Interview questions and Answers

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Hi guys, I had a interview 2 days ago. Im going to put some of the questions asked and some of the possible answers that iv since researched with the help of you guys on Certforum and online. Please if you wish to add to this, it would more than help others needing this information.

Remember these are personal answers,so customise to suit.

Q}What negative aspects do you have to your personality

A}I have a tendency to give priority to helping others when I should focus on my own workload. I have worked on this in x y and z to allow me to focus on my own workload.


Q}Why do you want to work here.

A}From my research Computerbuzz has really excited me, Everyone works to specific targets. Helping the NHS troubleshoot their computers must be so rewarding. Reading about Computerbuzz, I have found out that you have offices all around England and that the training is one of the best in the industry.

Q}What is the biggest challenge you have had to face within the last twelve months.

A}Without a doubt my biggest challenge I have had within the last twelve months would be to home study morning and night, then pass the CompTIA A+ . But on the flip side it has been the most rewarding and eye opening period of my life.

Q}Give an example when you have gone the extra mile for a customer.

A}I was about to get in my car and go home at the end of the day, when a customer phoned and said they were desperate to get a job completed. I stayed an extra two hours, helping the customer troubleshoot a complicated problem. All other colleagues had already gone home so questions I needed had to be answered using the internet. once the issue had be fixed,the customer could not thank me enough. He even wrote to head office to say how far I went out of my way to help him out of work hours. Not only did I help the customer,it helped me understand and I learnt so much through out the whole process.

Q]Can you give me an example of a particularly difficult customer you had to deal with and how you used your skills to successfully overcome the problem they had.

A}I listened carefully to what the customer had to say.
2. I apologised and empathised with their situation.
3. I confirmed my understanding of their concern.
4. I took responsibility to resolve the issue.
5. I offered a solution (plus alternatives if possible).
6. I confirmed the customer was happy with this.
7. I thanked the customer for raising the issue with me.
8. I took immediate action following the call to resolve the situation.
9. I remained calm throughout the whole process.
10. (If appropriate) the customer wrote in to my supervisor congratulating me on my efficiency.

I hope these Questions and answers help. There are many more so Please keep adding.

 

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I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here, please don't take it personally

Really? A basic IT cert is an eye-opener and a challenge? Without a doubt? You studied morning and night? Were you working full time? If you were, how did studying before work impact on your performance at work?

We're all desperate to get home at the end of the night. If you spent 2 hours of your own time troubleshooting a customer's problem fair enough but did you expect to get paid for unauthorised overtime? Why did it take you so long? Was it outside your remit? Should it have been escalated? Why did you not set a customer callback for first thing the next day and inform your manager that this issue was urgent? Was there any temporary workarounds you could have applied?

Point 6 says the customer was happy. Point 8 says you took action. How did you know the customer was happy before you'd resolved the issue? Not all offered solutions actually work. Telling me you remained calm tells me you sometimes don't remain calm. In what situations do you lose your calm?


As I said, Devil's advocate, don't shoot the messenger. That's just some of the questions that sprang to mind reading that. If I've thought of them some HR/IT interviewer is going to as well.

 

How would you have answered them just out of interest?

 

That's a very good question. Since I've got a big interview on Tuesday letting you guys rip my answers to shreds might be very informative.
I'll start with one I don't really need to think about.

Q}What is the biggest challenge you have had to face within the last twelve months.
A) In my last job we were at the end of the contract, but the company taking over the contract had not come on line yet. Unfortunately we also had a lot of staff leaving to take other jobs or voluntary redundancy and this reduced our team size from approximately 30 well trained and experienced staff to approximately 8, half of whom had just been retrained from a laptop only line (a lot of our calls were printers, faxes and monitors primarily). The big challenge was remaining positive and professional while taking over 60 calls a day when the average wait time for the customer had risen to 45 minutes. Most customers were understandably irate at having to wait so long so there was increased pressure to find a resolution on the spot. Although this is not an experience I would like to go through again (we all have busy spells at work but this was all day, every day) it helped me develop techniques to handle customers efficiently while minimising unnecessary engineer call-outs and customer complaints.

 

I would one hundrend percent say that the CompTIA A+ was the most challenging thing that I had done within the last twelve months. Coming from a backround not directly linked with computers was a completely new experience for me.I am a Carpenter, so totally different ends of the spectrum. Almost every thing was new to me. And maybe I should have written more. The eue opener was the ammount of information that I had to take in to pass the Certification.

 

You haven't put a positive spin on it.

Something along the lines of:
Taking the A+ cert was my biggest challenge of the last 12 months.
(S) Although I really enjoy carpentry there are no real opportunities for advancement beyond the point I am at. I've always had an interest in fixing things, and computers in particular, so I decided to pursue this interest. I knew it would be a step backwards in pay initially but I was looking to my long term future.

(T)After a lot of research and taking advice from industry professionals I decided on the CompTIA A+ as the best way to learn the basics of IT support. I looked at various ways of achieving this goal and eventually decided to self-study as this was the only way that was flexible enough for me, apart form online courses but these are effectively expensive forms of self-study.

(A) After purchasing some study materials I set about learning. Initially I did wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. I was unprepared for the sheer amount of information and I hadn't studied since school so I had to learn how to learn all over again. Balancing out my job and studying while still finding quality time to spend with my family and friends was really difficult, but the more I progressed the easier it got.

(R) Studying for this certificate reinforced my desire to enter the IT support field. It taught me how to find out answers for myself and also how to manage my time effectively by prioritising what was important.

Maybe not the best but the important thing is it follows the STAR format (situation, task, action, result). This is the format most interviewers will look for. You should always explain how the situation enhanced your skills/knowledge.

It should tick quite a few boxes:
Time-management skills.
Ability to work on your own initiative

These are two that I see on a lot of job specs.

 

There is a brief possitive spin,i said on the flip side it was the most rewarding and eye opening experience of my life,that is pretty possitive i believe. But fair point

 

I must admit I live how you have worded this section. Good example.

 

It's a positive spin from your point of view, but you haven't added any value from the employers perspective.

 

Or love

 

Q}What negative aspects do you have to your personality

I've found that most of my negative aspects are positives when utilised in the right scenario. The trick is knowing when to utilise them.
I can be irritatingly pedantic at times but being pedantic with a customer, unless we're talking about warranty/T&Cs/contracted scope is normally a bad idea. However, it was useful in my current position where I spotted a contradiction in the T&Cs given to customers and several ambiguities in the training material. Since we are regulated by the FSA these could have led to me and my fellow trainees inadvertently breaking the law and could have had serious repercussions for our client.

 

It depends whether you are multiplying them or adding them.
(Did I mention I was pedantic?)

I'm not happy with that answer either but I'm over 40 now, I know when to bite my tongue and move on in general. I'm aware of most of my "buttons" and don't react when people push them.

 

qwert