Network Administrator Quiz - Need Some Feedback
I've been working on a quiz that could be used by a small business to find a competent employee that would handle Help Desk tasks as well as Network Administration tasks. This quiz targets a company that would have 10 to 50 employees and 10 to 20 workstations. However, as you'll see in some of the questions, there may be a senior Network Administrator or Network Engineer that is in control of the high level aspects of the network. The inspiration for this comes out of the fact that we are looking to do this very thing, to hire an employee that would be competent in Help Desk and Level 1 Network Administration. This employee would work underneath a senior Network Administrator that will make higher level decisions.
In some of the questions I'm hoping to find out how well a candidate might be able to think through complex problems or how well he/she can plan ahead in an upgrade or migration scenario. To end the arguments that could break out because of subjective grading of this quiz it might be necessary to change most or all of the questions to multiple choice. However, I prefer a quiz that can actually give you an insight into the brain and personality that you're hiring. One obvious problem here is that the test will need to be graded by a higher level Network Administrator or Network Engineer since most business owners will be unable to answer these questions or even understand the answers.
I guess I'm just looking for some really generic feedback. I haven't put tons of careful thought and planning into this quiz and maybe that is obvious. I'm trying to figure out what questions I might be lacking, which questions are too vague or ambiguous, and what level these different questions might be on. Do I have enough help desk level questions in here? Do I have too many engineering questions if the quiz is to be used for hiring a Level 1 Network Administrator? Should I have more Windows Server questions?
Have you seen any professionally designed quizzes online that might be a better option than designing my own? I've found that many of these online quizzes test memorized knowledge about things like how many bits are in a byte but they fail to test the candidate's experience and overall competence using real-world, current day problems/questions.
So here's the quiz, currently at 28 questions:
1) The company president asks you one day to buy a new printer. What questions do you ask him to narrow down what is needed?
2) You get a new network printer and you’re now ready to install and configure it. What steps do you go through to install and configure the printer? List any questions that you need to ask your boss, senior IT Admin, or yourself before or during the installation and configuration.
3) You are upgrading to a new router but the new router is not the same brand as the old router. What settings from the old router do you think are the most important to save and transfer? How would you recommend saving these settings?
4) What features would be gained or what advantages might there be to using a business class firewall instead of a consumer grade router?
5) You come into work one morning and 4 of the company’s 12 workstations do not have network connectivity. What do you think would cause this problem?
6) Registry data is stored in files on your Windows computer’s hard drive. What are the names of these files and what folder(s) are they stored in?
7) The Windows Registry is made up of three or four different entities. The first entity is called “Hives”. Can you name any other entities that are contained within hives?
8) A registry entry has a value of 0x00000002. What data type is this registry entry most likely to be?
9) What is the major technical difference between standby and hibernate? What differences will end users see between these two “sleep modes”?
10) What utility would you recommend using to retrieve a lost POP3 account password from Outlook 2007 (not connected to Exchange Server)?
11) You’re commissioned with buying a new workstation for one of the salesman. In simplicity, what are the pros and cons of buying a 64bit OS versus a 32bit OS?
12) From your memory, fill in as many of these TCP/UDP ports as you know. Input the “normal” default port. Please do not look up the answers online or use books or cheat sheets. If you don’t know the answer simply leave it blank.
POP3:______________
SMTP:______________
RDP/Remote Desktop:_______________
VNC:________________
HTTP/Web Server/IIS:_______________
HTTPS/SSL:________________
FTP Server:_______________
Telnet:__________________
DNS:____________________
SNMP:__________________
SQL Server: ________________
13) List some command line tools you would use to troubleshoot network connectivity and file sharing problems. You do not need to list the parameters or arguments you would use, only the name of the command line tool.
14) In your own words, what is a rootkit?
15) One of your users complains that email leaves his Outlook outbox very slowly. What are some questions you might ask or some of the things you might check on his computer?
16) One of your XP Pro SP3 users complains that his Dell Latitude D630 laptop computer is slow. Upon checking the computer you find that his computer does seem somewhat slow but there are no immediately obvious problems. Describe some of the things you might look for or change in an attempt to resolve his complaints.
17) Patty complains that when she prints multi-page documents she always chooses the printer labeled “Duplexing” in her list of printers but the printer doesn’t actually print using duplexing. You verify that the printer is capable of duplexing and then you test the same printer from your computer and get the same results. The network printer (it connects to the network using a network cable) is installed on the Windows Server and is then shared out to the workstations. Patty’s computer and your computer are both printing to the same shared instance of the printer. What should you change to resolve this problem and on which computer(s) do you make this change?
18) On one of your XP workstations the user can open a Windows file explorer screen but it closes out immediately and pops up a cryptic error message. What could cause this problem and what utility might you use to troubleshoot and resolve this problem?
