I just dug for it, doesn't look like I kept it, sorry - it's probably languishing in a file cabinet in Milwaukee. I wrote it for TWC when I worked there since the HR interviews were generally things like 'Why do you like sunshine?' and 'What is your favorite color of hair?' so they kept hiring people who had 'good' resumes but zero actual knowledge.
The funny thing there was that the kind of resumes I throw in the garbage here (skills: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat, Notepad, Calculator, Pacman, Windows Start Menu, JPEG, CPU, Keyboard/Mouse, etc) got through most of the screening there because they could check off 'Knows Microsoft Word, knows Pacman' and pass it on as a stellar resume. The guys who wrote things like 'Built a flux capacitor out of spare motherboards, constructed a satellite dish out of cardboard to watch Iranian TV, write assembly in the bathroom' never made it through because they didn't know Microsoft Word. So, I had to come up with something to screen out the first crowd and make sure the second were what they said they were. The stuff I said below was the gist of it, it was a mix of specific knowledge (e.g. what is a subnet mask) and situation based stuff (I can't remember the harder parts but the simpler stuff was things like 'Customer X has a router, we are giving them a public IP of 1.2.3.4, he has a web server behind the router that is set to 192.168.10.2. He can get to the server inside his network if he opens 192.168.10.2 in a web browser but nobody going to 1.2.3.4 can see the web page. Why?') If they made it through the first couple of pages, I had a harder sheet that I honestly don't remember much of but it was probably a mix to see where their skills lay (some routing protocol questions, probably some protocol specific/packet capturing type stuff for the troubleshooting scenarios, etc) along with some vendor specific stuff (how do you do X in a Cisco since we were a 100% Cisco shop). If they didn't make it through the first page, I just smiled, said thanks and everyone had an easier day. It worked pretty well apart from the fact that already nervous people would often have a meltdown if they flunked the first few questions. It was also a good way to know what peoples weak spots were if you did end up hiring them (e.g. they failed all the Cisco questions or they knew nothing about OSPF) but it was mostly just to get a good baseline on whether or not someone could do the job. Nowadays I end up hiring more based on aptitude, personality and desire to learn than anything else, knowledge isn't everything. Granted, if you are hiring a programmer, they need a certain level of knowledge but I'd rather have someone who has 75% of the knowledge and 150% of the attitude than vice versa. Hard thing to pick out a lot of the time though. I'm just waiting for someone to invent a robot that can write good code. When we hire for Powercode, I normally give people a couple of functions to write (e.g. write a recursive function that reverses a string and returns it) and see how they come to a conclusion and do some design exercises with them (lately we've been doing one based around building online card games.) Same kind of idea.. you might have a Bachelors in Software Development but if you can't write a recursive function to reverse a string, I don't really care. The TL;DR of this essay is that I hate hiring, it's a pain in the ass. On 2/28/2012 1:45 PM, Josh Luthman wrote: > Ooo care to share??? > > Josh Luthman > Office: 937-552-2340 > Direct: 937-552-2343 > 1100 Wayne St > Suite 1337 > Troy, OH 45373 > > > > On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Simon Westlake<[email protected]> wrote: >> Are you looking for networking stuff, wireless stuff or both? >> >> I wrote one a while back that was mostly things like 'What is a subnet mask' >> or 'What's the difference between an IP address and a MAC address?' >> >> A lot of the time people would get them wrong (depending on skill level) but >> you could generally pick out the people who had a clue/had some ability by >> their thought process in trying to figure it out if they didn't know. >> >> >> On 2/28/2012 9:46 AM, Andy Trimmell wrote: >> >> I found a decent website for online quizzes. Just looking to see what kind >> of questions people would go with. >> >> >> >> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On >> Behalf Of Josh Luthman >> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 9:24 AM >> To: WISPA General List >> Subject: Re: [WISPA] New employee quiz >> >> >> >> Jay maybe? >> >> Josh Luthman >> Office: 937-552-2340 >> Direct: 937-552-2343 >> 1100 Wayne St >> Suite 1337 >> Troy, OH 45373 >> >> On Feb 28, 2012 9:15 AM, "Andy Trimmell"<[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I know a few months back someone was very happy with their online quiz they >> had for new employees to take before interviewing them. They got it from >> another WISP and was looking for the same thing. Looking to hire someone >> else and need some kind of quiz to weed out the useless people for the job. >> >> >> >> Anyone know? >> >> >> >> Andy Trimmell >> >> Network Administrator >> >> [email protected] >> >> 317.831.3000 ext 211 >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wireless mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wireless mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >> >> >> -- >> Simon Westlake >> Powercode.com >> (920) 351-1010 >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wireless mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >> > _______________________________________________ > Wireless mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless -- Simon Westlake Powercode.com (920) 351-1010 _______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
