Jobs in IT industry...

[Sim]

I swiped this from another web site and wondered if these were simple questions that any IT person should know the answers to or whether they were on the difficult side?

As mentioned by a few people already - don't confuse "IT" with "Network administration" (which these questions specifically relate to). Network admin is a very specific role within a much larger discipline.

For example, just look at the way IBM has structured their business (in broad terms):

1. hardware
2. software
3. consulting & services
4. research & development
5. finance (IBM make a lot of money financing large IT purchases - a bit like "Harvey Norman for the corporate world") ... which is important when they sell software with price tags of over $200,000 per CPU

Across all of this you have strategic outsourcing, data centre hosting and management, education, and many other multi-discipline groups - mostly services driven.

At the end of the day though ... the people who make the really big dollars (we're talking potential 7 figure income) ... are the sales people. Only the best-of-the-best engineers get to the really sweet (and well paid) jobs, and they still earn less than many of the sales people can.

If you're in IT for the money - sales and recruitment (which is basically selling bodies) are the places to go. If you are in IT for the love of the technology - that's a very different game.

 

[RumpledElf]

If you are in IT for the love of the technology - that's a very different game.

Yup, you may find yourself in our situation - embarking on a rather ambitious project that looks like it'll take 3+ years to make, and absolutely no money coming in while doing it, and no guarantee of money at the end either, although with the project being very much unique and in a niche where there's always demand and no large companies competing, I don't see any major issues there.

Which is why we moonlight doing other stuff on the side that DOES earn money, which unfortunately has the side effect of pushing that 3 years out even further.

 

[quoll]

G'day Shady

There is a difference between sitting exams, answering interview questions and actually doing work.

The beauty of doing work is that you have access to google and other reference material; /?; /h; man; etc. So much stuff you only touch once per year, from my perspective there is no point remembering that, as long as you know where to get the syntax it works. So much stuff gets fixed by power cycling it or reseting it, quick easy fix.

Off the top of my head I can probably answer 80% of the questions you posted. I used to be able to write the formula for working out ip subnet masks and everything involved as that was on the exams but I haven't sat exams for a few years so I've forgotten the formula, I don't need it, there are plenty of IP calculators availabe that do it for you.

If you have a good foundation in infrastructure it makes it heaps easier to do your job. So many problems could be this or that and different teams deal with each bit so problems drag out if they get sent to the wrong area which can really screw with SLA's. Sometimes we get cases that have spend 6 hours getting handballed and it only takes 20 minutes to fix.

Regards
Graeme

 

[quoll]

One difference I have noticed in interviews, when you go for interviews with smaller companies which are generally lower paid, you get more technical syntax type questions which they expect you to know off the top of your head.

Yet interviews with larger orgs are more behavioural and less technical, the technical is more general and you don't have to explain syntax of commands, you are working at a higher level. So the interview is easier but they are looking more for a fit into a team and the level of knowlegde is more of a bandwidth.

Cheers
Graeme

 

[quoll]

I swiped this from another web site and wondered if these were simple questions that any IT person should know the answers to or whether they were on the difficult side?

Had another though.

These questions relate to infrastructure so your Sys Admin, Network Engineer, Security staff should know them. The people that deal with servers, routers, switches, firewall and some security staff. The desktop support might know some.

You will find generally (very general here) the programers, dba's, project manager, help desk, change management, Business analysts, application support, technical account managers, sales, etc will not know many answers.

The more senior will also know more than the more junior. So things vary a lot. But those people that deal with infrastructure will know the answers to more questions than the crew that don't support infrastructure.

Lots of different subsets with in IT. Heaps of room to specialise.

Cheers
Graeme

 

[pieman]

I swiped this from another web site and wondered if these were simple questions that any IT person should know the answers to or whether they were on the difficult side?

What % would you know the answers too?

MCSE and System Administrator Job Interview Questions.