19) What is the name or names given to the screen (often a black screen) that is shown first before a computer boots into Windows?
20) What is Exchange Server?
21) Your users are all using POP3 and SMTP to send and receive email since the email accounts are hosted by your company’s web hosting company. What major new features would be available to your users after changing the organization over to Exchange Server? Can you think of any additional administration or technical challenges presented by using Microsoft Exchange Server?
22) Design a simple DCHP schema for a company that will have 1 router, 3 access points, 1 server, 15 workstations, and 3 network printers. In your scheme use 192.168.1.0/24 addresses. It’s not important to list the exact IP address for each device although it might be helpful to specify the exact IP address for the router and the server.
23) The senior IT Administrator asks you to change out the boss’s workstation to a newer, faster one. Because the boss’s workstation is not running properly any more, transferring an image of the hard drive to the new computer is not an option. Also, your boss has asked that you not use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard because it might transfer some of the problems to the new computer. You want the project to go as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Design a list that will help make everything go smoothly. You may include questions or blanks. We’ll start you off with a few items:
A) Username__________________
B) IP Address___________________
C) Make list of programs he uses.
24) You configure the company president’s workstation and his user account for Windows Remote Desktop remote access. You ask him about his computer and his Internet connection at home. He says he has Windows XP SP3 and a fast cable Internet connection. You then give him the following message printed on a piece of paper:
To Connect to Your Workstation at Work using Remote Desktop
1) Find and click on the icon normally called “Remote Desktop Connection”. It should be located in Start > All Programs > Accessories System Tools
2) In the Remote Desktop Connection box put the following in “Computer” field: mail.mydomainname.com
The next day the president reports to you that he was unable to make a connection. He found the icon you were talking about and put “mail.mydomainname.com” in the field but it would sit for about 30 seconds and then give an error message about not being able to connect to the remote computer.
What do you need to check or change to resolve this problem? List as many things as you can think of.
25) The owner of your company complains that his computer at home is very slow and he’s getting lots of popups. This computer is not connected to the domain; it has not been under your management or supervision in any way. The owner says that he has some important documents on this computer, he has no backups, and he doesn’t know where his original CD’s for this computer are. It is an HP Pavilion with XP Media Center Edition. What steps would you take to resolve this problem?
26) You install two Linksys/Cisco wireless access points on the outside of your warehouse. One of them is on the west side and the other is on the south side. Each device has a network cable feeding it as the backbone and is plugged into an uninterrupted power supply located on the other side of the wall (on the inside). These wireless access points are broadcasting their SSID and they have the same SSID. They both have WPA encryption enabled and are using the same exact key (the case is the same as well).
One day you take your laptop outside and connect to one of the access points using your laptops built-in Wi-fi adapter. You then make a VoIP phone call to one of your friends in another state. Both of you are using Google Talk. During the call you walk around to the other side of the building and as you do so your call gets completely dropped. A little more testing shows that this happens every time you move around between the two access points. What do you think will resolve this problem?
27) One of the workstations is showing disk errors in the event viewer so you decide to install a new hard disk drive. What is the general term for software that will help you transfer everything from the old hard drive to the new hard drive and can you name one or more of applications that you would use for this operation?
28) A Windows XP workstation has 2 megabytes of RAM. Where would you go to set the page file size and what size should you set it to? What is another term for the page file?
In some of the questions I'm hoping to find out how well a candidate might be able to think through complex problems or how well he/she can plan ahead in an upgrade or migration scenario. To end the arguments that could break out because of subjective grading of this quiz it might be necessary to change most or all of the questions to multiple choice. However, I prefer a quiz that can actually give you an insight into the brain and personality that you're hiring. One obvious problem here is that the test will need to be graded by a higher level Network Administrator or Network Engineer since most business owners will be unable to answer these questions or even understand the answers.
I guess I'm just looking for some really generic feedback. I haven't put tons of careful thought and planning into this quiz and maybe that is obvious. I'm trying to figure out what questions I might be lacking, which questions are too vague or ambiguous, and what level these different questions might be on. Do I have enough help desk level questions in here? Do I have too many engineering questions if the quiz is to be used for hiring a Level 1 Network Administrator? Should I have more Windows Server questions?
Have you seen any professionally designed quizzes online that might be a better option than designing my own? I've found that many of these online quizzes test memorized knowledge about things like how many bits are in a byte but they fail to test the candidate's experience and overall competence using real-world, current day problems/questions.
So here's the quiz, currently at 28 questions:
1) The company president asks you one day to buy a new printer. What questions do you ask him to narrow down what is needed?
2) You get a new network printer and you’re now ready to install and configure it. What steps do you go through to install and configure the printer? List any questions that you need to ask your boss, senior IT Admin, or yourself before or during the installation and configuration.
