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[๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜] Applicants can't answer these questions...

https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/vhoqfl/applicants_cant_answer_these_questions?sort=controversial

Most Based Comments

Basedness: ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

I know what your mean, and my question library is 99% scenarios - here's the problem, symptoms, how would you go about troubleshooting it? What tools would you use? What sources of information are you looking at? - but people can't answer those either.I think things like "What does DHCP do?" Or "What does DNS do?" are absolutely fair game for anyone above level 0 (to clarify, imo level 0 is phone jockey and info gathering, level 1 should have a mental library of basic tools like ping and nslookup at the barest of minimums). So maybe not specific definitions but FFS you should know DHCP is dynamic IP addresses and hopefully that it provides config like the DNS and gateway (57)

Honestly these boiled up to the top questions because if I can't get reasonable answers out of someone for them I probably wont get reasonable answers for the rest of my questions and I can save the hour interview. (-59)

Basedness: ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

I wouldn't say that these are "insanely hard" as much as they are just plain ...irrelevant.I've designed, deployed, and managed DNS and DHCP for 4,000+ endpoint environments and even I don't remember off the top of my head what DHCP stands for. Something something protocol (?) More importantly, why does it matter. There's no practical benefit to knowing what DHCP stands for, so why bother asking? Do you know what it does and how to configure it? That's the question. It's like asking what the word LASER stands for. It doesn't matter. Everyone calls it a laser.A better question would be to ask the candidate to give an example of when they would set DHCP Option 66, or something like that. Something concrete, where you could measure experience. Knowing the answer to most of these questions just doesn't correlate in the way you think it does with experience.Likewise, DNS = domain name services, good question. That's relatively common knowledge. What does DNS do? Also a good q... (349)

Just to be clear these aren't the only thing I ask, just the first things. I don't particularly care if they know the acronym perfectly but knowing its for configuration and not just IP is important to me. Number 6 is for troubleshooting. The basic steps a query makes are important to be able to check where something resolving fails.I do appreciate the feedback though and I will likely alter some of the questions due to it. (-40)

Basedness: ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

meanwhile Job Postings can't answer these questions....1) what is the pay range?2) why is this position open?3) tell me about the team, how many staff, how long have they been here?4) user/client submits a ticket afterhours, how is that handled?5) what is the SLA for responding to issues during business hours?6) tell me about the benefits you offer outside of pay? (61)

They do. During an interview. (-27)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: ๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก

1) wtf kind of company is this, asking L1 questions for a $100k job? Don't get me wrong, I'd take $100k to do L1 work all day long; where can I sign up? I don't even see "what does DHCP stand for" as an unreasonable question for an L1 position, but more of a "let me gauge your reaction to an IT 101 question". If you can't answer it, then maybe you need to ask ITT Tech or University of Phoenix for a refund. 2) SO many people claiming decades of alleged experience, but still can't answer some or all of these simple questions? You people are the bane of my existence. Pretenders, imposters, monkey-see monkey-do all the while not truly understanding WTF you're doing and making life harder for everyone else. "Imposter syndrome" really isn't a "syndrome" in these cases, but the actuality of it instead. I deal with this shit EVERY DARN DAY; assclowns who mostly know what to click when X or Y happens, but have no grasp of the base underlying concepts. So instead of doing everything I need t... (3)

Angriness: ๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก

Maybe I've lived in networking for to long but the sheer number of people in here saying "I don't know what DHCP stands for" is god darn frightening. And no... I get it. Being able to recall any/all IT acronyms at the drop of a hate (especially in an interview setting/high pressure) is hard. There are plenty of acronyms I can't recall but DHCP is foundational for how ever machine works and in turn the whole internet. But FFS I think I'm with OP when if someone can only tell me what it does and not what it stands for I would be concerned. Not necessarily end the interview but I would start asking a lot more probing questions around their knowledge. (3)

