Re: job screening question

[Dennis]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:02 AM, William Herrin  wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I gave my HR folks a screening question to ask candidates for an IP
> expert position. I've gotten some "unexpected" answers, so I want to
> do a sanity check and make sure I'm not asking something unreasonable.
> And by "unexpected" I don't mean naively incorrect answers, I mean
> oh-my-God-how-did-you-get-that-cisco-certification answers.
>
> The question was:
>
> You implement a firewall on which you block all ICMP packets. What
> part of the TCP protocol (not IP in general, TCP specifically)
> malfunctions as a result?
>
>
> My questions for you are:
>
> 1. As an expert who follows NANOG, do you know the answer? Or is this
> question too hard?
>

I perused the thread but lots of people have mentioned mtu discovery but
not what happens on TCP and an issue with mss but not what happens - if
there is a smaller mtu along the path the receive window fills up on the
host initiating the connection and then the connection just times out.



>
> 2. Is the question too vague? Is there a clearer way to word it?
>

It is way to confusing and may be better in a two part question and work up
to it.  Instead of asking if all ICMP is blocked put into to Type/Code with
out giving away that it's the
Maybe for HR ask more text book stuff like name the tcp flags or describe
the tcp connection closing or what field determines if a packet can be
fragmented and then compare that to how it works in IPv6.  How big is the
TCP or IP headers?  How many with options? etc...


>
> 3. Is there a better screening question I could pass to HR to ask and
> check the candidate's response against the supplied answer?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill Herrin
>
>
> --
> William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
> 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
>
>

Re: job screening question

[David Barak]

(please excuse the top post)

If you want a great analysis of how this happened before, check out 
Clanchy's book _From memory to written record_ about the implications of 
the spread of literacy as a technology in England in the 1300s.

David Barak

Re: job screening question

[Michael Thomas]

On 07/10/2012 03:56 AM, Bret Clark wrote:

On 07/10/2012 03:32 AM, goe...@anime.net wrote:

On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Jeroen van Aart wrote:

William Herrin wrote:

This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
clamping and RFC 4821.

The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.

I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and find a
solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to have than
having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.

It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer to
that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many things by
heart has become incredibly moot.

If you are applying for a network position, you better know the *basics*.
Having to look up the basics is not a good sign.

Do you really want to hire someone who is going to have to look up basic
networking concepts for 30 minutes every time they are in a meeting and
asked a question?

-Dan


Hence the reason he mentioned "skilled" person...


This all has to be tempered with the zeitgeist as what is "basic knowledge"
now, will be "charming history" at some point. All of it. No, a vampire tap has
nothing to do with Twilight. No, the difference between 74 and 54 series
logic is not 20. All of us oldsters would do well to try to keep up with what's
new and hip coming out of schools and grill them in an intelligent fashion.
Better yet, let them teach you something which shows if they understand
or whether they're just parroting stuff back.

MIke

Re: job screening question

[Andriy Bilous]

I think Ivan covered that
http://blog.ioshints.info/2012/03/knowledge-and-complexity.html
And also about hiring in general
http://blog.ioshints.info/2009/12/certifications-and-hiring-process.html

Many says that everything happens in the first 5 minutes of interview,
right chemistry if you like - the rest of the hiring process you're
looking for reasons to hire the person you like or for the reasons to
reject someone you don't like.

On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 1:05 PM, David Coulson  wrote:
>
> On 7/10/12 6:56 AM, Bret Clark wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hence the reason he mentioned "skilled" person...
>>
>
> Right. A skilled person knows not to commit to anything in a meeting, or to
> at least validate what they think before they open their mouth. Depends on
> the audience, of course.
>
> At least in my environment, there is not an expectation for someone to be
> able to rattle off technical specifics from memory on demand - I've got an
> iPad and Google for that. General concepts and
> functionality/limitations/whatever are great in that setting, but no one
> asks for the level of detail that takes 30 minutes to research and digest in
> a meeting. The ability to remember obscure command line arguments, or parts
> of a protocol header don't have much value, when you can look it about 10
> seconds.
>
> Anyone else noticed their memory has gotten worse since Google came along?
> :)
>
> David
>

Re: job screening question

[Bjørn Mork]

David Coulson  writes:

> Anyone else noticed their memory has gotten worse since Google came
> along? :)

Huh?  Hasn't Google always been there?


Bjørn

Re: job screening question

[David Coulson]

On 7/10/12 6:56 AM, Bret Clark wrote:


Hence the reason he mentioned "skilled" person...



Right. A skilled person knows not to commit to anything in a meeting, or 
to at least validate what they think before they open their mouth. 
Depends on the audience, of course.


At least in my environment, there is not an expectation for someone to 
be able to rattle off technical specifics from memory on demand - I've 
got an iPad and Google for that. General concepts and 
functionality/limitations/whatever are great in that setting, but no one 
asks for the level of detail that takes 30 minutes to research and 
digest in a meeting. The ability to remember obscure command line 
arguments, or parts of a protocol header don't have much value, when you 
can look it about 10 seconds.


Anyone else noticed their memory has gotten worse since Google came 
along? :)


David

Re: job screening question

[Bret Clark]

On 07/10/2012 03:32 AM, goe...@anime.net wrote:

On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Jeroen van Aart wrote:

William Herrin wrote:

This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
clamping and RFC 4821.

The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.

I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and find a
solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to have than
having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.

It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer to
that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many things by
heart has become incredibly moot.

If you are applying for a network position, you better know the *basics*.
Having to look up the basics is not a good sign.

Do you really want to hire someone who is going to have to look up basic
networking concepts for 30 minutes every time they are in a meeting and
asked a question?

-Dan


Hence the reason he mentioned "skilled" person...

Re: job screening question

[goemon]

On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Jeroen van Aart wrote:

William Herrin wrote:

This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
clamping and RFC 4821.

The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.
I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and find a 
solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to have than 
having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.


It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer to 
that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many things by 
heart has become incredibly moot.


If you are applying for a network position, you better know the *basics*. 
Having to look up the basics is not a good sign.


Do you really want to hire someone who is going to have to look up basic 
networking concepts for 30 minutes every time they are in a meeting and 
asked a question?


-Dan

Re: job screening question

[Jeroen van Aart]

William Herrin wrote:

This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
clamping and RFC 4821.

The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.


I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and 
find a solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to 
have than having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.


It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer 
to that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many 
things by heart has become incredibly moot.


Greetings,
Jeroen

--
Earthquake Magnitude: 4.4
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 04:06:53 UTC
Location: Central Alaska
Latitude: 63.4533; Longitude: -149.4308
Depth: 110.60 km

Re: job screening question

[Mike]

On 12-07-09 12:57 PM, Mike Andrews wrote:
Unless you have a policy that "Slot A only does Slot A work" stuffed 
up some orifice. I've been there, and it is both stultifying and 
limiting. 
Further to the above wisdom, if you truly care about your work it will 
either drive you crazy as you force yourself to fix things that aren't 
your problem, or as you start to force yourself not to care about 
someone else's crappy work.


--
Looking for (employment|contract) work in the Internet
industry, preferrably working remotely.
Building / Supporting the net since 2400 baud was the
hot thing. Ask for a resume! ispbuil...@gmail.com

Re: job screening question

[Mike Andrews]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 09:36:47PM -0400, William Herrin wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 9:22 PM, Steven Noble  wrote:
> > I have talked to companies who have job openings many
> > months old for people who absolutely exist in the silicon
> > valley. The hiring company just thinks the people who
> > apply are over or under qualified.
> 
> I thought someone was overqualified once. My decision was overridden.
> I turned out to be very glad it was. He didn't fit the role I thought
> I needed but I was able to turn him loose with minimal supervision.
> And I was able to go on vacation. :) That was so much more valuable.

I've seen people turned away for being "overqualified", when I would have
hired them in a heartbeat. The HR types seem unable to comprehend that
"overqualified" is not a bad thing, especially in the current economic
climate, and that it includes "qualified". Being able to bring someone in
and then take vacation time without having to worry about things going
casters-up is very valuable indeed.

> Now I know: tell the candidate about the work, all the work not just
> the job you thought you would hire for, and let him tell you whether
> any of it is beneath him. As long as you get all the skills you need
> on the team you can juggle the tasking.

Unless you have a policy that "Slot A only does Slot A work" stuffed up
some orifice. I've been there, and it is both stultifying and limiting. 

-- 
Mike Andrews, W5EGO
mi...@mikea.ath.cx
Tired old sysadmin 

Re: job screening question

[Tyler Haske]

Cheaper then a college degree and doesn't require you to 'know the right
person.'

> Technical Terms of Computer Science #515:
>
>  "Certification: A business model that compresses hot air to paper,
>  then trades it for currency."

Re: job screening question

[Michael Painter]

Mattias Ahnberg wrote:

Its benefical to build a team of clued people with the right personality,
interest and mentality to what they do rather than seek people who has
taught themselves how to answer certification tests in a way they know
the creator of the test expects them. :)


Just came across this tidbit:

Technical Terms of Computer Science #515:

 "Certification: A business model that compresses hot air to paper,
 then trades it for currency."

Re: job screening question

[William McCall]

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Jimmy Hess  wrote:

> I'm not sure which era exactly in which you consider it legal and
> kosher to assign to a network,  but even if you relax all the rules
> that require contiguity, it is still an illegal network mask for end
> hosts, just like 255.255.255.254 is;  if an applicant doesn't flag it
> out as bad/invalid subnet mask in this era,  then they might fail the
> filter,
>

Well, the correct answer is that it IS invalid (because the real world
routers tell us so) and this should be the only acceptable answer,
but, just to be sure, /31s are valid, can be used, and are used.


-- 
William McCall

Re: job screening question

[Jimmy Hess]

On 7/8/12, Matthew Kaufman  wrote:
> On Jul 7, 2012, at 6:03 PM, Randy  wrote:
>> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the
>> pre-CIDR era. If you so desire, give me about 2 hours since I do not have

See, I would advocate using the filter questions for sorting the apps,
 and tell the applicants "We're expecting a  5 words or less answer,
not a history lesson or technical explanation.";   if  more than 25%
of applicants out of say 1000 get it correct, then the filter is
considered valid,  and the ones that pass the most filter questions
are the least likely  to not be a waste of time.


I'm not sure which era exactly in which you consider it legal and
kosher to assign to a network,  but even if you relax all the rules
that require contiguity, it is still an illegal network mask for end
hosts, just like 255.255.255.254 is;  if an applicant doesn't flag it
out as bad/invalid subnet mask in this era,  then they might fail the
filter,

even if they correctly observe that you can't fit that many hosts in.


>> a scientific calculator handy; and I will get back to you with the
>> complete-list.

A what?

>> Definitely not 5 words as required from the HR stand point. So I get
>> disqualified again!
>> ./Randy

> Oh, come on, 247 decimal is 0xf7... A single zero bit in the mask isn't
> enough for 12 hosts no matter where it is.

Correct... it's not even enough bits for 1 end host;  it's enough bits for
1 broadcast address.


> If you need a scientific calculator and 2 hours for that, HR is right.

> Matthew Kaufman
> Sent from my iPad


--
-JH

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Kaufman]

On Jul 7, 2012, at 6:03 PM, Randy  wrote:

> 
>  
>> "When a number received in an IP packet is presented in
>> network byte
>> order,  and the host architecture is big endian, what
>> must be done to
>> convert the number into host byte order?"
>> (one word answer)
> 
> My response would be to have a field-day with HR talking about MSB and LSB.
> Certainly wouldn't be a one-word answer. So HR disqualifies me?
>> 
>> "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet
>> mask if you
>> want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>>   (5 word answer)
> 
> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR 
> era. If you so desire, give me about 2 hours since I do not have a scientific 
> calculator handy; and I will get back to you with the complete-list.
> 
> Definitely not 5 words as required from the HR stand point. So I get 
> disqualified again!
> 
> ./Randy
> 

Oh, come on, 247 decimal is 0xf7... A single zero bit in the mask isn't enough 
for 12 hosts no matter where it is.

If you need a scientific calculator and 2 hours for that, HR is right.



Matthew Kaufman

Sent from my iPad

Re: job screening question

[Mattias Ahnberg]

On 2012-07-08 00:58, Jimmy Hess wrote:
> "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
> want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>   (5 word answer)

I don't much appreciate these types of questions where you expect an exact
answer based on your own phrasing/ideas. If running through a form with
questions like this, leave space for open-ended answers to give the person
a chance to phrase and explain in his own ways.

Don't let the final "pass" or "no pass" fall to a HR person who can't fully
appreciate or know the details and see the actual clue in an unexpected
answer. You might lose a lot of really good candidates by being too harsh on
that.

Its benefical to build a team of clued people with the right personality,
interest and mentality to what they do rather than seek people who has
taught themselves how to answer certification tests in a way they know
the creator of the test expects them. :)

Hire for attitude, train for skill!
-- 
/ahnberg.

Re: job screening question

[Robert Bonomi]

> From nanog-bounces+bonomi=mail.r-bonomi@nanog.org  Sat Jul  7 23:11:09 
> 2012
> Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 23:09:54 -0500
> Subject: Re: job screening question
> From: Jimmy Hess 
> To: Keith Medcalf 
> Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" 
>
> On 7/7/12, Keith Medcalf  wrote:
> >>"What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you 
> >>want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
> >>  (5 word answer)
> > Unemployment Office Is That Way -> Is the only 5 word answer I could 
> > come up with.  The correct answer "invalid netmask", is only two words.
>
> 5 words = "The netmask is not valid."
> Also acceptable response; "A netmask must be contiguous."

