anybody here work for "the tech guys?" at currys, pc world etc...

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I have an interview with them this week and am hoping that someone here has already had one to give me a bit of a head start on what questions/tasks to expect at the interview?

i've been out of work for the past 8 months and this is the first interview i've had so I want to make sure everything goes as well as it can.

thanks.

 

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All you have to do is say you know what a computer is and you will get the job, if you have your A+ you will probably be over qualified or more qualified than the people who work there and I can see from you cert list that you are more than qualified for the job.

Any experience is good but my experience of dealing with those tech guys is that they dont know much about anything.

 

No experience with them i'm afraid.

I'd imagine they would be quizing you along the lines of the services they offer to their customers.

e.g

How to backup data.
How to move data from one p.c to another.
Antivirus.
Knowing the difference between the different makes of processors, ram etc and how to install them.
Restoring a machine.
Customer service skills - or lack of if you work in my local P.C world.

 

Last time i was at PC World, my brother was looking for a new laptop with bluetooth and he asked one of the 'tech' guys if a certain one had bluetooth in it.
The guy came over and looked at the one next to it then looked at the one my brother wanted and said 'nah this one doesnt have BT in it, it doesnt have a sticker to say so and that one does'.
At first i thought he was joking but then he just walked away lol.

You'll be their supervisor in no time cert_seeker.

 

Guys give the guy a break. Whilst you do get some clueless staff I'm sure there are good ones as well. In this climate a job is a job.

 

There was no malice in what i said, i was just telling a funny story about one experience i had in the place. Sorry if it came across that way cert.

 

I used to work for them when they where known as PC Service call at there main call centre in Nottingham - I have since heard they are relocating the place to Sheffeild.

Best thing to do is have a understanding of the products and services they offer with a keen attuide to learn and you should be fine. they dont expect you to be the finished article - just wanting to learn, contribute etc

What part of the company are you trying to get into?

 

There probably are... but the good ones don't typically stay long, as they use the job as a stepping stone to something better. Those who aren't that good tend to stay because they can't find (or stay employed in) something better.

 

Thats the point if the job is rubbish then use it as a stepping stone and move on but with the job market as poor as it is now then a job is better than no job.

 

The fact that someone like youself, with a string of microsoft certifications, and an apparrent love of IT, is having to apply for a job with the tech guys, fills we with despair about the state of the IT Job Market.

I worked for the Tech Guys at their technical support call centre 8 years ago, and it was one of the most unpleasant jobs I've ever done.

Although it offers some variety, the work is incredibly stressful. I can remember having to talk people through tasks such as installing hardware and software, re-imaging their PCs, and guiding them through an array of complex MSDOS command routines to troubleshoot, and evoke the recovery process.

The lack of intelligence and ability to comprehend simple instructions displayed by a great many of their customers still amazes me to this very day!

What made things worse, was there was no proper escaltion process for calls which needed an on-site diagnosis. The closest thing to an on-site engineer we had was a glorified courier who would visit a customer and swap bits out based on your diagnosis/assessment of the situation. They had no apparrent software knowledge and quite often would leave the customer in an even worse situation than they were before, due to the poor quality control on the refurbished parts they would take out to fit.

It was a horrible, inpersonal environment, with demand driven by the greed of DSG ltd, and the ignorance of their store staff.

Don't do it, the day someone needs Microsoft Certifications to work in an environment like that, is the day they become worthless!

 

I wouldn't say everyone that works for PCW is clueless or that it's a horrible place to work as my store has very well educated employees! You can ask a question from something as simple as what is the speed of USB 2 though to i5 architecture and you'll get an answer. The store I work at is like an extended family and to be honest I haven't work in a place as friendly or helpful. Mad_Maxx worked in the call centre 8 years ago and the whole company has had massive change since then and it's totally different actually working in the store. The pay isn't great but the benefits make it worth while, even if you'll be there as a stepping stone towards something else give it a go, you'll be well looked after too.

DSGi aren't greedy they just want success and if you want to be the best you have to make an effort and work damn hard to get where you want to be, nothing comes to you. At the end of the day they are a company and companies are driven by money and success, they are no different from any other International company.

