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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

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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)

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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:

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

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An interview is a conversation. You can easily ask them to go further in depth on a subject. And asking for four specific facts does not go into depth of knowledge but just creates a fill in the blank question.

>Most of the seethe comes from people assuming that not giving 4 perfectly correct answers will be a fail i.e. autists.

It's a job for an IT admin, spergs are your target Audience, and as an interviewer you could frame your question in a way that doesn't make them feel like not getting 4 prefect answers is a failure.

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That's fine. Closed ended questions with simple fact based answers are not very useful in an interview except at finding out if someone will make a good scategory partner for you at the next company picnic.

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>is more of a screening

Do you think calling it a different word magically changes the most beneficial way to learn about someone's capabilities?

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I think he's talking about an initial screening of candidates before they get to a more in-depth interview where your conversation takes place, i.e. a two layer interview process.

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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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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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