"Subnet/Netmask is '/31'-equivalennt, unusable."
"Subnet too small/tiny/miniscule/{other synonyms} too use."
"Invalid netmask under CIDR rules"   (also transpose first two words)
"Invalid netmask according to RFC[mumble}"   (also transpose first two words)
"Too many hosts for subnet."
"Twelve hosts will not fit."

"You've _got_ to be kidding!"
"Apparent bit-rot in questions database"


If _written_, I't be tempted to respond:

  A) Netmask is '/31'-equivalent, unusable
  B) Invalid netmask under CIDR rules
  C) Apparent bit-rot in questions database
  D) Question probably itended LSB 248.
  E) Not enough bits in subnet
  F) too many hosts for subnet
  G) all of the above respones

and then circle G.   <*EVIL* grin>

Re: job screening question

[Jimmy Hess]

On 7/7/12, Keith Medcalf  wrote:
>>"What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
>>want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>>  (5 word answer)
> Unemployment Office Is That Way ->
> Is the only 5 word answer I could come up with.  The correct answer "invalid
> netmask", is only two words.

5 words = "The netmask is not valid."
Also acceptable response; "A netmask must be contiguous."

> Short Answer:  There is no answer to the question that can be expressed in
> one number.

Acceptable answers:  "None",  or   "25"
Unacceptable answers: any number other than 25,  or anything other
than a one-word answer.

(After your rep  has told them that you expect a one-word answer, of course.)


--
-JH

FW: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

(now copied to list as well)

On Sat 07 July, 2012 at 20:32, Owen DeLong wrote:

>>> "What TCP destination port numbers should be allowed through the
>>> perimeter stateful firewall device to and from a mail server whose
>>> only purpose is to proxy SMTP mail from internal sources?"
>>> (one number answer)

>> Short Answer:  There is no answer to the question that can be expressed in
>> one number.

> Sure there is, if you count "none" as a number.

None, NIL, NUL, NULL would be valid I suppose if nulls were permitted.  0 
however is not correct.

>> Outbound connections to TCP destination port 25 only.  Returning traffic
>> (including associated ICMP) should be automatically handled by your stateful
>> inspection firewall.  If not, you need to buy a better firewall.

> I'd allow 25 and 465 outbound, myself. No reason to block SSL if the remote
> side offers the capability.

http://www.imc.org/ietf-apps-tls/mail-archive/msg00204.html

SMTPS is deprecated and port 465 is no longer registered for SMTPS (SMTP over 
SSL), it is now for

  
urd
tcp
URL Rendesvous Directory for SSM
465
  

So even though many folks may still run SMTPS on port 465, you SHOULD be using 
STARTTLS on port 25.

> ICMP wouldn't be a TCP destination port number anyway.

Very true.  The again, there is a significant proportion of the same experts 
who think DNS only runs over UDP ...

> > Any applicant who provides any answer should the rejected out of hand as
> (a) being unable to read (b) being a threat to security.

> LoL... Some truth to that.

You would be surprised how many people think that if you
 permit tcp host x.x.x.x any eq 25
to let traffic out, then you need
 permit tcp any eq 25 host x.x.x.x
as the inverse to permit returning traffic.

This is more of a problem when using packet filtering than it is when 
configuring stateful inspection firewalls.  Nonetheless, the question does ask 
what should be opened "to and from" in order to "proxy SMTP mail from internal 
sources".

It could of course just be a brilliant question designed to detect such 
problems ...

> Owen

Keith

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 7, 2012, at 5:44 PM, Keith Medcalf wrote:

>> "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
>> want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>> (5 word answer)
> 
> Unemployment Office Is That Way ->
> 
> Is the only 5 word answer I could come up with.  The correct answer "invalid 
> netmask", is only two words.
> 

LoL...

Even if you allowed for discontiguous subnet masks, you'd need to use 
255.255.255.243 and not
255.255.255.247 to achieve 12 hosts.

Not sure what 5 word answer you're looking for, but Keith's answer and mine are 
the two most obvious
issues I can think of.

> 
>> "What TCP destination port numbers should be allowed through the
>> perimeter stateful firewall device to and from a mail server whose
>> only purpose is to proxy SMTP mail from internal sources?"
>> (one number answer)
> 
> Short Answer:  There is no answer to the question that can be expressed in 
> one number.

Sure there is, if you count "none" as a number.

> Outbound connections to TCP destination port 25 only.  Returning traffic 
> (including associated ICMP) should be automatically handled by your stateful 
> inspection firewall.  If not, you need to buy a better firewall.

I'd allow 25 and 465 outbound, myself. No reason to block SSL if the remote 
side offers the capability.

ICMP wouldn't be a TCP destination port number anyway.

> Any applicant who provides any answer should the rejected out of hand as (a) 
> being unable to read (b) being a threat to security.

LoL... Some truth to that.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[NIG NOG]

shower curtain at the end of each stroke, pushing it outward
slightly. He was too far gone to be concerned, however.  
Chris finally
reached his third, volcanic orgasm with a loud, guttural grunt. His
first spurt of cum shot out all over the shower curtain with an
audible splash, followed by a second, and third, and so on, until, a
dozen surges later, Chris had pumped another pint or so of cum all
over the interior of the shower, accompanied by loud moans and grunts
with each ejaculation. Oh,
yeah! What do you guys think of that?Chris finally paused in his frenzied 
masturbation, and realized that
the shower room was quiet, other than his own shower. There was no
sound of others showering, and no other voices echoing against the
tiles.  



 From: Jon Lewis 
To: valdis.kletni...@vt.edu 
Cc: nanog@nanog.org 
Sent: Saturday, July 7, 2012 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: job screening question
 
On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

> On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 18:03:43 -0700, Randy said:
>>> "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
>>> want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>>> (5 word answer)
> 
> I'm not sure if that's a typo or excessive evil on the part of the 
> questioner. ;)
> 
>> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the 
>> pre-CIDR era.
> 
> Yes, but even if it was *legal*, the "subnet doesn't contain 12 addresses" 
> answer applies. ;)

It's just a mask...you can do all sorts of crazy things with netmasks. The 
results of using "unusual" ones is not typically predictable or desireable to 
those who might accidentally use them.

--
Jon Lewis, MCP :)           |  I route
Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
Atlantic Net                |
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_

Re: job screening question

[Jon Lewis]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2012 valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:


On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 18:03:43 -0700, Randy said:

"What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
(5 word answer)


I'm not sure if that's a typo or excessive evil on the part of the questioner. 
;)


My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR 
era.


Yes, but even if it was *legal*, the "subnet doesn't contain 12 addresses" 
answer applies. ;)


It's just a mask...you can do all sorts of crazy things with netmasks. 
The results of using "unusual" ones is not typically predictable or 
desireable to those who might accidentally use them.


--
 Jon Lewis, MCP :)   |  I route
 Senior Network Engineer |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net|
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_

Re: job screening question

[NIG NOG]

! He has a
really big penis, okay?” Jen just blurted it out. Both Kimber and
Tasha perked up immediately. “His whole package is gigantic, all
right? It’s like freakishly, unbelievably massive. He wears the
baggy pants to hide the fact that he’s huge.”
She focused on preparing the food and tried to avoid their gaze,
blushing furiously.  
“I knew it!”
Tasha jumped around the kitchen. “I knew you liked guys that were
totally hung! Whenever we were watching porn, you always acted like
you weren’t staring when the really big studs were on screen, but I knewyou 
were staring at them. So, Chris is hung like those guys? Wow! Do
you think he would let us see it?”  
Kimber grabbed a
kitchen towel and snapped it at Tasha’s butt. “Would you shut up?
Just because you are fixated on pics and videos doesn’t mean that
everyone is. Anyway, you would know that Jen had a thing for
well-endowed guys if you ever listened to her talk about Todd.”  
“Who?”, asked
Tasha, rubbing her butt.  
“Todd, the guy she
dated when she was a senior in high school. Jen complains about what
a spineless creep he was, but she dated him all year. She said he was
‘pretty big’ more than once, so she must have been willing to put
up with him for that. Is Chris as big as Todd was, Jen?”  
Jen snorted out
loud. “Ha! As if! Chris is over twice as big soft as Todd ever was,
hard!” Am
I really that transparent about my size fetish? I thought I hid it
pretty well.  
“Hang on, that
doesn’t make sense.” Tasha scrunched up her face, remembering.
“When we were partying Friday before last, you said that your ex
was almost nine inches. If Chris is twice as big soft,
he would be eighteen inches long before he had a hard on. Did you
mean that Chris is twice as big hardas Todd was soft? No, that doesn’t sound 
very impressive. I’m
confused.”  
There was no way
around it. Jen bit the bullet. “I meant what I said. Chris is over
twice as big softas Todd was hard. He’s nineteen inches.”  
Both Tasha and
Kimber erupted in unison. “No freaking way!”  
“You have to be
kidding. That’s impossible,” said Kimber, shaking her head.  
“Pics or it didn’t
happen!”, cried Tasha.  
“No! No pics! No
questions! No staring! “ Jen waved the wooden spoon in warning. “I
told you; he’s really shy about this. I don’t want to have to
smuggle him past you guys each time we come in. He’s going to come
out here and have dinner and hang out with us. Nobody’s taking
pictures of him, orvideo, Tasha, and nobody’s posting about it on their blog, or
Facebook, or Twitter. I mean it, Kimber. If you make one tweet about
this, I will never forgive you.” She took a deep breath. “I like
Chris, and I want him to feel like he can be himself with me, and not
put on an act like he has to on campus, okay?”  
Both girls
reluctantly nodded their acquiescence. Oh,
crap. I forgot to mention the other thing. Jen turned back to her
roommates.  
“There’s just
one other thing.”  
“What now?”
cried Kimber.  
“He has twothings?!?” exclaimed Tasha, shortly before Kimber snapped the towel
at her again.  
“Chris not only
has a really big penis, but his testicles are really big, too. They
are large normally, but when he hasn’t ‘expressed’ himself for
a while, they get enormous.
Please don’t tease him about it, okay?” She looked to her
roommates for their agreement.  





 From: Keith Medcalf 
To: "nanog@nanog.org"  
Sent: Saturday, July 7, 2012 6:26 PM
Subject: RE: job screening question
 

> > "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet
> > mask if you want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
> >   (5 word answer)

> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR
> era. If you so desire, give me about 2 hours since I do not have a scientific
> calculator handy; and I will get back to you with the complete-list.

> Definitely not 5 words as required from the HR stand point. So I get
> disqualified again!

Hehehe.  Ok.  So if this was 1986 then the answer would be:

No Hosts on the Network.

There is only 1 host bit, and both available addresses would be reserved for 
the directed-broadcast and subnet-broadcast address respectively, leaving no 
space for an actual host, let alone 12 of them.

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

RE: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

> > "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet
> > mask if you want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
> >   (5 word answer)

> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR
> era. If you so desire, give me about 2 hours since I do not have a scientific
> calculator handy; and I will get back to you with the complete-list.

> Definitely not 5 words as required from the HR stand point. So I get
> disqualified again!

Hehehe.  Ok.  So if this was 1986 then the answer would be:

No Hosts on the Network.

There is only 1 host bit, and both available addresses would be reserved for 
the directed-broadcast and subnet-broadcast address respectively, leaving no 
space for an actual host, let alone 12 of them.

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 18:03:43 -0700, Randy said:
> > "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
> > want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
> > (5 word answer)

I'm not sure if that's a typo or excessive evil on the part of the questioner. 
;)

> My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR 
> era.

Yes, but even if it was *legal*, the "subnet doesn't contain 12 addresses" 
answer applies. ;)






pgpsJQlGsXZz8.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: job screening question

[Randy]

 
 
> "When a number received in an IP packet is presented in
> network byte
> order,  and the host architecture is big endian, what
> must be done to
> convert the number into host byte order?"
> (one word answer)

My response would be to have a field-day with HR talking about MSB and LSB.
Certainly wouldn't be a one-word answer. So HR disqualifies me?
> 
> "What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet
> mask if you
> want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>   (5 word answer)

My response would be: Discontiguous subnet masks were allowed in the pre-CIDR 
era. If you so desire, give me about 2 hours since I do not have a scientific 
calculator handy; and I will get back to you with the complete-list.

Definitely not 5 words as required from the HR stand point. So I get 
disqualified again!

./Randy

RE: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

>"What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
>want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
>  (5 word answer)

Unemployment Office Is That Way ->

Is the only 5 word answer I could come up with.  The correct answer "invalid 
netmask", is only two words.


> "What TCP destination port numbers should be allowed through the
> perimeter stateful firewall device to and from a mail server whose
> only purpose is to proxy SMTP mail from internal sources?"
> (one number answer)

Short Answer:  There is no answer to the question that can be expressed in one 
number.

Outbound connections to TCP destination port 25 only.  Returning traffic 
(including associated ICMP) should be automatically handled by your stateful 
inspection firewall.  If not, you need to buy a better firewall.

Any applicant who provides any answer should the rejected out of hand as (a) 
being unable to read (b) being a threat to security.

Unless, of course, you have misphrased the question.

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

Re: job screening question

[Jimmy Hess]

On 7/7/12, Matthew Palmer  wrote:
> * We've already had mention made in this thread of the problems associated
>   with HR attempting to record, verbatim, an answer provided by a candidate.
[snip]
Conversation should be recorded,   then they don't have to write out
the full text :)

Asking a HR agent to vet a candidate's  technical credentials,  beyond
verification of identity/history/certs,   is  like asking a blind
person to administer a vision test.

Possibly it can be done,  but only within a very rigid framework
requiring very little flexibility or knowledge from the test
administrator.



The HR agent should make it clear that the question is a screening question,
to be answered as-is to their ability,  and a short  easily-recordable
answer is expected.

