? Usually interviewers would challenge you on the items indicated in your resume. I would doubt not knowing all of the tools you have put could lower the chance of going to the next round of interview. You just need to know a few out of the list of automation tools, but not all.
|
| Posted by funkywizard, 03-18-2015, 11:30 PM | | That makes more sense if it's a phone interview that it's just "narrow it down" kind of situation. They need to make sure they only meet with a really small number of people because that's incredibly time intensive. So you didn't get a job you were qualified for because of arbitrary questions in the interview, ok, fair enough. But what about the other 100 people who applied, of which 50 were just as qualified as you? They had to be narrowed down somehow.
Lots of things make no sense until you're in someone else's shoes.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-18-2015, 11:44 PM | | I see your point but sometimes these companies actually have the opposite experience. They find it hard to fill these positions. They wish they have several hundreds applicants and they have to narrow down. Most times it is not the case at all.
I have seen it happen before a company will have jobs posted for months and they never get anyone because they have no idea their approach is wack. Sometimes they have people who have been working in the company for over 10 years to interview applicants and they have no idea what the current market is like or what is going on besides the mostly same stuff they do everyday for the past 10 years and just feel arrogant like they are the world renowned expert and you should know these things and have forgotten that they have to lookup stuffs when actually doing things on their desk especially things not frequently done.
The whole thing is just flawed badly. I definitely will not be like these guys down the road when i am interviewing people. There are so many ways to get who is best for a job without approaching it this way.
Ans yes not all interviews are like this, but they are happening more often and sometimes am like really? Of all questions you have to ask me that one?
|
| Posted by iseletsk, 03-18-2015, 11:55 PM | | I do technical interview about 3-4 times a month. System admin - 3-4 times a year. I wasn't interviewed for years, that is true.
Still, I would expect anyone applying to be sysadmin to be able to answer bunch of questions like:
1. what is inode
2. what is the difference between hardlink and softlink
3. location of apache config files on centos
4. How to add a service to startup
5. how to change extension from .htm to .html
6. What does dr-xrw---x stands for
Please, note -- I do 'superficial' technical interview to screen out people that don't fit the profile I am looking for. I go in more in depth in as interview goes. Much more in-depth technical interview is done by my team. This also reflects what I expect from sysadmin that I need. I understand quite a few sys admins know a lot of things in other areas, but might mess up on one of those trivial questions.
And sorry -- you really asked the wrong guy about kernel parameters. Last time I had to play with them was this week. I am pretty sure I would have to play with them again this week again. Yet, I am not a sys-admin.
|
| Posted by iseletsk, 03-18-2015, 11:57 PM | | We have jobs posted for years. We doubled for the last 3 years in size. Some jobs just always open -- for example we always need more kernel & python developers.
Some jobs -- we will keep them open until we find the right candidate. We might go through 500 resumes, and interview 30 people -- and yet be unwilling to hire anyone. It is better to have an open position, then to have a position filled by a person who is not a good match.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-19-2015, 12:09 AM | | The questions you have up there are easy compared to what i get. Not like easy but they are reasonable. I am thinking the questions you have above are for like entry level or more junior sys admin positions? I get questions like
How do you check what files are open on a server?
How do you edit the kernel parameters without a restart?
What is the difference between swap file and virtual memory?
Questions about nsswitch.conf file
Mind you i am RHCE certified so most of those are cheese cakes ofcourse when i expected them coming and actually prepared for those questions and performed the tasks live. They saw that on my resume but they will go ahead and ask those questions like those are the things i do everyday. Unfortunately i do real life stuffs everyday like performing app deployment and automating infrastructure and other things. Questions along those line i guess are not good enough for them. And like i said companies are different and obviously eventually will get one that isn't like the past few but just pissed as to why some people have to be that way.
I mean majority of those things an average sys admin barely use, and things one probably touched like several months ago. Also sometimes one doesnt have to know the details of everything to get things to work. Also sometimes these questions are the least likely one expect compared to what is listed in the job description.
I figured you will know looking at your signature..lol
But just imagine an average sys admin...that is my point..it is definitely something many people will NOT expect.
I mean i have been working at my current job for a while and never had to touch kernel parameters. So how does the interviewer think i feel?
Last edited by nokia3310; 03-19-2015 at 12:16 AM.
|
| Posted by R-n-R, 03-19-2015, 12:21 AM | | While have a good knowledge is important for the task you will be doing, and impressive if you can remember a ton of commands, but that isn't what is important to me. Everyone's memory falls a bit as we all get older.
Show me a guy/gal that knows where to go to find the answer, that is the person I want to hire, if all other things are equal.