Also the customers might not be that tech savy but a lot of my customers didn't grow up with IT and all they want to do is access the Internet and read email, they have no desire to learn the inner workings of a PC, they just want to use the tech and do what they want it to do. It's funny because I see people who have owned their own IT company and have less knowledge than my colleagues - One guy owned his own IT business for 20 years and had no clue about about Intel Core processors and thought AVG Free was better than Norton & Kaspersky, he also thought it would run fine on a netbook ! Maybe we should be avoiding working for these people rather than the bigger tech companies.

 

I wonder how cert_seeker got on at the interview?

 

Nothing you have said there is any real knowledge. And in all honesty, AVG is better than Symantec in a lot of situations, I think a lot of people here will back me up when I say Symantec Products are pretty damn temperamental. And as for Norton, I bought the AV 2010 and on my Machine (which was worth about 5 grand, literally the best you could get) it did nothing but slow the whole thing down and i mean, seriously slow it down.

As for knowing about Intel Cores.. Errrr, why? You know how many times since I started in IT I have ever had to do anything that required any knowledge of which line of CPUs were out? never.

I have heard nothing but bad things about the Tech guys, and the only 2 experiences I have had with them (helping out a friend, and a CEO of a company) I have had to step in and stop the conversation and action right there because the advice being given was frankly not in there best interest.

I remember one guy in store trying to convince this CEO that he needed more ram in his netbook because it was slow, it would of taken it to about 8GB for about 300 quid. and he was adamant in this suggestion. I Just stepped in and got a 120GB SSD for about 200 quid. Problem solved.

There is a difference between problems caused by lack of RAM, CPU Power or HDD problems, and anyone with a bit of knowledge should be able to reasonably put their finger on it. But this tech guy had no idea.

Sorry for the essay, but I don't buy it. I don't like them, I don't trust the advice they give and I don't believe in them as IT professionals.

 

Tech guys was the only interview I ever turned down when trying to break into I.T.

Reputation had something to do with that decision plus I was interested in enterprise support as opposed to general hardware and OS problems

I also wonder how cert seeker got on. I may PM

 

They do seem to like to push norton on all their customers. I havent had any good expierences with norton what so ever. Most of the stuff he is talking about is covered in the A+ and then again when does it ever come up in conversation. If someone is talking about the archicture of processors, then they shouldnt be shopping at pc world and it isnt something that a normal customer need to know as it just sounds like you are trying to baffle them into buying the most expensive product. I would say clock speed and amount of cores should be suffice.

If you are looking for a job to get into IT then I would take it but also dont get blinkered by everythign they tell you. If the say this is better than that then ask why or find out for yourself.

 

I never worked for the tech guys
but i did work for DSGi for over two years as part of an architecture and consulting team (we did business to business stuff, not store stuff)

In fairness things were slipping pretty quickly downhill, the stock was tanking and they were doing the usual 'take drastic action' but overall there were a good bunch of people I worked with, and the folks on my team, and up in Bury, knew their ****e backwards

 

AVG is quite a resource hog and benchmarks show almost all aspects of AVG is subpar - I wouldn't touch with a barge poll, horrible thing.

Any way, how did the OP get on?

 

Care to back that claim up with some evidence? Perhaps some links to said benchmarks... I've certainly never found it to be a resource hog, much less, in fact, than Norton - but thats just personal experience really.

 

I would agree, i have used AVG free for years on all my home PCs and never had any issues, even when running scans I don't notice any performance drops, and my some of my equipment is pretty damn OLD!!

I use Symantec in work, and I don't have any real issue with this, I have come across issues with Norton in the past, see I know stuff

If the OP ever does come back, I hope he got on OK at the interview, if he don't get the job it's good interview experience, and if I was offered a job there when trying to get into IT I definitely would have taken it, surely it's better than no IT experience at all?

 

Worked in PC World in the past, something I like to forget. Good bunch of work colleges, however the company are only interested in target, target, target... Which is fair enough, but should be realistic targets, not fairy tale.
As for tech guys, they got targets as in screw over the customers with their overpriced services, unfortunately some customers like to be ripped off.
Why do retailers love Norton, especially Norton 360? Because the company gets it for free! Thats why its the best security program on the market. Funny story, while my employment with Dixon group, I was serving this customer who approached me for advice on security program. I suggested Kaspersky over Norton. My manager found out and went crazy! He wanted me to lie.