Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/2582
the quarterly magazine of ILTA 43 Peer to Peer career." If the response is to detail a tech support call where the candidate resolved a driver problem, I have an immediate understanding of the technical and strategic level at which the applicant plays. It is common for candidates to respond to interview questions by "we'ing." We'ing is responding to all questions with "we did this" and "we did that." As the interviewer, you must immediately press candidates for further clarification about exactly what they did themselves and what they did as part of a team. This quickly establishes if the applicants had the ability to regularly tackle projects or solve complex problems independently in their previous roles. For team projects, they should be further pressed about what their roles as team members were, how they interacted with the other members on the team, why they were chosen for their roles and not other roles, etc. This gives you insight into their relative strength compared to their team members, and provides you with a few more valuable "snapshots." The technique of continuing to probe ever deeper for answers to more specific questions is often referred to as "peeling the onion." Candidates usually adapt to this technique very early in the interview process when they realize that vague responses about their job functions will be met with more detailed questions that ask for real-life examples of their specific actions. Candidates actually begin to enjoy the interview and open up in ways that are sometimes unanticipated. This happens because you are not asking questions that are difficult to answer. You are simply asking Fool Proof Hiring: Fact or Fiction? We all have our favorite odd-ball interview questions to ask candidates, as demonstrated by the healthy response on one of ILTA's E-Groups recently. Here are a few more of my favorites: do you have a computer at home, and what do you do on it? I have had candidates respond, "I do not have a computer because I do all of my Internet browsing at work." Some candidates have said they own computers, but their use is limited to e-mail and a little shopping because they are usually "too tired" in the evenings to do any more computer work. Other applicants have given descriptions of the hardware devices they have running Windows, Linux and MAC O/S's on a sophisticated home network along with detailed accounts of their last upgrade adventure. All of these answers will again provide you with a few "snapshots" of value. What are you passionate about in your life? This question is fair play for everyone. Everyone should have an answer, and there is no wrong answer. What I'm looking for is an energetic response with examples that demonstrate a passion, whether you like aggressive downhill skiing, as I do, or you enjoy collecting coins, dolls or stamps. Candidates' failure to show a suitable level of enthusiasm in their responses tells me something important about the candidates. If they can't be enthusiastic about their self-chosen passion, perhaps they won't be terribly enthusiastic about other things, including their job. A good snapshot, indeed. My dad is 70 years old. he is very non-technical. describe the internet to him in a few sentences. I love this question because it can be asked of any candidate for any position and is usually quite revealing. Answers that contain technical terms such as URL, IP address, web address, networks, domains or browsers show me that applicants probably don't listen to or follow instructions very well, and might not be the best candidates for a customer-facing job such as a trainer or helpdesk analyst. Any candidates who can put together several articulate sentences proves to me that they can think and speak well on their feet, which is an important attribute in most IT jobs in legal environments. don't ask "do you handle stress well?" ask, "tell me about a time when an end user was extremely angry. What were the circumstances? how did you resolve the situation?" The response I'm looking for is two-fold. First, the candidates should be able to recall the technical details of the problems and how they were resolved, including the steps necessary for resolution. Those steps could include a response such as "I chose to depart from the established procedures and called a network engineer on his cell phone to solve the problem quickly, given what the end user had gone through. I truly felt sorry for them and felt this action was necessary." You might find this response to be a positive or negative one, but the response will provide additional snapshots and help your decide if the candidate is a good match. ILTA Questions, Questions and More Questions