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-19-2015, 12:46 AM | | fair enough..they happen to just be working on things related prior week and aced your interview then they got the job and actually lack general foundation and can't learn new tools on the fly or just some other things that can go wrong. Like not hardworking enough, not innovative, not willing to do more than normal.
|
| Posted by futurescapeadv, 03-19-2015, 01:11 AM | | Interviewrs will always ask tough techical questions, because it makes evaluation easy for them. They can select or reject the interviewee on the basis of that question. But what they don't want to admit is that it does not serve as a litmus test to hire the deserving candidate. That is why there are many instances where the employee becomes a liabilty instead of an asset.
It's as much obligation of an interviewer as much of the interviewee to understand the other person, that's how all can benefit from the exercise.
|
| Posted by R-n-R, 03-19-2015, 01:14 AM | | Now that is a subject for another thread, there are ways around that if someone gets past the interview process. Its called Probation for 90 days, if they don't like us, or we don't like them for any reason, either party can say good bye and no hard fillings. That is known from the beginning. But that seldom happens.
|
| Posted by iseletsk, 03-19-2015, 11:49 AM | | Those are about the same level questions.
1. How do you check what files are open on a server?
How is it OK for sysadmin not to know lsof? I would same renaming is more cumbersome question. First it checks if they know rename command -- that is rarely used, then you ask them to do it using loop & mv to see if they can script at all.
Once again -- this would be pretty standard for me to ask person's understanding of netstat & lsof.
2. How do you edit the kernel parameters without a restart?
I am sorry, but I think knowledge of sysctl command is basic knowledge. At least for the candidates I would look for.
3. What is the difference between swap file and virtual memory?
IMHO if it is phrased like that --> it is very easy question, much easier then difference between hard link/soft link (btw, majority of system administrators don't know enough about the differences and stop just at the point of ln / ln -s, or crossing partitions)
4. Questions about nsswitch.conf file
Imho same level question as apache config file question, just different knowledge set. You either have it, or you don't.
Sounds like completely reasonable questions. I would be able to answer first 3 without thinking twice. The first 3 are either very generic, or just a good match for my experience. I wouldn't be able to answer 4th --> because it is outside of my expertise, and I might not be good for that position (depending on value they place on this certain question).
|
| Posted by nokia3310, 03-20-2015, 11:43 AM | | lsof may sound like a command one should know just as syslog may to some and iostat to some others and pgrep to mention a few. There are so many commands, you can't expect one to know everyone of them. Also i can still be troubleshoot things pretty well and resolve them pretty well too without ever ever knowing lsof, so why ask that in an interview question?
I think technical interviews are necessary but with my experience, the types of questions and the way they ask the questions sometimes make no sense. Interview questions should focus on conversational explanation of concepts of how to solve a problem. And the questions should be relevant to what the person is currently doing and/or related to the job description. I mean that is why resumes are there. You cant ask someone about specific nginx configuration if they show they worked more on nginx in last 3 years in last job.
Also i think interview questions for software engineering are even different from system engineering. Software engineering focus on a few programming languages of which is already known even before the interview. And they usually ask about things concerning the programming language like writing a program to do something. System Engineering is different because question can be on configuration of a few tools of several tools, and of several commands. The variety of questions is more in my opinion. In most cases things you never expect or things you definitely have done before but just can't remember. We have linux manpages and dedicated documentation pages for a reason.
Anyways no amount of my ranting will do anything. So i guess everyone can use whatever method they so wish.
Last edited by nokia3310; 03-20-2015 at 11:49 AM.
|
| Posted by YUPAPA, 03-22-2015, 12:58 AM | | Here are some good ones I could think of
1.) What's the difference between ext3 vs ext2
2.) What does this do? ls 3>&2 2>&1 1>&3 3>&-
3.) Imagine you have a server with an applicaton running with 10 clients connected. For some reason, newer clients cannot connect and they're getting connection refused. The server does not have firewall / iptables configured. How would you start your trouble shooting and what do you think the issue is?
4.) What's in the /proc directory?
5.) Explain to me the boot process of a Linux system
|
| Posted by futurescapeadv, 03-26-2015, 12:47 AM | | What is the use of keeping a position open for finding the perfect candidate if the time required is so much that you are actually losing the work that was to be done by the candidate.
Time is also a major factor, you have to keep a balance between how soon you want to hire and how compatible he would be to the job.
|
| Posted by funkywizard, 03-26-2015, 01:47 AM | | It's massively expensive to hire the wrong person. What if they can't do the job? What if they cause problems for other staff? Better to have the position open than hire the wrong person. And why close the position? You still want to fill the position, you just haven't been able to yet.
|
|
 Add to Favourites
 Print this Article
|