* What is an IP address?
* What is a subnet mask?
* What is ARP?
* What is ARP Cache Poisoning?
* What is the ANDing process?
* What is a default gateway? What happens if I don't have one?
* Can a workstation computer be configured to browse the Internet and yet NOT have a default gateway?
* What is a subnet?
* What is APIPA?
* What is an RFC? Name a few if possible (not necessarily the numbers, just the ideas behind them)
* What is RFC 1918?
* What is CIDR?
* You have the following Network ID: 192.115.103.64/27. What is the IP range for your network?
* You have the following Network ID: 131.112.0.0. You need at least 500 hosts per network. How many networks can you create? What subnet mask will you use?
* You need to view at network traffic. What will you use? Name a few tools
* How do I know the path that a packet takes to the destination?
* What does the ping 192.168.0.1 -l 1000 -n 100 command do?
* What is DHCP? What are the benefits and drawbacks of using it?
* Describe the steps taken by the client and DHCP server in order to obtain an IP address.
* What is the DHCPNACK and when do I get one? Name 2 scenarios.
* What ports are used by DHCP and the DHCP clients?
* Describe the process of installing a DHCP server in an AD infrastructure.
* What is DHCPINFORM?
* Describe the integration between DHCP and DNS.
* What options in DHCP do you regularly use for an MS network?
* What are User Classes and Vendor Classes in DHCP?
* How do I configure a client machine to use a specific User Class?
* What is the BOOTP protocol used for, where might you find it in Windows network infrastructure?
* DNS zones – describe the differences between the 4 types.
* DNS record types – describe the most important ones.
* Describe the process of working with an external domain name
* Describe the importance of DNS to AD.
* Describe a few methods of finding an MX record for a remote domain on the Internet.
* What does "Disable Recursion" in DNS mean?
* What could cause the Forwarders and Root Hints to be grayed out?
* What is a "Single Label domain name" and what sort of issues can it cause?
* What is the "in-addr.arpa" zone used for?
* What are the requirements from DNS to support AD?
* How do you manually create SRV records in DNS?
* Name 3 benefits of using AD-integrated zones.
* What are the benefits of using Windows 2003 DNS when using AD-integrated zones?
* You installed a new AD domain and the new (and first) DC has not registered its SRV records in DNS. Name a few possible causes.
* What are the benefits and scenarios of using Stub zones?
* What are the benefits and scenarios of using Conditional Forwarding?
* What are the differences between Windows Clustering, Network Load Balancing and Round Robin, and scenarios for each use?
* How do I work with the Host name cache on a client computer?
* How do I clear the DNS cache on the DNS server?
* What is the 224.0.1.24 address used for?
* What is WINS and when do we use it?
* Can you have a Microsoft-based network without any WINS server on it? What are the "considerations" regarding not using WINS?
* Describe the differences between WINS push and pull replications.
* What is the difference between tombstoning a WINS record and simply deleting it?
* Name the NetBIOS names you might expect from a Windows 2003 DC that is registered in WINS.
* Describe the role of the routing table on a host and on a router.
* What are routing protocols? Why do we need them? Name a few.
* What are router interfaces? What types can they be?
* In Windows 2003 routing, what are the interface filters?
* What is NAT?
* What is the real difference between NAT and PAT?
* How do you configure NAT on Windows 2003?
* How do you allow inbound traffic for specific hosts on Windows 2003 NAT?
* What is VPN? What types of VPN does Windows 2000 and beyond work with natively?
* What is IAS? In what scenarios do we use it?
* What's the difference between Mixed mode and Native mode in AD when dealing with RRAS?
* What is the "RAS and IAS" group in AD?
* What are Conditions and Profile in RRAS Policies?
* What types or authentication can a Windows 2003 based RRAS work with?
* How does SSL work?
* How does IPSec work?
* How do I deploy IPSec for a large number of computers?
* What types of authentication can IPSec use?
* What is PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) in IPSec?
* How do I monitor IPSec?
* Looking at IPSec-encrypted traffic with a sniffer. What packet types do I see?
* What can you do with NETSH?
* How do I look at the open ports on my machine?

Gosh, some are tough to answer in detail.
I have 10 yrs in IT and earn 1k a day as an inf. architect and wouldnt be able to answer all these.

 

[The Y-man]

Gosh, some are tough to answer in detail.
I have 10 yrs in IT and earn 1k a day as an inf. architect and wouldnt be able to answer all these.

I wonder if they let you take a laptop or phone with internet connection into the interview to google the answers

I manage IT staff - I just have to know which expert to direct the question to

Seriously though, we interviewed 3 Masters of IT Grads recently for a Desktop Support position - none of them knew what a windows profile was and what you would need to do to recreate one from a roaming profile...

The Y-man

 

[PrimeCommercial]

...we interviewed 3 Masters of IT Grads recently for a Desktop Support position

Holy Smokes! If your interviewing IT Grads for Desktop Support I've got no hope

 

[murtagh]

Holy Smokes! If your interviewing IT Grads for Desktop Support I've got no hope

Unless you know what a roaming profile is?

 

[PrimeCommercial]

Unless you know what a roaming profile is?

Yes I do, does that mean I get the job?

 

[PrimeCommercial]

With regards to IT, what is a Business Analyst?

My wife is an accountant and her title is Business Analyst.

 

[murtagh]

Yes I do, does that mean I get the job?

I just mean that hands on, real world knowledge trumps being able to write a bubble sort in Java.

So don't assume those grads are going to be any better than you - the skills needed to succeed at Uni are much different to those needed to succeed in the workplace.

 

[Strannik]

With regards to IT, what is a Business Analyst?

My wife is an accountant and her title is Business Analyst.

business analyst is the person who analyses business requirements, does product comparisons etc etc
generally their job is to analyse different stuff required by the business

 

[WinstonWolfe]

- none of them knew what a windows profile was and what you would need to do to recreate one from a roaming profile...

The Y-man

What would you recommend if the profile belonged to a graphic artist or architect who regularly edited and accessed files larger than 200MB?

 

[quoll]

With regards to IT, what is a Business Analyst?

My wife is an accountant and her title is Business Analyst.

Someone with or without technical knowledge who changes they way things are done in the hope of making them more efficient, changing processes, analysing workflow to streamline it. They could be involved in asset management, procurement. In software dev they are often involved in liasing between the users and the developers.

Cheers
Graeme

 

[The Y-man]

What would you recommend if the profile belonged to a graphic artist or architect who regularly edited and accessed files larger than 200MB?

WW, I would suggest you talk to a BA....

business analyst is the person who analyses business requirements, does product comparisons etc etc
generally their job is to analyse different stuff required by the business

FYI, we have had some clients with profiles well and truly over 20GB (contained pst files) - which caused issues when they used different workstations etc. For a group of people with this type of requirements, it would probably make sense to investigate light front ends (Citrix, Virtual Dekstops etc)

Cheers,

The Y-man

 

[Strannik]

Agile can work when people know their business environment. I've seen it work really well when that has happened- I've also seen it as a disaster when people who have been strictly coders and who don't know the business try to contribute.

umm agile means you fail early and work in collaboration with your clients

so instead of failing 1 year into the project, you fail on the first iteration because you got the wrong people on the team

it can only fail due to poor management/planning