Angriness: ๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก

Since there are multiple ways to tackle a technical issue, I'm less concerned about the "right answer" (aka how I would handle it, which isn't always the best way). I'm more interested in someone's thought process. I tend to throw them a scenario where something is broken, and ask them what steps they would go through to troubleshoot. There could be multiple right answers, so I want to confirm their brain actually functions.I hate being in the receiving end of gotcha questions, so I don't ask them. Having it more open ended sometimes sparks a deeper conversation in to something, so then I really get to see if there is a subject the candidate is excited about. You can tell when people get fired up about something and want to talk about it. It could be bragging that they fixed some really wacky thing, or complaining about some stupid butt feature on a random platform, like, oh I hate that function on that firewall. The GUI doesn't work! You have to command line it every darn ti... (1)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/jorwyn

Score: ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿฎ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

Number of comments: 10

Average angriness: ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

Maximum angriness: ๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก๐Ÿ˜ก

Minimum angriness: ๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜๐Ÿ”˜

:marppy: autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramautists. :marseycapitalistmanlet: Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion :marseyjamming:

70
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I'm convinced sysadmin is full of larpers just like the programming sub.

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What boring questions why wod anyone want to know the answers to those?

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>I know people who can regurgitate all the acronyms and give definitions yet still cannot get shit done.

If you are a sysadmin and dont know what DNS or DHCP are keep yourself safe wtf.

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I do technical interviews all the time without asking a single technical question.

I start out every interview by saying I'm not HR, I'm not looking for a politician give me some real answers.

Asking a candidate if he's been in a situation where a new technology was dropped on his lap and how he handled it says alot more than asking if DNS is tcp or UDP.

Asking a candidate what his favorite job was and then asking what the least favorite part of that job really says alot.

What I try and figure out during the interview is will the person be a HR liability, ie narc. Will he work outside of the scope of the contract to keep the customer happy and is willing to learn or is he stuck in his box. Also is he a conservative from the Midwest, normally hardest workers in defense.

Need to creatively get that information out of him without getting HR pissed about my line of questioning.

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midwest defense only midwits end up working for companies like that

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This is a first rnd interview weed out question, it's not meant to actually test a candidate it's just to see if they completely lied about everything on their resume. Just got done interviewing a guy who basically slipped through the first rnd interview somehow and didn't know basic shit like this

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So I ask candidates what they day to day is like at previous jobs.

So if they were a SATCOM controller I ask them what their site used for timing, what bands were they utilizing on their SHF terminal.

I do it in a more shooting the shit format, I'm hiring senior level techs and engineers who most the time are turbo autists that can be super nervous during an interview.

I'm pretty good at connecting with people and figuring out if the person knows his shit or not just by a conversation.

Speak to what you've done and make me believe you're passionate about defense telecom like I am. That's what I want.

I don't hire anyone fresh outta school so that helps.

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I ask them what their site used for timing, what bands were they utilizing on their SHF terminal.

Sorry sir, that's classified.

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I say good answer while thinking HR liability knowing that frequency planning is public knowledge.

Means not recommend for hire.

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shit

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We're hiring lower engrs out of college or out of their first real job, so that's probably the main difference. Harder to have a passion for something you've never done outside of school, and best way to see if people care is to just ask Q's that are stupid easy to answer if you've been alive and in an engr class at the same time.

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We hired an EE fresh outta school as a SATCOM maintenance guy who was awestruck when he learned that SATCOM maintenance involved turning wrenches. Only lasted a few months.

Smart dude, but just thought some work was beneath him. That was before I was in the hiring process and the jobs came real easy out here in the MENA region.

He was in the $125+ range in the early 2000's, lose the college educated chip on your shoulder.

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Darn I went into the wrong field apparently, 125$/hr and I'd be someones personal jester. Frickin hate engrs that won't turn a wrench, I always like asking what someone would do if they had a bolt head break off. Tells me really fast how much hands on they had, if they answer with a groan and "oh Jesus Christ frick that" I know they've at least used an Allen wrench before lol.

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left handed drill. If that does not solve the problem, completely drill it out and put one oh those thread adapter things.

