Funny Tech Inverview Answers

[JSchmitz]

I did some polling in the CB about if this would be an appropriate post and everyone was like "go for it" so here it is: I have been doing some interviewing for Unix sysadmins lately and have found that when the job market is tight people seem to interview for jobs they are not especially qualified for. Of course the names are left out and these are like 5 different people - I am pretty sure these folks do not frequent Perlmonks I think you will agree when you read some of the answers.

Q: How long have you been a unix sys admin?
A: oh for about twelve years now
Q: can you tell me what the crontab file is?
A: never heard of it
Q: how would you create a soft link?
A: I have never done that before
Q: how would you copy one file to another?
A: I would click on the file and drag it over to the other one
Q: do you know any languages? sed or awk or perl?
A: mostly just english
Q: what do you type in to see the arp table?
A: I have never worked with arp just unix
Q: what flavor or unix do you feel most comfortable with?
A: mostly HP Solaris
Q: you mean Sun Solaris?
A: no HP Solaris
Q: HP has HP-UX Sun makes Solaris
A: well I would have to disagree with you there...
Q: can you tell me about the different run levels?
A: I mostly run on high the whole time
Q: what?
A: the highest level that is just how I do it
(eyes are crossed at this point)
Q: what is fsck?
A: oh I know that one it has something to do with email..yeah I am sure that is about email uh huh

[digiryde]

Beyond the fact that the person you interviewed is a complete (seemingly) moron for trying to pass himself off as a Un*x veteran, since you mentioned that you are interviewing people for a position, how many emails have you received offering to fill said position? Given how things are, I would *assume* that many of us looking for a position (who seem to know more than the nameless subject) would be more than happy to attempt to fill that position.

lol - that just struck me as funny in this time of so many computer people (highly qualified people) who can not get a position because of too much experience. Does your human resources department filter your prospects for you like most companies?

[JSchmitz]

This guy actually came from an outside recruiter - this was such a popular post I should probably post more soon - there was a guy a few weeks ago we interviewed that claimed to have installed graphics cards in Sun E10K's!! That was a classic there was another guy who said he is a Volume Manager guru but didn't know how to see what disks are under Veritas control..Geez I have a million of them = )

[jlongino]

Geez, you should add one more question to your standard interview:
Q: Have you been or would you like to be a guest on Jaywalking?

It'll save you from having to ask them any of the rest.

"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life." -- Frank Zappa

[kwoff]

/me eyes doctor.el and considers sysadmin-interviewer.el

Must... resist...

[DrManhattan]

Haha, I've run into the same thing. A couple of weeks ago we interviewed a candidate for an operations manager position. The candidate's resume listed everything from Appletalk to fiber, but she couldn't answer a single question regarding anything she'd claimed to have done. My favorites were these:

Q: It says here you've deployed a network of cable modems. What kind of modems did you use?
A: Well, they were mostly coaxial.

Q: How did you provision the modems?
A: It was a team effort.

Q: What's the difference between multi-mode and single-mode fiber?
A: The speed.



-Matt

[mexnix]

Holy CRAP! Is this for real? Actually answers from a "12 yr" unix admin!? This is refrickindiculous. I just couldn't hold back.

__________________________________________________


s mmgfbs nf, nfyojy m,tr yb-zya-zy,s zfzphz,print;
- thanks japhy :)

mexnix.perlmonk.org

[crazyinsomniac]

"refrickindiculous" - I commonly refer to something so ridiculous, as ricockulous, care of Adam Corolla, Loveline.

update: What? and you don't find ridickulous offensive???

 
___crazyinsomniac_______________________________________
Disclaimer: Don't blame. It came from inside the void
perl -e "$q=$_;map({chr unpack qq;H*;,$_}split(q;;,q*H*));print;$q/$q;"

[arhuman]

The only possible explanation is IMHO that the candidate mis-heard the first question...
He should have heard :

How long have you been a NT sys admin?
;-)

"Only Bad Coders Code Badly In Perl" (OBC2BIP)

[jlk]

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny:




"What an UltraMaroon!!!"




#jlk
Learning Unix sometimes involves Pain, PaIn, PAIN!!

[Anonymous Monk]

Great post!
Please post more if you can.
BTW, you wouldn't happen to be interviewing in Los Angeles, would you? :)