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Helpdesk interview questions

M

mike208

Member
I have an interview for a level 1 help desk position tomorrow ad I know I will be asked A+ related questions. I have my A+, but its from 13 years ago. I am very up to date on hardware and am confident in windows XP and windows 7. My networking/TCP/IP is a little rusty so I am studying up on that. I looked at the sample A+ questions on the CompTIA website and I got them all right so that has me feeling pretty good.

Any suggestions on things I should make sure I am up to date on to make sure I am able to hold my own during the interview?

Thanks
 
Heh... for Level 1 support? If you have a pulse and know how to use a computer, you're smarter than most of the applicants that have come past my desk recently. The A+ cert is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
 
Yeah but I know my A+ is 13 years old. I know my hardware skills are up to date and I have extensive general use with XP and windows 7. And with the job market the way it is, I want to make sure I stand out from the crowd.

Plus the recruiters have told me I would be asked A+ related questions, and I have a feeling it will be my luck that I am asked questions of things I am not up to date on. The recruiters asked me some questions, that look to me like they were taken from the A+ sample questions, but they were all hardware related with the exception of 1 that was TCP/IP related. I am familiar with things like DHCP, DNS, Ipconfig, and have a general understanding of the email protocols.

The one question they asked not hardware related was something like a user complains they can connect to the internal network but cannot reach anything external, what tool do you use to diagnose. With the answer being tracert.

I feel like most of the areas I lack knowledge are in areas that probably aren't to essential to helpdesk, but I'd prefer not to be caught off guard.
 
mike208 said:
The one question they asked not hardware related was something like a user complains they can connect to the internal network but cannot reach anything external, what tool do you use to diagnose. With the answer being tracert.
Click to expand...

What would indicate to me whether you were worth hiring was if you would tell me how you would use tracert to troubleshoot the problem, what possible scenarios would result in the user failing to reach anything external, and how you would resolve those. I would also be looking at how you present yourself; do you show confidence in your knowledge, or are you just nervously parroting something you read in a book?
 
Kadarin said:
What would indicate to me whether you were worth hiring was if you would tell me how you would use tracert to troubleshoot the problem, what possible scenarios would result in the user failing to reach anything external, and how you would resolve those. I would also be looking at how you present yourself; do you show confidence in your knowledge, or are you just nervously parroting something you read in a book?
Click to expand...

Good points! I was told this interview does not like "I don't know", he would prefer to see a candidate try to work through to an answer on something they do not know then to just give up.
 
mike208 said:
Yeah but I know my A+ is 13 years old. I know my hardware skills are up to date and I have extensive general use with XP and windows 7. And with the job market the way it is, I want to make sure I stand out from the crowd.

Plus the recruiters have told me I would be asked A+ related questions, and I have a feeling it will be my luck that I am asked questions of things I am not up to date on. The recruiters asked me some questions, that look to me like they were taken from the A+ sample questions, but they were all hardware related with the exception of 1 that was TCP/IP related. I am familiar with things like DHCP, DNS, Ipconfig, and have a general understanding of the email protocols.

The one question they asked not hardware related was something like a user complains they can connect to the internal network but cannot reach anything external, what tool do you use to diagnose. With the answer being tracert.

I feel like most of the areas I lack knowledge are in areas that probably aren't to essential to helpdesk, but I'd prefer not to be caught off guard.
Click to expand...

Funny, I think that I would have used ipconfig as the answer for that question. They might have a wrong subnet mask or or gateway address that is preventing external network access.
 
Tell them you will google-fu all you dont know. Shit, Ive hired many IT starts if they can quickly say they will google stuff.
 
I don't have my A+ and I got a helpdesk job. I had a lot of knowledge about computers and how to troubleshoot, put together, whatever....

My boss really doesn't care about the A+. He says its an easy cert.

He will hire anyone that shows they are headstrong and can find issues on their own and are not afraid to come for help when they have exhausted all of their resources.


But yea, anything I don't know, I quickly learn from Google and Youtube.
 
ultimatebob said:
Funny, I think that I would have used ipconfig as the answer for that question. They might have a wrong subnet mask or or gateway address that is preventing external network access.
Click to expand...

I may have misquoted the exact details of the question. And to be honest I didn't even really get to answer that question. The low level recruiter asking the question called it trace R T, and one of the higher level guys corrected her and called it trace route. At which point she said "you just gave him the answer". It was a multiple choice question, which I think is not a great judge of knowledge anyway, but thus far she had only read of ping -t and tracert. not even sure if ipconfig was an option in their list.



I do learn most of what I don't know from google, but I wasn't sure if it was ok to tell them that in an interview. And I have no problems asking for help when I need it.


I have watched enough of the IT crowd to know the first thing you say is "Have you turned it off and then turned it back on?" LOL
 
ultimatebob said:
Heh... for Level 1 support? If you have a pulse and know how to use a computer, you're smarter than most of the applicants that have come past my desk recently. The A+ cert is just a bonus as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...

