Monday, March 3, 2008

Another first for me... sitting behind the desk during an interview.

Yes I get to do the technical portion of an interview today for our Tech Support Analyst opening at Layne... the first of many. My boss will talk with the candidate for a half hour or so asking all of the high level personality type questions and I get to ask him if he knows the difference between an IP and an IPA (IPs are MUCH less bitter). Actually here are the questions I came up with... this is a little bit above an entry level position so I tried to keep the questions intermediate on the PC/printer support side and on the easy end of the networking/domain side.

Interview questions

1) A client has lost connectivity from his/her workstation. What are the general steps you would take to determine the cause of failure? List at least 2 steps.

2) How would you map a shared network printer to LPT1 in DOS?

3) You suspect a virus has infected a PC you are troubleshooting. You want to see where it may have files that are auto-loading upon start-up. Name 2 places within Windows that you could check.

4) A new external Print server unit has arrived and you are required to configure it. You have a laptop available to you, a switch, and an extra network cable. The instructions provide you with it's default IP address. You will need to configure the unit via DOS, as no web based options are available. What command would you use to connect to the print server from the command line?

5) What steps would you take to change a windows 2003 domain user account password?

6) A user says they can download email (they are set up to get POP3 email from the mail server’s IP address) but they can't get to any websites through Internet Explorer. What is most likely the problem?

7) A print job is stuck in a queue on the company print server and cancelling all documents does not clear the queue. This is an executive printer and must be freed up ASAP. What would be the least disruptive solution?

8) You’ve shared a directory on the company’s file server and given a user ‘share permissions’ to modify the resource however they still cannot access the resource. What else needs to be done?

3 comments:

Percussivity said...

hhhhhhhhh... the dude didn't show up and didn't call. Guess what; he won't be joining us here at Layne. I'm pretty sure that unless he has a serious excuse (lying in a hospital bed in full body cast) he got 3 strikes in that single mistake.

SQLFunkateer said...

1. While on the phone, have the user first check the connection of his cable, then go into Network Connections and have them right click the LAN Connection and select Repair. Much easier than having them reboot or do ipconfig commands. And the cable check, well, physical is the first step on the OSI model.

2. Hah, I would google "share network printer LPT1 command line", and follow the directions.

3. Startup folders under Program Files, and run msconfig. I'm sure there are places in the registry too, but I'd have to look up where they are.

4. All I can say is the bally thing better have a good manual. And do they still sell network devices without GUI interfaces any more?

5. For a client, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del and select Change Password. If on a Terminal Server, click Start, Windows Security, then Change Password.

6. In our case at least, it would be a firewall issue...we frequently run out of license "seats" and if exceeded, all new clients will be able to communicate locally but not through the firewall (to the Internet). But that's just our crappy system.

7. Not sure, perhaps simply restart the printer spooler service? Also, check out the actual spooler folder and perhaps delete the bad file.

8. Double check NTFS permissions, and make certain the firewall (if used) is not blocking File/Printer Sharing. Also, confirm basic connectivity!

Percussivity said...

I regret to inform you that we feel you are overqualified for the position. We hope you understand.