The ideal screening question should be either presented as multiple
choice, or a question where a one word  or one-sentence answer is
expected.

That can be written down very easily,  and correctness/incorrectness
should be obvious.
Instead of asking for a definition of TCP,  provide the definition,
and ask for the one word or one number answer.


"When a number received in an IP packet is presented in network byte
order,  and the host architecture is big endian, what must be done to
convert the number into host byte order?"
(one word answer)

"What commonly used protocol uses IP datagrams to provide a reliable transport?"
(one word answer)

"What IP protocol number has IANA assigned protocol number 1  to?"
(one word answer)

"The TCP/UDP port numbers below what number are considered well-known,
and can only be bound by administrative users?"
(one number answer)

"What version of the IP datagram protocol is most widely deployed?"
(one number answer)

"How many bits are there in an IPv4 address?"
(one two-digit number answer)

"Host bits in an IPv4 address correspond to the bits in the network
mask  set to what value?"
(one single-digit number answer)

"Is  192.168.0.256  a valid ip address for a host on a private intranet?"
  (one yes/no answer)
"Is  172.16.12.3 ?"
  (one yes/no answer)

"What's the problem with using 255.255.255.247 as a subnet mask if you
want to make a LAN subnet with 12 hosts?"
  (5 word answer)

"What TCP header flag should be set on the first packet sent by a
connection initiator as part of a 3-way handshake?"
  (one word answer)

"What TCP destination port numbers should be allowed through the
perimeter stateful firewall device to and from a mail server whose
only purpose is to proxy SMTP mail from internal sources?"
(one number answer)




--
-JH

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 2:13 PM, Matthew Palmer  wrote:
> * If you're going to have to carefully examine each candidate's answers
>   *anyway*, why not just get on the phone screen with them in the first
>   place, and get HR out of the picture?  At least that way you're not
>   wasting money paying for HR people, and you can do a far more in-depth
>   interview because you're there, in real-time, to ask follow-up questions.

I don't know about you but my brain doesn't switch on a dime. I have
to *prepare* to conduct a phone interview. And afterward I have to
spool back up on whatever task I was working on. If a screening
question can cut many candidates who I'll know in 5 minutes aren't the
one, that saves me a lot more time than just the 5 minutes on the
phone.

Plus, frankly, I don't enjoy conducting interviews. It's necessary but
I find it stressful. Where I can avoid it with minimal risk of missing
the individual I actually want to hire, that makes me happy.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[George Herbert]

On Jul 7, 2012, at 11:13 AM, Matthew Palmer  wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 11:01:29AM -0700, JC Dill wrote:
>> On 06/07/12 9:06 PM, Matthew Palmer wrote:
 Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP 
 is.
>>> Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
>>> but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
>>> of a lot harder.
>> 
>> The best path is to have HR report the answer verbatim for the
>> hiring manager to do the assessing.  Then the hiring manager can
>> decide which candidates proceed to the next level of interviews.
> 
> Two problems there:
> 
> * We've already had mention made in this thread of the problems associated
>  with HR attempting to record, verbatim, an answer provided by a candidate. 
>  Unless all your HR phone screeners are experienced stenographers (who, I
>  will note, can typically command salaries far in excess of HR associates),
>  their chances of getting an accurate record of a candidate's statements is
>  slim.
> 
> * If you're going to have to carefully examine each candidate's answers
>  *anyway*, why not just get on the phone screen with them in the first
>  place, and get HR out of the picture?  At least that way you're not
>  wasting money paying for HR people, and you can do a far more in-depth
>  interview because you're there, in real-time, to ask follow-up questions.
> 
> - Matt

Yeah.  We tried "write down verbatim" - epic fail.

This was why we spent man-months of top level consultant time coming up with ( 
and fixing and evolving ) lists of twentyish questions per discipline with only 
one right answer and an answer the recruiter could tell was right or not.

It's not easy.  If you screen a thousand plus people a year it's a super win.  
If you screen ten or twenty you may just want your techie interviewer to do the 
short screen rather than figure out how the recruiter can.


George William Herbert
Sent from my iPhone

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Palmer]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 11:01:29AM -0700, JC Dill wrote:
> On 06/07/12 9:06 PM, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> >>Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP 
> >>is.
> >Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
> >but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
> >of a lot harder.
> 
> The best path is to have HR report the answer verbatim for the
> hiring manager to do the assessing.  Then the hiring manager can
> decide which candidates proceed to the next level of interviews.

Two problems there:

* We've already had mention made in this thread of the problems associated
  with HR attempting to record, verbatim, an answer provided by a candidate. 
  Unless all your HR phone screeners are experienced stenographers (who, I
  will note, can typically command salaries far in excess of HR associates),
  their chances of getting an accurate record of a candidate's statements is
  slim.

* If you're going to have to carefully examine each candidate's answers
  *anyway*, why not just get on the phone screen with them in the first
  place, and get HR out of the picture?  At least that way you're not
  wasting money paying for HR people, and you can do a far more in-depth
  interview because you're there, in real-time, to ask follow-up questions.

- Matt


-- 
MySQL seems to be the Windows of the database world. Broken, underspecced,  
and mainly only popular due to inertia and people who don't really know what
they're doing.
-- Peter Corlett, in the Monastery

Re: job screening question

[JC Dill]

On 06/07/12 9:06 PM, Matthew Palmer wrote:

Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP is.

Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
of a lot harder.


The best path is to have HR report the answer verbatim for the hiring 
manager to do the assessing.  Then the hiring manager can decide which 
candidates proceed to the next level of interviews.


jc

Re: job screening question

[Bryan Irvine]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 02:06:58PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 12:51:55PM +1200, Ben Aitchison wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 04:18:21PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0700, Scott Weeks wrote:
> > > > --- ja...@thebaughers.com wrote:
> > > > From: Jason Baugher 
> > > > 
> > > > Geez, I'd be happy to find someone with a good attitude, a solid work 
> > > > ethic, and the desire and aptitude to learn. :)
> > > > ---
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Yeah, that.  But how do you get those folks through the HR 
> > > > process to you, so you can decipher their skill/work ethic 
> > > > level?  What can the HR person ask to find out if someone 
> > > > has these qualities?  OSPF LSA type questions will not help.
> > > 
> > > Don't get HR to do that sort of screening.  They suck mightily at it.  I
> > > lack any sort of HR department to get in the way, and I'm glad of it -- I
> > > don't see the value in having someone who doesn't know anything about the
> > > job get in the way of finding the right person for it.  Sure, get 'em to 
> > > do
> > > the scutwork of posting job ads, collating resumes, scheduling things and
> > > sending the "lolz no!" responses, but actually filtering?  Nah, I'll do 
> > > that
> > > bit thanks.  If you have to have HR do a filter call, make it *really*
> > > simple, like "What does TCP stand for?" -- sadly, you'll still probably
> > > filter out half the applicants for a senior position...
> > 
> > I've noticed a strong correlation between people who don't know what 
> > acronyms
> > stand for, and competence.  People who don't know anything try and figure 
> > out
> > what the acronym stands for - people who want to understand things see it as
> > just a place holder.
> 
> [...]
> 
> > Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP 
> > is.
> 
> Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
> but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
> of a lot harder.  In many ways, *that's* the tough bit of finding a good
> screening question. 

Indeed.  I was once filtered out of a sysadmin job at a big search engine 
company.
They asked questions like:
What system call does the ls command make?
I didn't know, but said you could read the source or strace to find out.

They asked me to describe what ARP is.
I basically talked about what an ARP table is and went into detail about 
"who-has" requests for building the table etc... 

and more questions like that.  They seemed lost and didn't seem to know what I 
was talking about.  It was at this point I realized that I was talking to an HR 
screener. The conversation was awkward from this point on as I struggled to 
attempt to guess what might be on the piece of paper as "The Right Answer". 
Needless to say I didn't hear back. Was I what they were looking for? Maybe, 
maybe not. But I was screened out before either of us could find out.  Just as 
well, I'm much happier where I am now. :-)

> Finding good interview questions *in general* isn't all
> that hard.  With a good senior candidate my interview questions could just
> be bringing up problems I've recently solved or am currently wrestling with,
> and having a 30 minute conversation on the problem.  I'll get a very good
> idea of someone's domain knowledge and problem-solving skills by doing that. 
> But there's no way I can ask HR to do that, because they don't know how to
> assess the answer, and as previously demonstrated ("fragmented disks",
> indeed), you can't have HR act as scribe and relay the answer to you,
> because they'll get it wrong, and the interesting bit is the *conversation*,
> not the canned single-shot answer.

Definitely. I like the describe difference between UDP/TCP question.  Another 
fave of mine is "Give me a list of various acronyms and its associated port" 
and give them HTTP/80 as an example. Many interviews end shortly after this one.

> That's my motivation for asking a question as inane as "What does TCP stand
> for?" -- it has an overwhelmingly obvious answer that can be verified in a
> second or two by someone who really doesn't know anything about what they're
> asking.  Give a candidate 10 of those sorts of questions over the phone from
> an HR drone, if they score 8-or-better (for instance) they pass and you get
> to see their resume.  That is, of course, assuming your organisation is so
> screwed up that they won't let you at candidates directly (which is still my
> preferred option -- leave HR to do the paperwork).
 
+1 

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 6, 2012, at 9:06 PM, Matthew Palmer wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 12:51:55PM +1200, Ben Aitchison wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 04:18:21PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0700, Scott Weeks wrote:
 --- ja...@thebaughers.com wrote:
 From: Jason Baugher 
 
 Geez, I'd be happy to find someone with a good attitude, a solid work 
 ethic, and the desire and aptitude to learn. :)
 ---
 
 
 Yeah, that.  But how do you get those folks through the HR 
 process to you, so you can decipher their skill/work ethic 
 level?  What can the HR person ask to find out if someone 
 has these qualities?  OSPF LSA type questions will not help.
>>> 
>>> Don't get HR to do that sort of screening.  They suck mightily at it.  I
>>> lack any sort of HR department to get in the way, and I'm glad of it -- I
>>> don't see the value in having someone who doesn't know anything about the
>>> job get in the way of finding the right person for it.  Sure, get 'em to do
>>> the scutwork of posting job ads, collating resumes, scheduling things and
>>> sending the "lolz no!" responses, but actually filtering?  Nah, I'll do that
>>> bit thanks.  If you have to have HR do a filter call, make it *really*
>>> simple, like "What does TCP stand for?" -- sadly, you'll still probably
>>> filter out half the applicants for a senior position...
>> 
>> I've noticed a strong correlation between people who don't know what acronyms
>> stand for, and competence.  People who don't know anything try and figure out
>> what the acronym stands for - people who want to understand things see it as
>> just a place holder.
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP 
>> is.
> 
> Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
> but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
> of a lot harder.  In many ways, *that's* the tough bit of finding a good
> screening question.  Finding good interview questions *in general* isn't all
> that hard.  With a good senior candidate my interview questions could just
> be bringing up problems I've recently solved or am currently wrestling with,
> and having a 30 minute conversation on the problem.  I'll get a very good
> idea of someone's domain knowledge and problem-solving skills by doing that. 
> But there's no way I can ask HR to do that, because they don't know how to
> assess the answer, and as previously demonstrated ("fragmented disks",
> indeed), you can't have HR act as scribe and relay the answer to you,
> because they'll get it wrong, and the interesting bit is the *conversation*,
> not the canned single-shot answer.

Not so much, if you ask it in a slightly different way

"If it isn't important that you get absolutely every packet, but it is vital 
that your
packets be delivered without delay, would you prefer to use TCP or UDP?"

HR  can ask that. HR can easily evaluate the answer... TCP: Wrong, UDP: Right.
Other interesting selections: Please choose either TCP or UDP (with a note
to the potential interviewer that this person may be very creative, very smart
or may simply have difficulty following directions)

Spending a little time crafting the questions can pay tremendous dividends.

> That's my motivation for asking a question as inane as "What does TCP stand
> for?" -- it has an overwhelmingly obvious answer that can be verified in a
> second or two by someone who really doesn't know anything about what they're
> asking.  Give a candidate 10 of those sorts of questions over the phone from
> an HR drone, if they score 8-or-better (for instance) they pass and you get
> to see their resume.  That is, of course, assuming your organisation is so
> screwed up that they won't let you at candidates directly (which is still my
> preferred option -- leave HR to do the paperwork).

I think there are better questions and ways to ask them that work even for HR
than acronym memorization. I say this as one who could both correctly
configure a router _AND_ probably score nearly 100% on the acronym test.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Palmer]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 12:51:55PM +1200, Ben Aitchison wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 04:18:21PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0700, Scott Weeks wrote:
> > > --- ja...@thebaughers.com wrote:
> > > From: Jason Baugher 
> > > 
> > > Geez, I'd be happy to find someone with a good attitude, a solid work 
> > > ethic, and the desire and aptitude to learn. :)
> > > ---
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Yeah, that.  But how do you get those folks through the HR 
> > > process to you, so you can decipher their skill/work ethic 
> > > level?  What can the HR person ask to find out if someone 
> > > has these qualities?  OSPF LSA type questions will not help.
> > 
> > Don't get HR to do that sort of screening.  They suck mightily at it.  I
> > lack any sort of HR department to get in the way, and I'm glad of it -- I
> > don't see the value in having someone who doesn't know anything about the
> > job get in the way of finding the right person for it.  Sure, get 'em to do
> > the scutwork of posting job ads, collating resumes, scheduling things and
> > sending the "lolz no!" responses, but actually filtering?  Nah, I'll do that
> > bit thanks.  If you have to have HR do a filter call, make it *really*
> > simple, like "What does TCP stand for?" -- sadly, you'll still probably
> > filter out half the applicants for a senior position...
> 
> I've noticed a strong correlation between people who don't know what acronyms
> stand for, and competence.  People who don't know anything try and figure out
> what the acronym stands for - people who want to understand things see it as
> just a place holder.