3) You are upgrading to a new router but the new router is not the same brand as the old router. What settings from the old router do you think are the most important to save and transfer? How would you recommend saving these settings?
4) What features would be gained or what advantages might there be to using a business class firewall instead of a consumer grade router?
5) You come into work one morning and 4 of the company’s 12 workstations do not have network connectivity. What do you think would cause this problem?
6) Registry data is stored in files on your Windows computer’s hard drive. What are the names of these files and what folder(s) are they stored in?
7) The Windows Registry is made up of three or four different entities. The first entity is called “Hives”. Can you name any other entities that are contained within hives?
8) A registry entry has a value of 0x00000002. What data type is this registry entry most likely to be?
9) What is the major technical difference between standby and hibernate? What differences will end users see between these two “sleep modes”?
10) What utility would you recommend using to retrieve a lost POP3 account password from Outlook 2007 (not connected to Exchange Server)?
11) You’re commissioned with buying a new workstation for one of the salesman. In simplicity, what are the pros and cons of buying a 64bit OS versus a 32bit OS?
12) From your memory, fill in as many of these TCP/UDP ports as you know. Input the “normal” default port. Please do not look up the answers online or use books or cheat sheets. If you don’t know the answer simply leave it blank.
POP3:______________
SMTP:______________
RDP/Remote Desktop:_______________
VNC:________________
HTTP/Web Server/IIS:_______________
HTTPS/SSL:________________
FTP Server:_______________
Telnet:__________________
DNS:____________________
SNMP:__________________
SQL Server: ________________
13) List some command line tools you would use to troubleshoot network connectivity and file sharing problems. You do not need to list the parameters or arguments you would use, only the name of the command line tool.
14) In your own words, what is a rootkit?
15) One of your users complains that email leaves his Outlook outbox very slowly. What are some questions you might ask or some of the things you might check on his computer?
16) One of your XP Pro SP3 users complains that his Dell Latitude D630 laptop computer is slow. Upon checking the computer you find that his computer does seem somewhat slow but there are no immediately obvious problems. Describe some of the things you might look for or change in an attempt to resolve his complaints.
17) Patty complains that when she prints multi-page documents she always chooses the printer labeled “Duplexing” in her list of printers but the printer doesn’t actually print using duplexing. You verify that the printer is capable of duplexing and then you test the same printer from your computer and get the same results. The network printer (it connects to the network using a network cable) is installed on the Windows Server and is then shared out to the workstations. Patty’s computer and your computer are both printing to the same shared instance of the printer. What should you change to resolve this problem and on which computer(s) do you make this change?
18) On one of your XP workstations the user can open a Windows file explorer screen but it closes out immediately and pops up a cryptic error message. What could cause this problem and what utility might you use to troubleshoot and resolve this problem?
19) What is the name or names given to the screen (often a black screen) that is shown first before a computer boots into Windows?
20) What is Exchange Server?
21) Your users are all using POP3 and SMTP to send and receive email since the email accounts are hosted by your company’s web hosting company. What major new features would be available to your users after changing the organization over to Exchange Server? Can you think of any additional administration or technical challenges presented by using Microsoft Exchange Server?
22) Design a simple DCHP schema for a company that will have 1 router, 3 access points, 1 server, 15 workstations, and 3 network printers. In your scheme use 192.168.1.0/24 addresses. It’s not important to list the exact IP address for each device although it might be helpful to specify the exact IP address for the router and the server.
23) The senior IT Administrator asks you to change out the boss’s workstation to a newer, faster one. Because the boss’s workstation is not running properly any more, transferring an image of the hard drive to the new computer is not an option. Also, your boss has asked that you not use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard because it might transfer some of the problems to the new computer. You want the project to go as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Design a list that will help make everything go smoothly. You may include questions or blanks. We’ll start you off with a few items:
A) Username__________________
B) IP Address___________________
C) Make list of programs he uses.
24) You configure the company president’s workstation and his user account for Windows Remote Desktop remote access. You ask him about his computer and his Internet connection at home. He says he has Windows XP SP3 and a fast cable Internet connection. You then give him the following message printed on a piece of paper:
To Connect to Your Workstation at Work using Remote Desktop
1) Find and click on the icon normally called “Remote Desktop Connection”. It should be located in Start > All Programs > Accessories System Tools
2) In the Remote Desktop Connection box put the following in “Computer” field: mail.mydomainname.com
The next day the president reports to you that he was unable to make a connection. He found the icon you were talking about and put “mail.mydomainname.com” in the field but it would sit for about 30 seconds and then give an error message about not being able to connect to the remote computer.
What do you need to check or change to resolve this problem? List as many things as you can think of.
