Advice

[Gary Nichols]

Great question.  Allow me to explain my process to the list, and I hope that
other hiring managers (especially PHB's) read this with great interest. :)))

1) First interview with candidate is usually to 'fill in the blanks' on the
resume, personality mesh, etc.  I usually ask a few basic tech questions
just to establish the fact that I'm not talking to a fembot.  (Those tricky
fembots... they are everywhere!  But what hardware!!)


2) Second interview with candidate is the technical.  I warn them ahead of
time that I'm bringing them in for a grilling session.  Sometimes I'll bring
in other engineers that the candidate will be working with and let them ask
questions.  These questions are more theory and understanding, not anal
things like "Which switch to you use with fsck to do this blah blah".  Those
questions are worthless... anyone can use 'man' to look that up in a pinch.
I will add though that people that can name those off the top of their head
need to see my point#11 in my previous email.

I usually like to ask a few trick questions and see if they catch them.  My
most recent hire (he's on this list... and I'm sure he's laughing out loud
right now) did quite well.  I think I asked him about the differences
between httpd.conf and srm.conf.... he caught on and mentioned that they
were merged into just the httpd.conf file.  Well done!  That shows
experience and a desire to stay current.


3) If the candidate passes the second interview, then the third interview is
usually the mundane stuff... salary, benefits, estimated time to hire, etc.

More opinion here...

Unless you're hiring for a programming job, I highly recommend NOT giving
candidates written tests.  I've seen some absolutely brilliant people get
vapor-lock on a written test.  Ironically, if I take the same test they just
took/bombed and ask them the questions out loud, they usually get them
right.  Pressure man!  Pressure!

Try not to tie up the candidate too long at one time.  They probably have
other things to do/kids to pick up/quake matches to play. :))

Communicate with your candidates on a DAILY basis.  If you decided that they
really aren't what you're looking for, tell them immediately so that they
can explore other options.  Lack of communication from a company is usually
interpreted as a measure of incompetence.


~ Gary




-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of Alan
Dayley
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 1:33 PM
To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
Subject: RE: Advice



This is very refreshing!  A hiring manager that doesn't automatically throw
you out because you don't have the paper!  Excellent!

One question:  When interviewing canidates, degreed/certified or not, how
do you determine if they "don't understand TCP/IP, subneting, SMTP, Unix
filesystems, computer hardware, etc..." or not?  Just curious.

Alan

At 01:17 PM 3/21/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Greetings Tyler,
>
>Allow me to insert my 2 bytes here.
>
>As a hiring IT/IS Director/Manager for 4 years at several companies, I can
>tell you that the one thing that counts above all others is experience,
>experience, experience and experience.  I have seen hundreds of resumes for
>SysAdmins.  I don't care if you have a Masters in Electro-Warp Core
>Technology or an Associates in Basketweaving.  If you don't understand
>TCP/IP, subneting, SMTP, Unix filesystems, computer hardware, etc... you
>would be of no use to me.
--<clip all the rest of the good stuff>--
/------------------------------------------
|Alan Dayley             www.adtron.com
|Software Engineer       602-735-0300 x331
|ADayley@adtron.com
|
|Adtron Corporation
|3710 E. University Drive, Suite 5
|Phoenix, AZ  85034
\-------------------------------------------


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