[...]

> Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP is.

Yes, the difference between TCP and UDP is a much better question to ask,
but having HR assess and act on the answer to the question is a whole hell
of a lot harder.  In many ways, *that's* the tough bit of finding a good
screening question.  Finding good interview questions *in general* isn't all
that hard.  With a good senior candidate my interview questions could just
be bringing up problems I've recently solved or am currently wrestling with,
and having a 30 minute conversation on the problem.  I'll get a very good
idea of someone's domain knowledge and problem-solving skills by doing that. 
But there's no way I can ask HR to do that, because they don't know how to
assess the answer, and as previously demonstrated ("fragmented disks",
indeed), you can't have HR act as scribe and relay the answer to you,
because they'll get it wrong, and the interesting bit is the *conversation*,
not the canned single-shot answer.

That's my motivation for asking a question as inane as "What does TCP stand
for?" -- it has an overwhelmingly obvious answer that can be verified in a
second or two by someone who really doesn't know anything about what they're
asking.  Give a candidate 10 of those sorts of questions over the phone from
an HR drone, if they score 8-or-better (for instance) they pass and you get
to see their resume.  That is, of course, assuming your organisation is so
screwed up that they won't let you at candidates directly (which is still my
preferred option -- leave HR to do the paperwork).

- Matt

-- 
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the
right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment. -- Dorothy Nevill

Re: job screening question

[David Edelman]

On 7/7/12 1:24 AM, "Jared Mauch"  wrote:

>Die proxy arp die. (and that's not German).
>
>I've had a job or consulting gig or two that has inadvertently had this
>as the hidden glue making things work.
>
>(wha, you can't route that subnet out an Ethernet interface without a
>next hop? It's always worked)
>
>I fight with sysadmins to this day about the concept of a broadcast
>domain and subnet... If I hear another case of someone saying that switch
>is the "80" subnet when there are 3 co-existing /24s in that domain I may
>go crazy
>
>I've cleaned up a lot of poor host and network management and it's
>amazing how much a difference the hardware operates without the hacks.
>
>Jared Mauch
>
>On Jul 6, 2012, at 8:51 PM, Ben Aitchison  wrote:
>
>> Routing loops, incorrect
>> subnet masks.  (like when people stick a /24 netmask on a /27 then
>>can't reach another
>> adjacent /27)
>


>We had a pair of diversely located systems operate for about 18 months
>with misconfigured gateway addresses. Proxy ARP kept everything on an
>even keel until one of the systems failed and the traffic routed to the
>remaining system. I arrived on the call in time to hear the sys admins
>saying that they had exceeded the maximum number of ARP entries and were
>going to expand the table :(

Re: job screening question

[Jon Lewis]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2012, George Herbert wrote:


If people don't bother to clean up the resume, either they don't
understand what's relevant now, or they don't care, or they're trying
to hide something.


Or they want to show they've been doing it long enough that they have 
experience working with older gear younger people may not have even heard 
of.  I have experience with Portmasters, Pipelines, and home built Linux 
multiport dialup PPP servers.  None are relevant today.  IMO, at least the 
latter demonstrates some skills.  Rolling your own 80-port dialup 
server in 1995 wasn't just "yum install dialup-server" :)


I don't mention Portmasters or Pipelines on my resume, but I do have 
Livingston and Ascend in the list of [many obsolete] router brands I have 
experience with.  Is that really totally irrelevant now?


--
 Jon Lewis, MCP :)   |  I route
 Senior Network Engineer |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net|
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_

Re: job screening question

[Doug Barton]

On 07/06/2012 16:16, George Herbert wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Nick Hilliard  wrote:
>> On 06/07/2012 23:25, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
>>> The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
>>> paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:
>>>
>>> 1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
>>> as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
>>> that job anyhow.
>>>
>>> 2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They 
>>> recognize it
>>> as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
>>> job.  Loss.
>>>
>>> 3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
>>> the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.
>>
>> or:
>>
>> 4) you get caught out in the interview as being puffed up, but the company
>> hires you anyway despite strongly worded objections from the interviewer,
>> causing the interviewer's eyes to spin in their sockets at the inanity of
>> the decision.  You then spend your entire employment at the company proving
>> your ineptitude beyond all possible doubt.
>>
>> I think this is a win, is it?
> 
> There's also
> 
> 5) Didn't have enough clue about the real world to know you were
> puffing your resume up.
> 
> 6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
> era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
> outright lied.

7) Were the beneficiary of some professional resume service/headhunter.
"You know how to spell 'aych-tee-tee-pee'? Let's list that!"


-- 
If you're never wrong, you're not trying hard enough

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Ben Aitchison  wrote:
> Like when you have a /24 subnet routed to a customer, how many IP
> addresses can they use?  254?  253?  To my thinking - if it's a routed subnet 
> that
> means the gateway is on a different address, and it'd be prudent to still 
> have the
> double broadcast addresses.  It is also possible to utilise all 256 addresses.

There can be hidden down sides to trying that. I tried to use all 17
addresses from my Cox Business Internet /28 (the 16 in the /28 and the
"router's" external address). Rigged it as a /24 inside and used proxy
arp to move the outside addresses back out including the fake .1
default gateway that the router offered arp for but didn't hold.

Only the first 16 of the 17 addresses worked. Which 16? Why, the first
16 the cable modem saw a packet from after power-on.

Made for some interesting debugging.

Regards,
Bill Herrin




-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 9:22 PM, Steven Noble  wrote:
> I have talked to companies who have job openings many
> months old for people who absolutely exist in the silicon
> valley. The hiring company just thinks the people who
> apply are over or under qualified.

I thought someone was overqualified once. My decision was overridden.
I turned out to be very glad it was. He didn't fit the role I thought
I needed but I was able to turn him loose with minimal supervision.
And I was able to go on vacation. :) That was so much more valuable.

Now I know: tell the candidate about the work, all the work not just
the job you thought you would hire for, and let him tell you whether
any of it is beneath him. As long as you get all the skills you need
on the team you can juggle the tasking.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[Ben Aitchison]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 09:19:48AM -0500, Matt Chung wrote:
> A former manager of mine once told me you can gauge a persons understanding
> by the questions they ask and I personally agree with this statement. Most
> of us will be able to make a reasonable assessment of the person by
> listening to the content of their questions. I'm not looking for an
> immediate resolution, but trying to understand the thought process of the
> individual. I feel realistic scenarios provide some insight on the
> individual's analytical skills.
> 
> "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";. What do you do to
> troubleshoot this issue?"

it's blocking icmp echo.. dns works.. with multiple regional dns servers.. 
the page loads for me.. has a modern tcp/ip stack, probably linux judging by
an initial window size of 14600 .. hosted on amazon web services... I'd imagine
that they're unlikely to be blocking icmp totally.. and just the echo.. but
there's still that possibility... (yeah I know it's just an example)

> Depending on the candidate, I've seen a variety of answers:
> 1) "Can you ping the device?"
> 2) "Can you access the gateway?"
> 3) "What does the running config look like on the router"
> 4) "Is there a firewall in between"

heh,.. think i've been on the internet too long.  i think from the destination
site not working and what could be wrong with it.. then work my way back to the
client.

of course i completely skipped in my thinking that maybe other sites don't work
too, and that there could be malware... and i didn't actually try going to the
site with anything other than curl...

i suppose a big part of that particular problem is figuring out if it's at their
end - a greater problem - or an actual problem getting to the site.
 
> I believe these questions may be asked in the right context provided there
> is enough information to isolate the issue to the network however the
> statement is devoid of anything useful that would make the network suspect.
> I would like to hear some questions such as:
> 
> "are other websites accessible? Or is the only website the client is
> experiencing issues with?"
> "was the website working previously? when did it start happening?"
> "what does the client see on their screen ? are they getting an error?"

yeah that's a good idea :)  my order is probably assuming there may be a more
complicated issue, when it could be a simple problem, which actually seems to
be quite common from what i've experienced with technical people.

oh!  the network cable was unplugged!
 
> These questions reflect the persons ability to accurately understand the
> problem before deep diving into the technical details. From there, you can
> get more technical. "Client is receiving an HTTP 404 error." Great, rule
> out network since this is an application layer response...

Some of those type problems have got a lot more complicated.  Like - that could
be a transparent proxy caching an HTTP 404... or the web site could be hosted in
multiple locations and not syncing between them properly, which could still
require some level of debugging..  or someone somehow managed to advertise the
hosts subnet with a more preferred route, then doesn't have the content.  Or 
say someone's decided to do something fancy like give different IP's back from
DNS but giving internal IP addresses back to the local farm.. but they've 
decided
to use Amazon DNS servers.. and set them to give IP .. but the customer happens 
to
be using Amazon DNS servers because they're hosting a web site on Amazon, and 
for
some reason thought it'd be a good idea.. and then the internal IP address of 
course
doesn't have the content.

I suppose that's still application level to some points of view.  It doesn't 
make the
site magically work though, or figure out what's causing it.

Also from my experience, I don't tend to find out one website's not working 
unless it
is working on/off or for other people, and the most common situation seems to 
be some
kind of load balancing with one mirror not working, and I find it helpful to 
check from
a few locations.  And sometimes doing dns lookups, on multiple DNS servers, and 
seeing
a different IP and using curl -x :80 seems to be the easiest way to check 
this.
But that's assuming a transparent proxied network, which tends to mean MTU 
issues show
up as instead "banking web sites aren't working".  Which can show up sometimes 
when
people change routers to one not doing MSS-clamping, and operate at 1492 MTU... 
 The
issue is significant enough, and the problem hard enough for helpdesk type 
people to
diagnose that it's common for MSS clamping to be set at a network level for 
networks
with a significant amount of people with < 1500 MTU.

Ben.

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:04:16 -0700, George Herbert said:
> If people don't bother to clean up the resume, either they don't
> understand what's relevant now, or they don't care, or they're trying
> to hide something.

OK. I admit it.  My resume still lists that I spent a few years hacking
assembler code for OS/VS1 and HASP 30 years ago.

But it's there as one endpoint, that wanders from there, to IBM's VM, to SunOS,
and Sendmail, some AIX and 8 or 9 other Unix flavors (anybody else remember
UTX/32? If so, we need to share a few beers and swap stories:), computer 
security,
to supporting SGI virtual reality systems in the late 90s (IR2 graphics pipes,
woo-hoo), to Linux (my code is in every Android phone out there. OK, only a few
dozen lines, but still ;), helped build a top-5 supercomputer and a few other
things along the way, and now I mostly do high-performance storage
infrastructure. Oh, and a paper in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
along the line. ;)

So no. OS/VS1 isn't relevant now.  What *is* relevant now is that I have 3
decades of experience at being tossed new stuff by the boss and getting up to
speed on it fast. The day my boss walks into my office and says "We've got this
new..." and I'm unable to get up to speed on it faster than anybody else in the
shop is the day it's time for me to retire. ;)

So the OS/VS1 reference stays. ;)



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Re: job screening question

[Jared Mauch]

Die proxy arp die. (and that's not German).

I've had a job or consulting gig or two that has inadvertently had this as the 
hidden glue making things work. 

(wha, you can't route that subnet out an Ethernet interface without a next hop? 
It's always worked)

I fight with sysadmins to this day about the concept of a broadcast domain and 
subnet... If I hear another case of someone saying that switch is the "80" 
subnet when there are 3 co-existing /24s in that domain I may go crazy

I've cleaned up a lot of poor host and network management and it's amazing how 
much a difference the hardware operates without the hacks.  

Jared Mauch

On Jul 6, 2012, at 8:51 PM, Ben Aitchison  wrote:

> Routing loops, incorrect
> subnet masks.  (like when people stick a /24 netmask on a /27 then can't 
> reach another
> adjacent /27)

Re: job screening question

[Steven Noble]

On Jul 6, 2012, at 5:04 PM, George Herbert  wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Steven Noble  wrote:
>> On Jul 6, 2012, at 4:16 PM, George Herbert  wrote:
>> 
>>> 6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
>>> era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
>>> outright lied.
>> 
>> The 7200 is still a heavily used platform today.  It has no correlation with 
>> current skill sets IMHO.
> 
> Would s/7200/2500/g be an adequate correction?
> 
> I know of customers who still have 7200s as well, but in the context
> of ISP network engineering...  Perhaps I'm wrong, but my impression is
> people on this list have generally moved on by now.
> 
> Context matters.  One can always point to lingering examples of older
> technology (if nowhere else, the Computer History Museum 8-).  The
> question is whether the skill is relevant in context.
> 
> I built a nationwide T-1 backbone out of Livingston IRXes once (in the
> early 90s) - the IRX left my resume by the late 1990s.  I know of at
> least one still humming away in a closet, but it's not a relevant
> technology.  I also learned (some) shell commands on a Vax 11/750 when
> they were new and used Apple II's when they were new, and so on.  None
> of these are resume-appropriate now, unless I want a job at the
> Computer History 
Hi George,

I sent the message too soon :(

I meant to say more about how the equipment is not as important as the drive 
and willingness to work with what you have. 

I have talked to companies who have job openings many months old for people who 
absolutely exist in the silicon valley. The hiring company just thinks the 
people who apply are over or under qualified. 

All of the great coders, engineers, etc started somewhere. The main thing that 
separates them from the posers and acronym namers is the willingness to grow, 
learn and dig in. 

I like people who run 2500s in their house, or dd-wrt. It shows they are 
willing to try something and learn.