I am a nerdy programmer. Would love to have to work with wrenches as part of my job.

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Lol my bad, forgot the k as in $125k. Could have been as much as $185k wasn't involved in financials then.

But that's when pay out in the middle east was stupid.

Since the wind down all of us old heads have taken a pay cut or two.

I'm just lucky enough to have been in enough different roles to be a swiss army knife of telecom. Keyboard to antenna and everything in between.

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DHCP = Peepee-Having Child Preditor

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I went with

Peepees

Holes

CP.... :marseysweating:

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Gotchas aren't great screening questions.

How is "what is DNS" a gotcha in a fricking sysadmin interview?

Since there are multiple ways to tackle a technical issue, I'm less concerned about the "right answer" (aka how I would handle it, which isn't always the best way). I'm more interested in someone's thought process.

Yes I'd love to see someone's thought process as they explain to me why they've come to a sysadmin interview without knowing what DNS is.

@HeyMoon golden thread as always.

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These question are to weed out morons who just spam resumes everywhere. Weird that redditors are mad about them..

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That's how I've always seen it.

Ever since internet job postings became a thing 90% of the process is just weeding out the fluff. When you used to have to direct apply to the company it was already assumed that you understood the role, what the company did, and invested time into it because you thought it was the right job for you.

Instead, it's so automated now that these are no longer given and you have to invest immense amounts of time into tossing 90% of resumes in the trash in phase 1

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:marseywrongthonk:

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DNS = Dis Neighbor Stupid

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I work in pharma r&d, so I understanding not knowing every acronym. But if I interview you for a science position and you canโ€™t tell me what the acronyms of a material or technique stand for, Iโ€™m going to assume you donโ€™t know much about it.

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This is equivalent to "What does CH4 stand for" lol if u can't at least say "methane" I'm not gonna hire you

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Thatโ€™s even worse. That would show that you either: 1) donโ€™t know what methane is, 2) donโ€™t know how to read chemical formulas, or 3) know nothing at all.

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How is that showing you can't read chemical formulas?

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The remote possibility that they know that methane is a carbon with four hydrogens bound to it, but canโ€™t recognize that CH4 is the chemical formula for methane.

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zoz

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zle

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zozzle

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"It says here you have 10 years experience in R&D"

"Yes sir!"

"What does R&D stand for?"

"รธhhhh"

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Lmao

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This is why it's so easy to get a job if you're even somewhat competent. Redditors complaining about not knowing what DHCP is for a 100k+ job just shows how impossible it is to find good help these days

Who cares if you don't know what it stands for, knowing what is does is more important reeeeeeeeeeee!! hence why that's the fricking follow up question you god darn imbeciles

Seriously though, a sys admin not knowing what DHCP is a big red flag

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I was on the phone for an interview at a previous job. My boss asked the guy, in trying to assess his Javascript skills, what the difference between two equals signs and three equals signs was. This is a really typical question because Javascript is the only programming language r-slurred enough where this would even be an issue. Anyway, the guy gets the question right (a surprise for me because the dude was obviously an idiot) then proceeds to get BTFO by the next six obnoxious questions by my boss.

Redditors can get annoyed at these interview tactics all they want, but nobody is actually disqualifying a good candidate because they didn't know what the letters "DHCP" stand for. It's just that a series of dumb questions will eventually make it obvious if someone is completely outside of their element and should be dismissed.

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I don't know what that is and I make 300k :marseyzoomer:

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K

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it's just like asking an engineer if he is really good at mental math. it honestly doesn't matter. As long as he isn't completely incapable of answering all of the questions these aren't valuable questions at all. Like 2 seems oddly specific.

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Legit question, how much different is DHCP for ipv6, does ipv6 even use DHCP?

