First technical interview, EPIC FAIL!

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Hey, ignore this if you want i just have to get it off my chest b/c it's really got to me.

I had my first 'interview' over the phone on tuesday this week, unfortunately i fear that i completely and utterly screwed it up

I can't remember all of the questions that he asked me but a few memorable ones were, "A customer is on the phone and he says that his IE window is saying could not connect/offline that kinda thing, what would you do to troubleshoot it", my 'answer', some mumbled crap about DNS servers...... to which he replied, do you know about the work offline mode in IE?

Another one which followed him asking me if i knew what DHCP was, "A computers IP is 169.254.x.x what does this mean", my 'answer', some mumbled crap about a class B subnet mask?!?!?!?! WTF!!! After which he asked me if i knew what APIPA was and then pretty much explained it too me even though i do 'know' about it.

I even said the epic fail line of "sorry, this is my first interview for about 7 years"

As expected i haven't heard anything from them since, which is only 2 days but i get the feeling they would have contacted me by now tbh, to be fair my experience involves more hardware than software stuff, if he asked me about RAID or bootup problems i could have talked all day, but those are basic questions and if i can't answer stuff like that then it makes me look like a fool and gives me precisley zero chance of getting a job! He even said my CV was "a bit thin on the ground" which i really didnt think there was an issue with.

Needless to say that my confidence has hit rock bottom

Cliff Notes:
[x] I had my first techical interview ever
[x] I couldnt have done worse if i actually tried
[ ] Going to have an IT job by the time i leave the army (5 weeks)
[x] I've filled out a form for a digi-card in preperation for my future career of lorry driving

/rant

 

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Bad luck mate, interviews can be nerve racking especially when they hit you with questions like that.

I once went to an interview where the guy produce a load of SCSI drives that were connected and he asked why wont this setup work when they are in a system and I said because there are no terminators. Apparently I was the only candidate who got it right but then he asked me some dumb question about what is the key function to make text bigger in word and I couldn't answer it.

So I never got the job, but hey ho **** happens you just pick yourself up and move on.

 

Actually what it will do to you is make you remember the silly things better, APIPA should be a given tbh but the IE one was actually new to me (you learn something new every day and I really haven't seen an offline mode in IE in all my years).

Don't get too down, it's an interview, use it as experience and learn from it.

 

I would of assumed it was the same as outlook, just check if there is offline item selected within the File menu, even if i was totally wrong, but thats why i would of thought of

 

You'd have been ahead of me then. I'd never have put that amongst the first four answers in a million years. First thing is to check the network cable's plugged in, second thing is to check the machine's got an IP address - and that the IP is a valid (i.e. non-APIPA one), third thing is to check the IP config to see if there's a valid DNS server, fourth is to check whether there's a proxy that needs setting. I don't know anyone who would ever use the 'offline' mode - and of the hundreds of random things a lUser could FUBAR, that's not something that would be high up on my list of things to check. Sounds like a BS question to me. You should have known the APIPA one though - that's pretty much a standard question for most first-line roles.

Chin up - onto the next one!

 

Have to agree with what Zeb says.

Bad luck mate, just think of this as more experience for your next interview.

 

Unlucky mate, I have to be honest with you, when you said IE offline, the very first thing that popped up in my head was Offline Mode, and now you know the IP questions, DHCP basically dishes out IP Addresses (and settings if you want it too) and 169.x.x.x is an address that the computer has given it's self when it isn't plugged in anywhere. If a PC you ever plug a PC into the network whilst it's already switched on, it doesn't work and it ends up having that IP, just restart it for it to pick up a DHCP or set IP settings your self. We all have to learn somewhere wait and in fairness to you, if someone phoned up you could most of the time go "i'll take a look" and hang up the phone, give it 5 minutes to figure it out and then connect in etc. Answering on the spot is a very difficult thing to do that you can only get better at mate and you will.