Re: job screening question

[Ben Aitchison]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 04:18:21PM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0700, Scott Weeks wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > --- ja...@thebaughers.com wrote:
> > From: Jason Baugher 
> > 
> > Geez, I'd be happy to find someone with a good attitude, a solid work 
> > ethic, and the desire and aptitude to learn. :)
> > ---
> > 
> > 
> > Yeah, that.  But how do you get those folks through the HR 
> > process to you, so you can decipher their skill/work ethic 
> > level?  What can the HR person ask to find out if someone 
> > has these qualities?  OSPF LSA type questions will not help.
> 
> Don't get HR to do that sort of screening.  They suck mightily at it.  I
> lack any sort of HR department to get in the way, and I'm glad of it -- I
> don't see the value in having someone who doesn't know anything about the
> job get in the way of finding the right person for it.  Sure, get 'em to do
> the scutwork of posting job ads, collating resumes, scheduling things and
> sending the "lolz no!" responses, but actually filtering?  Nah, I'll do that
> bit thanks.  If you have to have HR do a filter call, make it *really*
> simple, like "What does TCP stand for?" -- sadly, you'll still probably
> filter out half the applicants for a senior position...

I've noticed a strong correlation between people who don't know what acronyms
stand for, and competence.  People who don't know anything try and figure out
what the acronym stands for - people who want to understand things see it as
just a place holder.

Myself, I'm stumbling.. is TCP like GNU (GNU's Not Unix) and someting like TCP
Control Protocol.  Or is it Transmission Contrl Protocol?  Or is it something
else all together.

Really at the end of the day - it doesn't matter.

Maybe it's more significant to ask what the difference between TCP and UDP is.

One thing people seem to like to bring up again and again is subnetting 
questions,
which to me seem quite simple on the surface - but can get a little more
complicated.  Like when you have a /24 subnet routed to a customer, how many IP
addresses can they use?  254?  253?  To my thinking - if it's a routed subnet 
that
means the gateway is on a different address, and it'd be prudent to still have 
the
double broadcast addresses.  It is also possible to utilise all 256 addresses.  

I think where the most significant differences lie isn't in how people can 
answer
verbal or written questions with simple problems but in how quickly people can
diagnose complicated of confusing situations.  

Although often there are steps people can take to mitigate against such, things 
like
foreign DHCP server on the network.  Someone stealing the gateway's IP address 
leading
to intermittent connectivity, but still being able to ping the gateway, and 
other hosts
on the network just not outside the network some of the time.  Routing loops, 
incorrect
subnet masks.  (like when people stick a /24 netmask on a /27 then can't reach 
another
adjacent /27)

I think that anyone reasonable competent should be able to figure these things 
out - but
by seeing how they approach these things, how quickly they can diagnose, and 
fix, and
what level of disruption they cause trying to fix the problem are all 
significant.

Like in the someone stealing gateway address - say there's a file server, 
printer etc on
the local subnet, and people are busy working, then it's probably better not 
being able
to access the larger network, and to keep the local connectivity, but some 
people seem
to have the idea when things aren't working quite right that it's ok to disrupt 
what is
working right.

Ben.

Re: job screening question

[George Herbert]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Steven Noble  wrote:
> On Jul 6, 2012, at 4:16 PM, George Herbert  wrote:
>
>> 6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
>> era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
>> outright lied.
>
> The 7200 is still a heavily used platform today.  It has no correlation with 
> current skill sets IMHO.

Would s/7200/2500/g be an adequate correction?

I know of customers who still have 7200s as well, but in the context
of ISP network engineering...  Perhaps I'm wrong, but my impression is
people on this list have generally moved on by now.

Context matters.  One can always point to lingering examples of older
technology (if nowhere else, the Computer History Museum 8-).  The
question is whether the skill is relevant in context.

I built a nationwide T-1 backbone out of Livingston IRXes once (in the
early 90s) - the IRX left my resume by the late 1990s.  I know of at
least one still humming away in a closet, but it's not a relevant
technology.  I also learned (some) shell commands on a Vax 11/750 when
they were new and used Apple II's when they were new, and so on.  None
of these are resume-appropriate now, unless I want a job at the
Computer History Museum.

If people don't bother to clean up the resume, either they don't
understand what's relevant now, or they don't care, or they're trying
to hide something.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

Re: job screening question

[Steven Noble]

On Jul 6, 2012, at 4:16 PM, George Herbert  wrote:

> 6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
> era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
> outright lied.

The 7200 is still a heavily used platform today.  It has no correlation with 
current skill sets IMHO. 

Re: job screening question

[George Herbert]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Nick Hilliard  wrote:
> On 06/07/2012 23:25, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
>> The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
>> paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:
>>
>> 1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
>> as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
>> that job anyhow.
>>
>> 2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They recognize 
>> it
>> as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
>> job.  Loss.
>>
>> 3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
>> the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.
>
> or:
>
> 4) you get caught out in the interview as being puffed up, but the company
> hires you anyway despite strongly worded objections from the interviewer,
> causing the interviewer's eyes to spin in their sockets at the inanity of
> the decision.  You then spend your entire employment at the company proving
> your ineptitude beyond all possible doubt.
>
> I think this is a win, is it?

There's also

5) Didn't have enough clue about the real world to know you were
puffing your resume up.

6) Puffed it up a little (worked with Cisco routers, but in the 7200
era, and hasn't categorized skills as recent / older), but hasn't
outright lied.


I get resumes all the time that are off in some direction.  Usually 5)
- inflated due to lack of industry scope understanding, some 6).
Neither of these is a disqualifier per se.  The question is what do
they do when you start asking questions and putting it into context.
If they put old skills down and admit it, that's fine, just ask them
how recent all the various things are and note it down.  If they don't
have a clue ("But we had IPv6 coursework in university last
semester!") they may be an OK beginner.  If you're hiring for a junior
position that's fine.  If you're hiring for a more senior one, I
usually let them down gently and explain the scope and breadth of the
things they put down and help them aim their resume more accurately in
the future.

I've had people try to BS me in the interview or outright lie on the
resume beforehand.  A couple of each out of the last... 325 or so
people I've interviewed?  Something like that.  Not very many.  Easy
to spot.  They were not hired.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herb...@gmail.com

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:07:57 +0100, Nick Hilliard said:

> 4) you get caught out in the interview as being puffed up, but the company
> hires you anyway despite strongly worded objections from the interviewer,
> causing the interviewer's eyes to spin in their sockets at the inanity of
> the decision.  You then spend your entire employment at the company proving
> your ineptitude beyond all possible doubt.
>
> I think this is a win, is it?

Yeah - it's a better gig than you would have landed otherwise, isn't it? :)


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Re: job screening question

[Nick Hilliard]

On 06/07/2012 23:25, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
> The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
> paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:
> 
> 1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
> as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
> that job anyhow.
> 
> 2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They recognize 
> it
> as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
> job.  Loss.
> 
> 3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
> the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.

or:

4) you get caught out in the interview as being puffed up, but the company
hires you anyway despite strongly worded objections from the interviewer,
causing the interviewer's eyes to spin in their sockets at the inanity of
the decision.  You then spend your entire employment at the company proving
your ineptitude beyond all possible doubt.

I think this is a win, is it?

Nick

Re: job screening question

[jim deleskie]

Pascal's wager.. almost :)



On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 7:25 PM,   wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:07:51 -0700, goe...@anime.net said:
>
>> This is what baffles me. People keep putting stuff on their resume that
>> they simply don't know anything about. TCP/IP expert, yet they don't know
>> SYN/SYNACK/ACK or subnetting. HTTP expert but they don't know what a 200
>> response is.
>
> The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
> paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:
>
> 1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
> as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
> that job anyhow.
>
> 2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They recognize 
> it
> as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
> job.  Loss.
>
> 3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
> the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.
>

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:07:51 -0700, goe...@anime.net said:

> This is what baffles me. People keep putting stuff on their resume that
> they simply don't know anything about. TCP/IP expert, yet they don't know
> SYN/SYNACK/ACK or subnetting. HTTP expert but they don't know what a 200
> response is.

The Friday afternoon cynic in me says it's because it's a move with positive
paybacks.  There's 3 basic possibilities:

1) You send the puffed resume to a company with clue, it gets recognized
as puffed, and you don't get the job.  Zero loss, you weren't going to get
that job anyhow.

2) You send a boring unpuffed resume to a company sans clue.  They recognize it
as boring because there's only 3 buzzwords on 2 pages, and you don't get the
job.  Loss.

3) You send a puffed resume, and the guy doing the hiring doesn't know what
the 3-packet mating call of the Internet is *either*.  Win.



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Re: job screening question

[goemon]

On Fri, 6 Jul 2012, Nick Hilliard wrote:

On 06/07/2012 16:12, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:42:42 +1000, Matthew Palmer said:

Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
*defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on

Is that an African ps or a European ps? ;)

I'll admit that I once asked a question like in an interview, but it was
only because the candidate had said that he was an expert with the "tar"
command.  If you're going to be that full of poop on a CV, you should
expect to be called up on it.


This is what baffles me. People keep putting stuff on their resume that 
they simply don't know anything about. TCP/IP expert, yet they don't know 
SYN/SYNACK/ACK or subnetting. HTTP expert but they don't know what a 200 
response is.


-Dan

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 6, 2012, at 12:23 PM, Tyler Haske wrote:

> DNA; Homo Sapien.
> 
> Smart questions get smart answers.
> 
> If you want HR to test technical knowledge just make a multiple choice test. 
> (Course then you open a new can of worms).
> 
One of my employers did exactly this.

I provided the answers I believed to be most likely what they were looking for 
in addition to a set of corrections to the questions.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Scott Weeks]

--- d...@bowenvale.co.nz wrote:
From: Don Gould 

I have 25 years IT experience... I've applied for a few jobs in my 
time...  I thought to myself "I'll have a crack with a few comments!!!"...

then I read down the next 30 posts and decided that perhaps I didn't 
really know enough about networking to really comment... 



But seriously guys, great thread with tons of really interesting stuff 
and a bunch of history.
---


Sure as heck had me going to search engines to make sure I knew the 
answers...  ;-)  And, yes, it was an interesting thread.

scott

RE: job screening question

[Eric J Esslinger]

I've dealt with:
1, (yes, no comp, tablet, game console, or other device, other than 
non-internet capable HDTV. They had also just purchased our fastest service 
package. They got irate said were switching to our competitor, who were cheaper 
anyway. Good news for them, we don't do minimum service contracts. Bad news for 
them, the competitor does. ) 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 also 'user has no power but computer 
is on UPS or generator and network gear is not'.
More than once in most cases.

Lots and lots of laptops with wireless card switch flipped to off accidently.

And while I've never had a user call because they are unable to access a 
website because they are dead, I have had a non-user call/email about receiving 
NDR emails regarding email boxes belonging to one of our users we removed after 
notification that the owner was deceased.
That's happened a few times. My call on dealing with that was something along 
the lines of 'That email address has either been changed or the account 
associated with it disconnected, and we are not at liberty to discuss the issue 
further due to customer privacy policies' which is exactly what I say when the 
other possibilities are true.

Actually I had something similar to 'the user is dead'. Guy calls in to 
complain his internet is down. We dig through our system, no record he's a 
customer. After lots of hemming and hawing, admits he leeches unsecured 
wireless connection off next door neighbor. Next door neighbor's next of kin 
just had cable/internet turned off as she passed away, left power on while the 
move stuff out of house, so wireless signal was still present.

For a while I had 3 businesses in the same building that shared the same 
internet connection; However only one was listed on the account/paid the bill. 
Problem A) slow internet (metrics showing that their inbound or outbound is 
pegged, also the company paying bought the cheapest package available) Problem 
B) Cross business compromising of information, printing stuff in other offices 
(two of them were even direct competitors, effectivly) sharing drives across 
bussinesses, a virus outbreak that kept respreading through the network because 
one office didn't seem to care they had a worm, and C) company that owned/paid 
for connection had a tendancy to ignore late notices, because of billing 
schedule stuff the cutoff's would happen on Thursday, the person at that 
company with the authority to write checks only worked Mon-Wed

From: Owen DeLong [o...@delong.com]
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 1:53 PM
To: Keith Medcalf
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: job screening question

On Jul 6, 2012, at 11:41 AM, Keith Medcalf wrote:

>
> My response would be "insufficient information provided for meaningful 
> diagnosis".
>
> The following could be issues:
> ... the user does not have a computer
> ... the computer is not turned on
> ... the keyboard is not plugged in
> ... the user is a quadraplegic and cannot use the mouse or keyboard
> ... the user is blind and cannot find the computer
> ... the user has a computer but is not connected to a network
> ... the monitor is not turned on
> ... the brightness is turned down too far on the monitor
> ... the user is dead

I would argue that the fact the user filed a ticket/contacted the 
helpdesk/whatever to raise the issue indicates that the user probably isn't 
dead.

The rest are semi-legitimate somewhat amusing answers, but you missed many 
possibilities. When providing such a list of answers, always include an etc. at 
the end so as to indicate your understanding that the list is not complete. ;-)

> How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?

When did users become things?

Probably a candidate that made this mistake should be dismissed from 
consideration on that basis alone.

Owen


>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Matt Chung [mailto:itsmemattch...@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Friday, 06 July, 2012 08:20
>> To: joseph.sny...@gmail.com
>> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: job screening question
>>
>> A former manager of mine once told me you can gauge a persons understanding
>> by the questions they ask and I personally agree with this statement. Most
>> of us will be able to make a reasonable assessment of the person by
>> listening to the content of their questions. I'm not looking for an
>> immediate resolution, but trying to understand the thought process of the
>> individual. I feel realistic scenarios provide some insight on the
>> individual's analytical skills.
>>
>> "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";. What do you do to
>> troubleshoot this issue?"
>>
>> Depending on the candidate, I've seen a variety of a

RE: job screening question

[Tyler Haske]

DNA; Homo Sapien.