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DHCP, which dates back to 1993, is an automated way to assign IPv4 addresses, but when IPv6 was designed, it was provided with an auto-configuration feature dubbed SLAAC that could eventually make DHCP irrelevant. To complicate matters, a new DHCP โ€“ DHCPv6 โ€“ that performs the same function as SLAAC was independently created for IPv6.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3297800/why-dhcps-days-might-be-numbered.html

IPv6 has had dynamic addressing since its creation, part of Stateless Automatic Address Configuration (SLAAC). Originally, these addresses were generated based on the device MAC address, but now are randomly generated when Privacy Addressing is enabled.

For various reasons, there is a version of DHCP for IPv6 (DHCPv6) which may assign and manage addresses or may only provide ancillary configuration information, like DNS server addresses.

You will continue to see static addresses for IPv6 on servers, just like you had with IPv4. However, most IPv6 devices will rely on automated address configuration, though that may or may not include DHCP.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-no-need-for-a-DHCP-server-in-most-IPv6-networks

IPv6 addressing within a network has a few major differences from IPv4. With IPv4 certain address ranges are reserved for private networks (such as 10.0.0.0/8 or 192.168.0.0/16) and link-local addressing without dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) (169.254.0.0/16).

DHCP automatically assigns IP addresses and distributes other information to hosts on a network so they can communicate with other endpoints. At the same time, by assigning active IP addresses only to active devices, DHCP can reuse them to help conserve IPv4 addresses. IPv6 has similar concepts but refines each idea a little further.

Link-local addresses in IPv6 exist on each interface, regardless of whether the interface has an address assigned from DHCP or is configured using another method. Link-local IPv6 addresses have a prefix of fe80::/10 and a 64-bit suffix which can be computed and managed by the host itself without requiring additional networking components. IPv6 hosts can verify the uniqueness of their link-local addresses through a neighbor discovery process, which reaches out to the local network in order to verify that the address is not already in use.

Once a link-local address has been established, the IPv6 host attempts to determine if an IPv6-capable router is available through the use of a router solicitation message. If an IPv6 router is available it will respond with a router advertisement, which includes network configuration information such as a network prefix that is used for automatic address configuration using SLAAC or whether the host should obtain additional configuration information from a DHCPv6 server.

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2228461/setting-up-dhcpv6-to-dynamically-issue-ipv6-addresses-in-a-network.html

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The question phrasing does irk me. Asking for four specific things it does focuses the discussion purely into a game of remember the facts.

He definitely has a point that people should know this stuff, but he could also use a class on interviewing.

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Sys Admin sucks at people skills? Say it ainโ€™t so

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Honestly knowing the names aren't as important as understanding what happens when your computer needs to go to a website. If you can't explain that then you have an info gap.

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Remembering stuff is still really important, Google can get you info but only if you know what to ask it and only if it's available.

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Yes, and open ended questions allow people to demonstrate they have remembered stuff. Question 6 makes nearly all other questions redundant and does so in an open manner.

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The bot's learned how to do clickbait

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It's a great /r/sysadmin thread. OP says something mostly right and 100% neurodivergent. The leddit "sysadmins" cry and object while OP doubles down and welcomes the downvotes.

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They must have.

An old boss asked me to take CompTIA+ cert because I knew internet slang therefore I must be a leet haxxor.

I listened to an r-slur say letters for a week. I told the boss I wasn't going to take the test because I'm not an IT professional and he said "oh yeah oops."

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frick that a+ test, and frick comptia with it. :marseytrollcrazy::marseytrollcrazy::marseytrollcrazy:

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Don't you have to pay like ...900 shekels every few years to renew your license?

I dunno man, seems kinda (((sus))) to me.

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not that much for a renew but ya around 900 for the first 2 tests, then its cheap to renew. a+ used to be a permanent thing, but the :marseymerchant: saw the :marseybux:

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My computer nerdry ended with DOS-launched QuickBASIC

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So I've blocked you. Wondering why? Please consult the criteria below:

โœ”๏ธYou done a racism.

โœ”๏ธYou done a sexism.

โœ”๏ธYou done a bi-erasure.

โœ”๏ธYou heckin disrespected s*x work.

Reddit is my weapon of justice, and the block button my bullet.

Pow.

Snapshots:

/u/jorwyn:

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