Chin up

 

Yeah, i was quite dissapointed in myself for not knowing that off the top of my head, as soon as he mentioned APIPA it hit me like a truck, the worst thing is that he blatantly tried to give me a hand by asking about DHCP before and i still cocked it up

I'll never forget that IP address again as long as i live though and i'm gonna get my head seriously stuck into the networking chapter of my A+ book, one thing i've def took away from this is that network connectivity issues are high on the list of things you need to know, which unfortunately was the part of the A+ that i struggled the most with. I learn better through practical application so learning all of the different port numbers and default IP's is quite hard for me, need to knock up some flash cards til i'm chanting them in my sleep!

Cheers for the advice though guys, just gotta learn from it and keep plodding on i guess.

 

Don't let a single interview bring you down. Go and do as many as you can, the more you do, the easier it gets. Really!

I've done so many in the past that if someone now calls me up from a headhunting agency or I visit a prospective employer, I'm soooo laid back it seems to make the interviewer uneasy in THEIR shoes

Well... almost. But you see what I mean. Practice makes perfect and as you do more interviews, you begin to hear more and more of the same questions, and before you know it, you'll build an entire repertoire of "right answers" to give back to them.

Phone interviews can be hard, sometimes harder than face to face ones, but just keep at it and don't give up.

 

As stated above, I wouldnt worry about it too much. Simply chalk it down as experience and move on. I think the first question you got asked was a bit doodah, and obviously knocked your confidence for the next questions.....................keep your chin up

 

Talking of BS questions, in my first interview for a IT support job I was asked how I would go about setting up a workstation at a school.

My answer was something like, plug in keyboard, monitor, mouse etc to base unit, power on, check for network connections, join domain, etc. To which the guy replied, would you not take the workstation out the cardboard box first.

 

My last technical interview I was asked the question: "a user calls you up with a problem you don't know how to solve, what would you do?"

My response: "Google it"

His reply: "Why not ask the guy next to you"

I kinda got myself out of it by explaining I'm regularly the only IT guy here so I'd be talking to an empty chair, still think thats what killed it for me though.

Anyway, chin up mate, there'll be other interviews and now you have a better idea what to expect. I'd have screwed the IE question up, I know of offline mode but its a long time since I've known it be the cause of a support call and any time I've known it be turned on its been IE doing it automatically following some other connection issue.

 

Forgot to say, I would have messed up the IE offline question as well.

 

You should have said "Well, you didn't narrate the story enough to allow me to gauge the situation, other objects and persons in the room, time of day or anything else, in short, your narrative skills are poor"

"errr, at what point did you say there was someone sat next to me?"

 

you only get the 169.x.x.x address when you have an active network connection and you are set to DHCP, but the PC doesn't recieve a response from a DHCP request.

And i wouldn't restart a PC when it hasn't picked up a DHCP address for whatever reason, just do ipconfig /renew

 

I just about avoided my automatic response of "because hes a Scottish bell end who asked an open ended question while only being willing to accept one answer"

By that point in the interview I'd pretty much decided that even if offered the job I'd turn them down. The whole setup wasn't impressing me much.

 

Actually that is not always the way to do it, there are known issues with Dell 760 machines where if they sleep\hibernate they will get APIPA addresses when the resume, an ipconfig /renew simply won't work and the only way around it is to reboot the machine. The only way to avoid this is if the NIC itself doesn't sleep.

 

yeah fair doos if its a known issue. But on every other desktop without this issue a restart would waste time IMO.

That's a weird one with the 760 though, can't remember ever coming across it at my old work where we had those, mind you i don't think they were set to sleep/hibernate either!

 

Unlucky mate, but it is one of those things the next interview you will probably know every question inside out.

Just one of those things that some people know and some dont and also depending on if you have came across it before.

What position was it for as the offline one i may have got but the second one i would of been stumped.

I suspect you may have a few more interviews and you can only learn from them.