Smart questions get smart answers.

If you want HR to test technical knowledge just make a multiple choice
test. (Course then you open a new can of worms).

On Jul 6, 2012 3:16 PM, "Keith Medcalf"  wrote:
>
>
> > > "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";
> >
> > >> How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?
> >
> > > When did users become things?
> >
> > > Probably a candidate that made this mistake should be dismissed from
> > > consideration on that basis alone.
> >
> > How do you know that the client is a person?
>
> Perhaps "What language is the client written in, and what Operating
System is it running on?" would be a better response.
>
> ---
> ()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
> /\  www.asciiribbon.org
>
>
>
>

RE: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

> > "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";
>
> >> How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?
>
> > When did users become things?
>
> > Probably a candidate that made this mistake should be dismissed from
> > consideration on that basis alone.
>
> How do you know that the client is a person?

Perhaps "What language is the client written in, and what Operating System is 
it running on?" would be a better response.

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

RE: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

> "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";

>> How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?

> When did users become things?

> Probably a candidate that made this mistake should be dismissed from
> consideration on that basis alone.

How do you know that the client is a person?

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 6, 2012, at 11:41 AM, Keith Medcalf wrote:

> 
> My response would be "insufficient information provided for meaningful 
> diagnosis".
> 
> The following could be issues:
> ... the user does not have a computer
> ... the computer is not turned on
> ... the keyboard is not plugged in
> ... the user is a quadraplegic and cannot use the mouse or keyboard
> ... the user is blind and cannot find the computer
> ... the user has a computer but is not connected to a network
> ... the monitor is not turned on
> ... the brightness is turned down too far on the monitor
> ... the user is dead

I would argue that the fact the user filed a ticket/contacted the 
helpdesk/whatever to raise the issue indicates that the user probably isn't 
dead.

The rest are semi-legitimate somewhat amusing answers, but you missed many 
possibilities. When providing such a list of answers, always include an etc. at 
the end so as to indicate your understanding that the list is not complete. ;-)

> How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?

When did users become things?

Probably a candidate that made this mistake should be dismissed from 
consideration on that basis alone.

Owen


> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Matt Chung [mailto:itsmemattch...@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Friday, 06 July, 2012 08:20
>> To: joseph.sny...@gmail.com
>> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: job screening question
>> 
>> A former manager of mine once told me you can gauge a persons understanding
>> by the questions they ask and I personally agree with this statement. Most
>> of us will be able to make a reasonable assessment of the person by
>> listening to the content of their questions. I'm not looking for an
>> immediate resolution, but trying to understand the thought process of the
>> individual. I feel realistic scenarios provide some insight on the
>> individual's analytical skills.
>> 
>> "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";. What do you do to
>> troubleshoot this issue?"
>> 
>> Depending on the candidate, I've seen a variety of answers:
>> 1) "Can you ping the device?"
>> 2) "Can you access the gateway?"
>> 3) "What does the running config look like on the router"
>> 4) "Is there a firewall in between"
>> 
>> I believe these questions may be asked in the right context provided there
>> is enough information to isolate the issue to the network however the
>> statement is devoid of anything useful that would make the network suspect.
>> I would like to hear some questions such as:
>> 
>> "are other websites accessible? Or is the only website the client is
>> experiencing issues with?"
>> "was the website working previously? when did it start happening?"
>> "what does the client see on their screen ? are they getting an error?"
>> 
>> These questions reflect the persons ability to accurately understand the
>> problem before deep diving into the technical details. From there, you can
>> get more technical. "Client is receiving an HTTP 404 error." Great, rule
>> out network since this is an application layer response...
>> 
>> just my .02.
>> 
>> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 8:28 AM,  wrote:
>> 
>>> I agree. Let the person talk do a few probing questions based off what
>>> they say. If you yourself have any value you should be able to tell if they
>>> have a chance.
>>> 
>>> Also I would prefer someone who says I don't know for sure but maybe
>>> something along these lines, and then wants to know the right answer.
>>> Passion is also important, if you are willing to hire someone who is in it
>>> for just a paycheck, save yourself the headache and get a contractor.
>>> --
>>> Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>>> 
>>> Matthew Palmer  wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:04:05PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
>>>> Diogo Montagner  writes:
>>>>> For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
>>>>> has to be straight to the point, for example:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
>>>>> 
>>>>> This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
>>>>> answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
>>>>> techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
>>>>> differences of

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Palmer]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 11:12:50AM -0400, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:42:42 +1000, Matthew Palmer said:
> 
> > Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
> > *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
> 
> Is that an African ps or a European ps? ;)

That was actually the reason why he picked on ps in particular -- because it
had two completely different command sets and yes, he expects candidates to
know the difference.

- Matt

-- 
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle
them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
-- John Steinbeck

RE: job screening question

[Keith Medcalf]

My response would be "insufficient information provided for meaningful 
diagnosis".

The following could be issues:
... the user does not have a computer
... the computer is not turned on
... the keyboard is not plugged in
... the user is a quadraplegic and cannot use the mouse or keyboard
... the user is blind and cannot find the computer
... the user has a computer but is not connected to a network
... the monitor is not turned on
... the brightness is turned down too far on the monitor
... the user is dead

How does the user know that it cannot access the web site?

---
()  ascii ribbon campaign against html e-mail
/\  www.asciiribbon.org

> -Original Message-
> From: Matt Chung [mailto:itsmemattch...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, 06 July, 2012 08:20
> To: joseph.sny...@gmail.com
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Subject: Re: job screening question
>
> A former manager of mine once told me you can gauge a persons understanding
> by the questions they ask and I personally agree with this statement. Most
> of us will be able to make a reasonable assessment of the person by
> listening to the content of their questions. I'm not looking for an
> immediate resolution, but trying to understand the thought process of the
> individual. I feel realistic scenarios provide some insight on the
> individual's analytical skills.
>
> "A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";. What do you do to
> troubleshoot this issue?"
>
> Depending on the candidate, I've seen a variety of answers:
> 1) "Can you ping the device?"
> 2) "Can you access the gateway?"
> 3) "What does the running config look like on the router"
> 4) "Is there a firewall in between"
>
> I believe these questions may be asked in the right context provided there
> is enough information to isolate the issue to the network however the
> statement is devoid of anything useful that would make the network suspect.
> I would like to hear some questions such as:
>
> "are other websites accessible? Or is the only website the client is
> experiencing issues with?"
> "was the website working previously? when did it start happening?"
> "what does the client see on their screen ? are they getting an error?"
>
> These questions reflect the persons ability to accurately understand the
> problem before deep diving into the technical details. From there, you can
> get more technical. "Client is receiving an HTTP 404 error." Great, rule
> out network since this is an application layer response...
>
> just my .02.
>
> On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 8:28 AM,  wrote:
>
> > I agree. Let the person talk do a few probing questions based off what
> > they say. If you yourself have any value you should be able to tell if they
> > have a chance.
> >
> > Also I would prefer someone who says I don't know for sure but maybe
> > something along these lines, and then wants to know the right answer.
> > Passion is also important, if you are willing to hire someone who is in it
> > for just a paycheck, save yourself the headache and get a contractor.
> > --
> > Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
> >
> > Matthew Palmer  wrote:
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:04:05PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
> > > Diogo Montagner  writes:
> > > > For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> > > > has to be straight to the point, for example:
> > > >
> > > > 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
> > > >
> > > > This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> > > > answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> > > > techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> > > > differences of LSA 5 and 7.
> > >
> > > Frankly, this feels a bit like asking what the 9th byte in an IP
> > > header is used for (it's TTL, but who's, uh, counting?) -- "That's why
> > > God gave us packet analyzers" should be counted as an acceptable
> > > answer. If not, you'll find yourself skipping over plenty of
> > > extremely well qualified candidates in favor of those who have crammed
> > > recently for some sort of exam in hopes of compensating for their
> > > short CV.
> >
> > Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
> > *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
> > the basis that "any senior person who knows what they're doing should know
> > all the options to ps!". No, you useless tit, anyone who knows what they're
> > doing should know how to read a bloody manpage.
> >
> > Trivia tests get you hiring people who know trivia. Knowing trivia has it's
> > productivity benefits, but if you can't apply it, it's useless.
> >
> > - Matt
> >
> > --
> > Politics and religion are just like software and hardware. They all suck,
> > the documentation is provably incorrect, and all the vendors tell lies.
> > -- Andrew Dalgleish, in the Monastery
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> -Matt Chung

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 11:50 AM, Nick Hilliard  wrote:
> I'll admit that I once asked a question like in an interview, but it was
> only because the candidate had said that he was an expert with the "tar"
> command.  If you're going to be that full of poop on a CV, you should
> expect to be called up on it.
>
> [against my advice, the candidate was hired and was a disaster.  I left the
> company shortly afterwards.]

That sounds like the guy who on his resume under "training" listed the
3-day course and certification he got in configuring Kentrox CSU/DSUs.
The limited space one has on a resume to present oneself and that's
what he chose to tell me.

I understand that maybe his company made him do it but there are some
things you just don't admit to.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[Nick Hilliard]

On 06/07/2012 16:12, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:42:42 +1000, Matthew Palmer said:
> 
>> Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
>> *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
> 
> Is that an African ps or a European ps? ;)

I'll admit that I once asked a question like in an interview, but it was
only because the candidate had said that he was an expert with the "tar"
command.  If you're going to be that full of poop on a CV, you should
expect to be called up on it.

[against my advice, the candidate was hired and was a disaster.  I left the
company shortly afterwards.]

Nick

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:42:42 +1000, Matthew Palmer said:

> Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
> *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on

Is that an African ps or a European ps? ;)


pgprEsHT9Ps02.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: job screening question

[Matt Chung]

A former manager of mine once told me you can gauge a persons understanding
by the questions they ask and I personally agree with this statement. Most
of us will be able to make a reasonable assessment of the person by
listening to the content of their questions. I'm not looking for an
immediate resolution, but trying to understand the thought process of the
individual. I feel realistic scenarios provide some insight on the
individual's analytical skills.

"A client cannot access the website "http://xyz.com";. What do you do to
troubleshoot this issue?"

Depending on the candidate, I've seen a variety of answers:
1) "Can you ping the device?"
2) "Can you access the gateway?"
3) "What does the running config look like on the router"
4) "Is there a firewall in between"

I believe these questions may be asked in the right context provided there
is enough information to isolate the issue to the network however the
statement is devoid of anything useful that would make the network suspect.
I would like to hear some questions such as:

"are other websites accessible? Or is the only website the client is
experiencing issues with?"
"was the website working previously? when did it start happening?"
"what does the client see on their screen ? are they getting an error?"

These questions reflect the persons ability to accurately understand the
problem before deep diving into the technical details. From there, you can
get more technical. "Client is receiving an HTTP 404 error." Great, rule
out network since this is an application layer response...

just my .02.

On Fri, Jul 6, 2012 at 8:28 AM,  wrote:

> I agree. Let the person talk do a few probing questions based off what
> they say. If you yourself have any value you should be able to tell if they
> have a chance.
>
> Also I would prefer someone who says I don't know for sure but maybe
> something along these lines, and then wants to know the right answer.
> Passion is also important, if you are willing to hire someone who is in it
> for just a paycheck, save yourself the headache and get a contractor.
> --
> Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> Matthew Palmer  wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:04:05PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
> > Diogo Montagner  writes:
> > > For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> > > has to be straight to the point, for example:
> > >
> > > 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
> > >
> > > This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> > > answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> > > techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> > > differences of LSA 5 and 7.
> >
> > Frankly, this feels a bit like asking what the 9th byte in an IP
> > header is used for (it's TTL, but who's, uh, counting?) -- "That's why
> > God gave us packet analyzers" should be counted as an acceptable
> > answer. If not, you'll find yourself skipping over plenty of
> > extremely well qualified candidates in favor of those who have crammed
> > recently for some sort of exam in hopes of compensating for their
> > short CV.
>
> Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
> *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
> the basis that "any senior person who knows what they're doing should know
> all the options to ps!". No, you useless tit, anyone who knows what they're
> doing should know how to read a bloody manpage.
>
> Trivia tests get you hiring people who know trivia. Knowing trivia has it's
> productivity benefits, but if you can't apply it, it's useless.
>
> - Matt
>
> --
> Politics and religion are just like software and hardware. They all suck,
> the documentation is provably incorrect, and all the vendors tell lies.
> -- Andrew Dalgleish, in the Monastery
>
>
>


-- 
-Matt Chung

Re: job screening question

[joseph . snyder]

I agree. Let the person talk do a few probing questions based off what they 
say. If you yourself have any value you should be able to tell if they have a 
chance.

Also I would prefer someone who says I don't know for sure but maybe something 
along these lines, and then wants to know the right answer. Passion is also 
important, if you are willing to hire someone who is in it for just a paycheck, 
save yourself the headache and get a contractor.
-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Matthew Palmer  wrote:

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:04:05PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
> Diogo Montagner  writes:
> > For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> > has to be straight to the point, for example:
> >
> > 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
> >
> > This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> > answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> > techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> > differences of LSA 5 and 7.
> 
> Frankly, this feels a bit like asking what the 9th byte in an IP
> header is used for (it's TTL, but who's, uh, counting?) -- "That's why
> God gave us packet analyzers" should be counted as an acceptable
> answer. If not, you'll find yourself skipping over plenty of
> extremely well qualified candidates in favor of those who have crammed
> recently for some sort of exam in hopes of compensating for their
> short CV.

Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
*defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
the basis that "any senior person who knows what they're doing should know
all the options to ps!". No, you useless tit, anyone who knows what they're
doing should know how to read a bloody manpage.

Trivia tests get you hiring people who know trivia. Knowing trivia has it's
productivity benefits, but if you can't apply it, it's useless.

- Matt

-- 
Politics and religion are just like software and hardware. They all suck,
the documentation is provably incorrect, and all the vendors tell lies.
-- Andrew Dalgleish, in the Monastery

Re: job screening question

[Ray Wong]

>
> Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
> *defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
> the basis that "any senior person who knows what they're doing should know
> all the options to ps!".  No, you useless tit, anyone who knows what they're
> doing should know how to read a bloody manpage.
>

Beyond that, if by "Senior" the role is the one the other tech people
turn to when they're out of knowledge/skills/ability, there's just too
much breadth to remember every detail about every tool. Quite the
opposite from remembering every option to a tool, it's impossible to
even keep track of every tool. The job as "senior" people is to figure
out the stuff that we don't always know within that company.

The main benefit of questions for HR to ask is the bozon filter: make
sure it's actually someone who does network, or systems, or database,
or whatever work. If one question (or even 10) could reveal the level
of responsibility someone were capable of, we wouldn't need the
interview process.

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Palmer]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:04:05PM -0400, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
> Diogo Montagner  writes:
> > For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> > has to be straight to the point, for example:
> >
> > 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
> >
> > This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> > answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> > techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> > differences of LSA 5 and 7.
> 
> Frankly, this feels a bit like asking what the 9th byte in an IP
> header is used for (it's TTL, but who's, uh, counting?) -- "That's why
> God gave us packet analyzers" should be counted as an acceptable
> answer.  If not, you'll find yourself skipping over plenty of
> extremely well qualified candidates in favor of those who have crammed
> recently for some sort of exam in hopes of compensating for their
> short CV.

Ugh, I know someone (thankfully no longer a current colleague) who ardently
*defends* his use of questions like "what does the -M option to ps do?" on
the basis that "any senior person who knows what they're doing should know
all the options to ps!".  No, you useless tit, anyone who knows what they're
doing should know how to read a bloody manpage.

Trivia tests get you hiring people who know trivia.  Knowing trivia has it's
productivity benefits, but if you can't apply it, it's useless.

- Matt

-- 
Politics and religion are just like software and hardware. They all suck,
the documentation is provably incorrect, and all the vendors tell lies.
-- Andrew Dalgleish, in the Monastery

Re: job screening question

[Elmar K. Bins]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Randy  wrote:
> How about another HR-Question:
>
> what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes accomplish?

Nothing much. The first is half-assed and the second's a typo.

El "do I get the job?" mar...

Re: job screening question

[Don Gould]

Ok, so I read over Williams OP...

I have 25 years IT experience... I've applied for a few jobs in my 
time...  I thought to myself "I'll have a crack with a few comments!!!"...


then I read down the next 30 posts and decided that perhaps I didn't 
really know enough about networking to really comment...  ...and perhaps 
I needed a bit more grey hair and eat more RFCs for breakfast...


...then I read down the next 30 posts and realised that I really didn't 
know enough about computing to comment  ...and perhaps my problem 
wasn't lack of grey hair, but just to much hair...


...Talk about a bunch of intimidating uber geeks! :)

I suspect that when I read down the next 30 posts I'll just back away 
from the computer slowly knowing that I'm just not smart enough to use 
this device.


But seriously guys, great thread with tons of really interesting stuff 
and a bunch of history.


D

On 6/07/2012 5:02 a.m., William Herrin wrote:

Hi folks,

I gave my HR folks a screening question to ask candidates for an IP
expert position. I've gotten some "unexpected" answers, so I want to
do a sanity check and make sure I'm not asking something unreasonable.
And by "unexpected" I don't mean naively incorrect answers, I mean
oh-my-God-how-did-you-get-that-cisco-certification answers.

The question was:

You implement a firewall on which you block all ICMP packets. What
part of the TCP protocol (not IP in general, TCP specifically)
malfunctions as a result?


My questions for you are:

1. As an expert who follows NANOG, do you know the answer? Or is this
question too hard?

2. Is the question too vague? Is there a clearer way to word it?

3. Is there a better screening question I could pass to HR to ask and
check the candidate's response against the supplied answer?

Thanks,
Bill Herrin




--
Don Gould
31 Acheson Ave
Mairehau
Christchurch, New Zealand
Ph: + 64 3 348 7235
Mobile: + 64 21 114 0699

Re: job screening question

[Matthew Palmer]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 05:01:39PM -0700, Scott Weeks wrote:
> 
> 
> --- ja...@thebaughers.com wrote:
> From: Jason Baugher 
> 
> Geez, I'd be happy to find someone with a good attitude, a solid work 
> ethic, and the desire and aptitude to learn. :)
> ---
> 
> 
> Yeah, that.  But how do you get those folks through the HR 
> process to you, so you can decipher their skill/work ethic 
> level?  What can the HR person ask to find out if someone 
> has these qualities?  OSPF LSA type questions will not help.

Don't get HR to do that sort of screening.  They suck mightily at it.  I
lack any sort of HR department to get in the way, and I'm glad of it -- I
don't see the value in having someone who doesn't know anything about the
job get in the way of finding the right person for it.  Sure, get 'em to do
the scutwork of posting job ads, collating resumes, scheduling things and
sending the "lolz no!" responses, but actually filtering?  Nah, I'll do that
bit thanks.  If you have to have HR do a filter call, make it *really*
simple, like "What does TCP stand for?" -- sadly, you'll still probably
filter out half the applicants for a senior position...

- Matt

Re: job screening question

[David Casey]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 18:32, William Herrin  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:22 PM, Owen DeLong  wrote:
>> I would use questions such as the following:
>> 
>> 1.  How many end-sites can be numbered from a single /32.
>>(Correct answers: IPv4 - 1, IPv6 - 65,536)
> 
> IPv6 - 16,777,216 to 268,435,456 :p
> 
> 
>> 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
>> collision domain?
> 
> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?

Today. Legacy devices still require half-duplex sometimes.

Dave

Re: job screening question

[Randy]

--- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:

> From: William Herrin 
> Subject: Re: job screening question
> To: "Randy" 
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 6:33 PM
> > Can you post a sample of the
> "answers" you have received; which
> > prompted you the ask this question to begin with.
> 
> I've been asking the question in phone interviews for
> months. I
> couldn't quote them properly but the answers were...
> discouraging. No
> one beyond ping and traceroute.
> 
> I asked HR last week to start asking the question as a
> pre-screen and
> forward me the answer. The first one responded "This would
> block all
> IP traffic." I figured it was time for a sanity check to
> make sure the
> question was reasonable.
> 
> Regards,
> Bill
> 


yesin that reagard, "resonable".
It is a shame that -

Noc-Techs; these days are classified as:

1) Network Engineers/Prouction Engineers/Customer Support Engineers/Sr. Tech 
Support Engineers
Enough Said.
./Randy

Re: job screening question

[Ramanpreet Singh]

Aaawwe

On Jul 5, 2012 7:10 PM, "Randy"  wrote:

> --- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:
>
> > From: William Herrin 
> > Subject: Re: job screening question
> > To: "Jon Lewis" 
> > Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" 
> > Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 6:43 PM
> > On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Jon
> > Lewis 
> > wrote:
> > > You've never (much less recently) seen a customer
> > misconfigure their end of
> > > an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex
> > mismatch? Granted, in
> > > that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half
> > half-duplex ethernet :)
> >
> > If I was asking an ethernet question, I'd rather ask:
> >
> > 1. How do you make a crossover ethernet cable to connect two
> > switches?
> > (cross the green and orange pairs)
> >
> > 2. What happens if you plug that cable into a pair of
> > gigabit ethernet
> > switches? (mdix malfunctions, ports negotiate to 100 full,
> > on some
> > poorly implemented switches the mix of straight and crossed
> > wires
> > eventually damage the ports so they can no longer do gige)
> >
> > Regards,
> > Bill Herrin
>
>
> Or for that matter, in the absence of auto-MDI/MDIX:
>
> 1) when is a straight-through cable *required*?
> 2) when is a cross-over cable *required*?
>
> How about another HR-Question:
>
> what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes accomplish?
>
> ./Randy
>
>

Re: job screening question

[Randy]

--- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:

> From: William Herrin 
> Subject: Re: job screening question
> To: "Randy" 
> Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" 
> Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 7:36 PM
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:10 PM,
> Randy 
> wrote:
> > How about another HR-Question:
> >
> > what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes
> accomplish?
> 
> Override the dynamic (e.g. DHCP) default route. Often so you
> can
> implement a workaround that central Network Security
> wouldn't approve
> of. :-)


Yes of course! But NOT the "answer" I am looking for(..and want to hear..) 
because -

1) having such default-routes "internally" is a terribly-bad/broken idea.

I am looking for a "candidate" who can actually say the same and go on to say: 
"it is a kludge that can be put in place to load-share between two links to 
upstreams when "budgetary-constraints" prevent us from anything but 
static-routing - two upstreams terminating on the same router.

There You go:

So, There are some questions (includes Your original-question) that HR should 
not be asking.

There is a big difference between Engineering-Management and 
Management-Engineering.(Morton Thiokol/Challenger is a classic case in 
point.)
Regards,
./Randy


> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
> 
> -- 
> William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com 
> b...@herrin.us
> 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
>

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

> 
> Add in a couple of 2 port bridges to reframe things, and it's quite
> possible to run a layer 2 ethernet that is 10's of km long, and has
> thousands of hosts on it.  There was a day when 3000-4000 hosts on
> a single layer 2 network at 10Mbps was living large.
> 

The bridges terminate the collision domain though not the broadcast
domain.

That was one reason for specifying a collision domain rather than
using terms such as subnet, network, etc.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 8:05 PM, William Herrin wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Owen DeLong  wrote:
>> On Jul 5, 2012, at 5:50 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
>>> --- b...@herrin.us wrote:
>>> From: William Herrin 
>>> 
 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
 collision domain?
>>> 
>>> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
>>> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?
>>> -
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Now if someone answered it that way, I'd definitely be
>>> interested while the HR person would just hang up...
>> 
>> +1 -- That would be a perfectly valid answer and one of the list of answers 
>> I would actually give to HR.
> 
> Incidentally, 100m was the segment limit. IIRC the collision domain
> comprising the longest wire distance between any two hosts was larger,
> something around 200m for fast ethernet. Essentially, the collision
> signal caused by receiving the first bit of the overlapping packet had
> to get back to the sender before the sender finished the 64-byte
> minimum-size packet. Allow for the speed of light and variances in the
> electronics and that was the width of the collision domain.
> 
It was, but only if the device in between segments provided "retiming"
which basically meant collision-handling buffering.

The requirement was (IIRC) that the preamble traverse the entire wire
so that everyone could hear it and back off before data hit the wire.

Bonus points for knowing that a "late collision" describes "hearing" a
collision after you started transmitting data.

> Carrier sensing multiple access with collision detection. CSMA/CD. I
> haven't thought about that in a long time.

Heh... It still has its uses, even in human conversations. ;-)

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:05:21PM -0400, William Herrin 
wrote:
> Incidentally, 100m was the segment limit. IIRC the collision domain
> comprising the longest wire distance between any two hosts was larger,
> something around 200m for fast ethernet. Essentially, the collision

Actually it can be much longer, having worked on a longer such ethernet
many, many moons ago.

The longest spec-complaint, repeated only network looks like:

   |
   | Host Segment
   | 
   + Copper to Fiber Repeater
   |
   | 2km fiber, no hosts
   |
   + Copper to Fiber Repeater
   |
   | Host Segment, with or without hosts
   |
   + Copper to Fiber Repeater
   |
   | 2km fiber, no hosts
   |
   + Copper to Fiber Repeater
   |
   | Host Segment
   | 

With 10base5, a copper segment can be 500m, so 500+2000+500+2000+500, or
5.5km.

With 10base2, a copper segment can be 185m, so 185+2000+185+2000+185, or 
4.5km.

WIth 10baseT, a copper segment can be 100m, so 100+2000+100+2000+100, or
4.4km.

The introduction of fiber repeaters is why folks started to use the
broken term "half repeater".  This was so folks who learned the
rules as "2 repeaters in the path" could deal with the fact that
it's actually the 5-4-3 rule, so they called the 4 repeaters two
half repeaters.

Of course, each repeater could be a multi-port repeater (or a hub in
10baseT speak) and thus have a star configuration off of it in the
diagram.

Add in a couple of 2 port bridges to reframe things, and it's quite
possible to run a layer 2 ethernet that is 10's of km long, and has
thousands of hosts on it.  There was a day when 3000-4000 hosts on
a single layer 2 network at 10Mbps was living large.

Thankfully, not anymore.

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


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Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:25 PM, Owen DeLong  wrote:
> On Jul 5, 2012, at 5:50 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:
>> --- b...@herrin.us wrote:
>> From: William Herrin 
>>
>>> 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
>>> collision domain?
>>
>> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
>> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?
>> -
>>
>>
>> Now if someone answered it that way, I'd definitely be
>> interested while the HR person would just hang up...
>
> +1 -- That would be a perfectly valid answer and one of the list of answers I 
> would actually give to HR.

Incidentally, 100m was the segment limit. IIRC the collision domain
comprising the longest wire distance between any two hosts was larger,
something around 200m for fast ethernet. Essentially, the collision
signal caused by receiving the first bit of the overlapping packet had
to get back to the sender before the sender finished the 64-byte
minimum-size packet. Allow for the speed of light and variances in the
electronics and that was the width of the collision domain.