You need to have 4 years experience in management to get a job in level 1 help desk support these days.
 
SheHateMe said:
I don't have my A+ and I got a helpdesk job. I had a lot of knowledge about computers and how to troubleshoot, put together, whatever....

My boss really doesn't care about the A+. He says its an easy cert.

He will hire anyone that shows they are headstrong and can find issues on their own and are not afraid to come for help when they have exhausted all of their resources.


But yea, anything I don't know, I quickly learn from Google and Youtube.
Click to expand...

True now, but, in 1991 when I took the first A+, it was pretty easy but some questions were real tough. Like the shit for laser printers and such. i dont think those questions are on there anymore, like no DOS questions, we had tons of those back in 91.
 
Please please please be comfortable with printers. I managed a NOC and we had a tech that was literally scared (and I mean would shit his pants) of printer work.

Understand Routers/wireless, Subnets, Access Points, Switches, DHCP and you should be fine as far as networking goes.
 
Oyeve said:
True now, but, in 1991 when I took the first A+, it was pretty easy but some questions were real tough. Like the shit for laser printers and such. i dont think those questions are on there anymore, like no DOS questions, we had tons of those back in 91.
Click to expand...


I took mine in 2000, and while there may not have been as many questions as back in '91, there were still DOS and laser printer questions. Heck there was still 1 laser printer question in the sample questions for the current sample questions, lol.
 
The one question most everyone got wrong was:

What file does the computer load first:

A. Command.com
B. Config.sys
C. Autoexec.bat
D. ios.sys


Or something like that. Over 90% said command.com. They were wrong. It was config.sys. I understand why they said command.com as the PC couldnt load at all without it but could load without a config.sys. But remember the dual-boot days when the config.sys would tell the system which os would load? Well, there ya go. Stumped most of my crew.
 
Pr0d1gy said:
After reading this thread I have to wonder why I am not employed in the comp/tech field. lol
Click to expand...

I got into IT in the early 80s, worked at an investment company as the mail-boy, they had PCs, IBM PS2 Model 30, I took to them and thats how I got into computers. I left them after a couple of years, lied on my resume and got a job at Morgan Stanley as a PC tech. I never had any training, just stuff I did in my spare time. I am now an IT director and have been network engineer and everything in between. You cant really lie now as the comp age will catch you. I was lucky as I got "into" IT when it was beginning.
 
Sophitia said:
You need to have 4 years experience in management to get a job in level 1 help desk support these days.
Click to expand...

no no no, 10 years as a network admin is the requirement, plus you also need to know how to admin databases, completely recode the website, manage all backups, admin the email server, clean the toilets, code in 3 different languages, etc, etc, and they're only paying $10 an hour.
 
mike208 said:
I took mine in 2000, and while there may not have been as many questions as back in '91, there were still DOS and laser printer questions. Heck there was still 1 laser printer question in the sample questions for the current sample questions, lol.
Click to expand...

do you mean dot matrix printers? pretty sure laser printers are still around and popular.
 
mike208 said:
I have an interview for a level 1 help desk position tomorrow ad I know I will be asked A+ related questions. I have my A+, but its from 13 years ago. I am very up to date on hardware and am confident in windows XP and windows 7. My networking/TCP/IP is a little rusty so I am studying up on that. I looked at the sample A+ questions on the CompTIA website and I got them all right so that has me feeling pretty good.

Any suggestions on things I should make sure I am up to date on to make sure I am able to hold my own during the interview?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Lol those questions are from like 17 years ago. Holy hell, I forgot so much from that time. I decided for shits and grins to do that test. I only had 10 minutes, but was able to get 71 out of 80 questions right on the first test in that time. The ones I missed were ones I missed clicked or were "tricky" to answer. I hate those ones where they don't exactly tell you which system the question applies to so you have to guess.


But man, no one in today's IT world even cars about A+ cert at all that I know of. Easier to ask a few random tech questions to start getting to the relative knowledge level of the candidate.
 
A lot of the questions will probably be customer service related as well. For example, how to handle an irate customer, or things to say/not say to a customer in certain situations.

Most of it will be common sense. I recall one question that asked what would I tell a customer if they ask for help with something we don't support. I said I would let them know we normally don't support that, but I will see if I can point in the right direction or try to help real quick since we are not busy today. (or something to that extent). you don't want to just say "sorry we don't support that". and leave it at that.

They might also ask questions on priority of problems. Like if someone's login is not working, and someone can't print, which one is more important, etc. The one that is more production impacting is the most important. The person who can't print can let it queue and keep working, the person who can't login is dead in the water. You'll want to fix that first. (getting sudden bad memories of Novell login troubleshooting. Ugh)
 
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