Carrier sensing multiple access with collision detection. CSMA/CD. I
haven't thought about that in a long time.

-Bill

-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[Robert E. Seastrom]

Diogo Montagner  writes:

> For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> has to be straight to the point, for example:
>
> 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
>
> This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> differences of LSA 5 and 7.

Frankly, this feels a bit like asking what the 9th byte in an IP
header is used for (it's TTL, but who's, uh, counting?) -- "That's why
God gave us packet analyzers" should be counted as an acceptable
answer.  If not, you'll find yourself skipping over plenty of
extremely well qualified candidates in favor of those who have crammed
recently for some sort of exam in hopes of compensating for their
short CV.

-r

Re: job screening question

[Jared Mauch]

Agreed. I wouldn't know the answer to this nor do I care

Not because it's not important and not because i couldn't figure it out, but 
because it's like asking me to implement the spec.. Now if you asked me about 
what a bgp marker or mp-nlri looks like I can answer that. Same goes for why 
ssm, and what multicast groups shouldn't be forwarded off-LAN. (And those that 
you might want to hack around with an application relay to other LANs).

- Jared 

On Jul 5, 2012, at 7:48 PM, "Scott Weeks"  wrote:

> How often do you use this in everyday netgeeking?  Asking these
> types of questions will assure that you get someone with a vendor
> i-drank-the-kool-aid cert because they memorized the answers, but 
> maybe not the best candidate for the position.  However, with some 
> of today's managers kool-aid certs are looked on as better than an 
> engineering degree.  Go figure...  :-(

Re: job screening question

[Jared Mauch]

Long long time ago I was asked a good one: is ospf TCP or udp.

Thankfully I knew the answer.

On Jul 5, 2012, at 7:20 PM, Diogo Montagner  wrote:

> 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:28 PM, Jon Lewis wrote:

> On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, William Herrin wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:22 PM, Owen DeLong  wrote:
>>> I would use questions such as the following:
>>> 
>>> 1.  How many end-sites can be numbered from a single /32.
>>>(Correct answers: IPv4 - 1, IPv6 - 65,536)
>> 
>> IPv6 - 16,777,216 to 268,435,456 :p
>> 

I'd accept those if I was willing to send the candidate to rational IPv6 
networking re-education camp.
If I expected the candidate to be able to do real work immediately, I would 
require the correct answer
as specified above.

Assigning a /56 to an end-site is bad juju. Assigning a /60 is pure useless 
evil.


>> 
>>> 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
>>> collision domain?
>> 
>> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
>> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?
> 
> You've never (much less recently) seen a customer misconfigure their end of 
> an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex mismatch? Granted, in 
> that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half half-duplex ethernet :)

Either way, the collision domain itself is irrelevant to the question at 
hand... The important thing is to find out that the candidate understands what 
an ethernet pre-amble is and why it is important.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Randy  wrote:
> How about another HR-Question:
>
> what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes accomplish?

Override the dynamic (e.g. DHCP) default route. Often so you can
implement a workaround that central Network Security wouldn't approve
of. :-)

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[David Edelman]

On 7/6/12 2:10 AM, "Randy"  wrote:

>--- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:
>
>> From: William Herrin 
>> Subject: Re: job screening question
>> To: "Jon Lewis" 
>> Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" 
>> Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 6:43 PM
>> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Jon
>> Lewis 
>> wrote:
>> > You've never (much less recently) seen a customer
>> misconfigure their end of
>> > an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex
>> mismatch? Granted, in
>> > that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half
>> half-duplex ethernet :)
>> 
>> If I was asking an ethernet question, I'd rather ask:
>> 
>> 1. How do you make a crossover ethernet cable to connect two
>> switches?
>> (cross the green and orange pairs)
>> 
>> 2. What happens if you plug that cable into a pair of
>> gigabit ethernet
>> switches? (mdix malfunctions, ports negotiate to 100 full,
>> on some
>> poorly implemented switches the mix of straight and crossed
>> wires
>> eventually damage the ports so they can no longer do gige)
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Bill Herrin
>
>
>Or for that matter, in the absence of auto-MDI/MDIX:
>
>1) when is a straight-through cable *required*?
>2) when is a cross-over cable *required*?
>
>How about another HR-Question:
>
>what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes accomplish?
>
>./Randy
>

My favorite screening question at the moment is: What does a NULL-Route
for 169.254.0.0/16 not fix on a Cisco router? Answer - Compliance with RFC
3927 because it doesn't fix the problem of a link-local source address.
Answers that also mention proxy-ARP result in immediate interviews.

--Dave

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:09 PM, William Herrin wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Randy  wrote:
>> --- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:
>>> The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just
>>> fine.
>> 
>> Precisely! and if I understand correctly, a non-techinical person
>> within HR is expected to hear this answer and relay it to you?
>> That is more than a long shot. Unless of course they have
>> photographic memories, are great typists or perhaps do
>> "short hand".
> 
> So I get a garbled answer about disk fragmentation. I can't tell the
> difference between an answer garbled in transit and an answer that was
> flat wrong to begin with?
> 

I suspect this was a candidate answer about "Packet Fragmentation" (e.g.
the answer you were looking for) and that your HR might have translated
"packet" into "disk" because that's the only place they've heard of 
fragmentation.

> The point of the question is to help me decide which people I want to
> spend half an hour on the phone with and which ones get a polite
> thank-you-not-it from HR while I do the parts of my job that don't
> involve interviewing folks. If there's any doubt about whether they
> belong in the not-it category, they proceed to the phone interview.

Makes sense, but, the example garbled answer you provided seems
entirely legitimate to me.

> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
> 
> P.S. Yes, I got an answer about "degrading DNS port unreachables and
> MTU disk fragmenting as well." I asked HR to set up a phone interview.
> If that wasn't an HR garble, I *really* want to hear the explanation.
> :D
> 

Yep... Pretty sure that everything you listed here so far would be an HR garble
of a legitimately correct (within your parameters) answer.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:17 PM, valdis.kletni...@vt.edu wrote:

> On Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:05:01 -0600, Derek Andrew said:
>> Isn't MTU discovery on IP and not TCP?
> 
> AIX actually supported PMTUD for UDP.  Not sure if it still does.  Yes, it was
> bizarro even for AIX.  No, I'm not aware of any actual UDP applications that
> were able to do anything useful with this info. ;)
> 

Think IPSEC NAT Traversal over UDP and/or Teredo.

(Yes, Teredo is ugly and should be banned from any legitimate network, but...)

Owen

Re: job screening question

[Owen DeLong]

On Jul 5, 2012, at 5:50 PM, Scott Weeks wrote:

> 
> 
> --- b...@herrin.us wrote:
> From: William Herrin 
> 
>> 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
>> collision domain?
> 
> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?
> -
> 
> 
> Now if someone answered it that way, I'd definitely be 
> interested while the HR person would just hang up...
> 
> scott

+1 -- That would be a perfectly valid answer and one of the list of answers I 
would actually give to HR.

Owen

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:36:34 -0700, Leo Bicknell said:
> If any employer thought that was useful knowledge for a job today I
> would probably run away, as fast as possible!

Only way I'd take that job is with both budget and authority to
clean up the mess.  However, those kind of things are usually
politically messy enough that you don't want to be the FTE who
does it - that's what consultants are for. :)


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Re: job screening question

[David Edelman]

On 7/6/12 12:50 AM, "Scott Weeks"  wrote:

>
>
>--- b...@herrin.us wrote:
>From: William Herrin 
>
>> 5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an
>>ethernet collision domain?
>
>What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
>you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?
>-
>
>
>Now if someone answered it that way, I'd definitely be
>interested while the HR person would just hang up...
>
>scott
>

Anyone who responds that way has at least a notion of collision detection
and propagation delay and might actually have a bit of experience in the
field, not bad things. Is the next question about exponential back off or
regeneration of preamble?

--Dave
>

Re: job screening question

[Randy]

--- On Thu, 7/5/12, William Herrin  wrote:

> From: William Herrin 
> Subject: Re: job screening question
> To: "Jon Lewis" 
> Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" 
> Date: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 6:43 PM
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Jon
> Lewis 
> wrote:
> > You've never (much less recently) seen a customer
> misconfigure their end of
> > an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex
> mismatch? Granted, in
> > that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half
> half-duplex ethernet :)
> 
> If I was asking an ethernet question, I'd rather ask:
> 
> 1. How do you make a crossover ethernet cable to connect two
> switches?
> (cross the green and orange pairs)
> 
> 2. What happens if you plug that cable into a pair of
> gigabit ethernet
> switches? (mdix malfunctions, ports negotiate to 100 full,
> on some
> poorly implemented switches the mix of straight and crossed
> wires
> eventually damage the ports so they can no longer do gige)
> 
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin


Or for that matter, in the absence of auto-MDI/MDIX:

1) when is a straight-through cable *required*?
2) when is a cross-over cable *required*?

How about another HR-Question:

what do 0.0.0.0/1 and 128.0.0.0.0/1 as static-routes accomplish?

./Randy

Re: job screening question

[Diogo Montagner]

Maybe I was not too clear with my answer.

The main idea was to execute a first level of filtering to separate
the candidates that put information in their CV that does not match
with the basic requirements for the position.

For example:

- requirement: strong knowledge in routing protocols (list of
protocols, including OSPF)

If the person don't know the answer about the LSA type, it is already
out and you don't need to alocatte a technical interviewer for that.

On the other hand, if the person correct answer the question, it does
not mean he or she is a good candidate. But at least you can allocate
an tech interviewer to check in details the person's knowledge. And
will the person guess all type of basic question he or she can get in
the first level of interview ? Well, if the homework was properly,
maybe. But then at least you have someone with attitude (preparation
for the interview).

I agree with who answered that attitude is one important point. If in
your organization you can allocate a tech interviewer since the first
interview, that IMO will help a lot and it is the best scenario for
recruiting. But even though you get a strong technical engineer, you
still need to assess his soft skills.

Regards





On 7/6/12, Scott Weeks  wrote:
>
> --- diogo.montag...@gmail.com wrote:\
> From: Diogo Montagner 
>
> For screening questions (for 1st level filtering), IMO, the questions
> has to be straight to the point, for example:
>
> 1) What is the LSA number for an external route in OSPF?
>
> This can have two answer: 5 or 7. So, I will accept if the candidate
> answer 5, 7 or 5 and 7. Later on (the next level of the interview), a
> techinical interviewer will chech if the candidate understand the
> differences of LSA 5 and 7.
> ---
>
>
> How often do you use this in everyday netgeeking?  Asking these
> types of questions will assure that you get someone with a vendor
> i-drank-the-kool-aid cert because they memorized the answers, but
> maybe not the best candidate for the position.  However, with some
> of today's managers kool-aid certs are looked on as better than an
> engineering degree.  Go figure...  :-(
>
> scott
>
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device

./diogo -montagner
JNCIE-M 0x41A

Re: job screening question

[Scott Howard]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 10:16 AM, David Coulson wrote:

> What if they said "it would cause the generation of port-unreachable ICMP
> packets to cease, and applications may hang until they timeout"? Not the
> answer you're looking for, but not wrong either.
>

Umm, yeah, it is wrong.  The question was TCP.  TCP doesn't send ICMP
Port-Unreach, it sends RST packets.

  Scott

Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:28 PM, Jon Lewis  wrote:
> You've never (much less recently) seen a customer misconfigure their end of
> an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex mismatch? Granted, in
> that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half half-duplex ethernet :)

If I was asking an ethernet question, I'd rather ask:

1. How do you make a crossover ethernet cable to connect two switches?
(cross the green and orange pairs)

2. What happens if you plug that cable into a pair of gigabit ethernet
switches? (mdix malfunctions, ports negotiate to 100 full, on some
poorly implemented switches the mix of straight and crossed wires
eventually damage the ports so they can no longer do gige)

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 08:32:46PM -0400, William Herrin 
wrote:
> What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
> you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?

5 segments
4 repeaters
3 segments with transmitting hosts
2 transit segments
1 collision domain

If any employer thought that was useful knowledge for a job today I
would probably run away, as fast as possible!

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


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Re: job screening question

[William Herrin]

> Can you post a sample of the "answers" you have received; which
> prompted you the ask this question to begin with.

I've been asking the question in phone interviews for months. I
couldn't quote them properly but the answers were... discouraging. No
one beyond ping and traceroute.

I asked HR last week to start asking the question as a pre-screen and
forward me the answer. The first one responded "This would block all
IP traffic." I figured it was time for a sanity check to make sure the
question was reasonable.

Regards,
Bill

-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: job screening question

[Jon Lewis]

On Thu, 5 Jul 2012, William Herrin wrote:


On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 8:22 PM, Owen DeLong  wrote:

I would use questions such as the following:

1.  How many end-sites can be numbered from a single /32.
(Correct answers: IPv4 - 1, IPv6 - 65,536)


IPv6 - 16,777,216 to 268,435,456 :p



5.  What is the reason for the 100m distance limit within an ethernet 
collision domain?


What's an ethernet collision domain? Seriously, when was the last time
you dealt with a half duplex ethernet?


You've never (much less recently) seen a customer misconfigure their end 
of an ethernet handoff such that you end up with duplex mismatch? 
Granted, in that case, distance is irrelevant...but it is half half-duplex 
ethernet :)


--
 Jon Lewis, MCP :)   |  I route
 Senior Network Engineer |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net|
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_

Re: job screening question

[valdis . kletnieks]

On Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:05:01 -0600, Derek Andrew said:
> Isn't MTU discovery on IP and not TCP?

AIX actually supported PMTUD for UDP.  Not sure if it still does.  Yes, it was
bizarro even for AIX.  No, I'm not aware of any actual UDP applications that
were able to do anything useful with this info. ;)



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