25) The owner of your company complains that his computer at home is very slow and he’s getting lots of popups. This computer is not connected to the domain; it has not been under your management or supervision in any way. The owner says that he has some important documents on this computer, he has no backups, and he doesn’t know where his original CD’s for this computer are. It is an HP Pavilion with XP Media Center Edition. What steps would you take to resolve this problem?
26) You install two Linksys/Cisco wireless access points on the outside of your warehouse. One of them is on the west side and the other is on the south side. Each device has a network cable feeding it as the backbone and is plugged into an uninterrupted power supply located on the other side of the wall (on the inside). These wireless access points are broadcasting their SSID and they have the same SSID. They both have WPA encryption enabled and are using the same exact key (the case is the same as well).
One day you take your laptop outside and connect to one of the access points using your laptops built-in Wi-fi adapter. You then make a VoIP phone call to one of your friends in another state. Both of you are using Google Talk. During the call you walk around to the other side of the building and as you do so your call gets completely dropped. A little more testing shows that this happens every time you move around between the two access points. What do you think will resolve this problem?
27) One of the workstations is showing disk errors in the event viewer so you decide to install a new hard disk drive. What is the general term for software that will help you transfer everything from the old hard drive to the new hard drive and can you name one or more of applications that you would use for this operation?
28) A Windows XP workstation has 2 megabytes of RAM. Where would you go to set the page file size and what size should you set it to? What is another term for the page file?
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Oh, I forgot to add that it is a lot of questions, are you sure you want to spend that much time in each interview? Maybe 2 tests? One for the first interview to vet out the unqualified and a broader one in the second interview to narrow it down. Nowadays in this economy you get 1000's of resumes. Its overwhelming. That means a lot of qualified candidates. I actually do a phone interview first, then in person, then 2nd with final 3 - 5. Its time consuming and I have my normal network responsibilities so I just wanted to point out that time may be a factor for you.
ASKER
I appreciate your response atrevido. I may consider changing #22 entirely. I mostly want to find out if the ideas of IP management and IP reservations has ever crossed the mind of the potential candidate. It frustrates me when users and IT staff mindlessly add devices and just let DHCP assign the next available IP to any type of device. Thanks for pointing out that "scheme" would be better than "schema".
And yes, I do think this might be too many questions. I'm actually trying to gather enough questions that I can start to divide them up different ways. As you suggested, I might consider dividing it into two tests so that we can quickly cull out the good from the bad. We might also consider dividing it up into two different tests so that candidates don't all take the exact same test.
And yes, I do think this might be too many questions. I'm actually trying to gather enough questions that I can start to divide them up different ways. As you suggested, I might consider dividing it into two tests so that we can quickly cull out the good from the bad. We might also consider dividing it up into two different tests so that candidates don't all take the exact same test.
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notacomputergeek, You have some really great ideas there - just what I was looking for.
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Mysidia, some really great feedback there. I think your suggestions are well on the way to defining a generic outline on how any IT related quiz should be designed.
I really appreciate all of these great responses.
I really appreciate all of these great responses.
Another thought. The more sculpted the quiz is to the environment does a better job of testing the candidates skills that might actually be of use to the company and it gives the candidate a good idea of what's expected.
ASKER
Just a little thought to add here on my registry questions. I think they might not be necessary although I'm struggling to come up with a way to find out what the user knows and how he thinks about the Windows Registry. I've found that most competent and experienced admins are slow to make registry changes and are careful about backups. However, a lot of newbies are fairly quick to make changes without always being certain of what's going to happen afterwards. I've been guilty of this myself and probably still am at times although I'm now much slower to make experimental changes on production machines, especially if I don't have a current image backup.
Also, a few years ago I asked a "server tech" where the Windows registry is stored. He told me that it's not stored in files, "it's built into the Windows code". I wonder where he's working today.
Also, a few years ago I asked a "server tech" where the Windows registry is stored. He told me that it's not stored in files, "it's built into the Windows code". I wonder where he's working today.
Perhaps:
1. How do you make a change to the registry? Why would you make a change?
2. How do you back it up before making the change? Is it necessary?
On the backup be open to multiple answers. I make changes to the registry all the time and have never backed up the files. I will export the key that I'm working on and that usually should be good enough.
1. How do you make a change to the registry? Why would you make a change?
2. How do you back it up before making the change? Is it necessary?
On the backup be open to multiple answers. I make changes to the registry all the time and have never backed up the files. I will export the key that I'm working on and that usually should be good enough.
ASKER
jhyiesla, Thanks for pointing out that number 11 is unnecessary. I threw that question in because of a trick I learned while doing computer repair on consumer machines. If a Windows install gets corrupted to the point that it won't boot (often due to a virus or spyware infection) you can replace the current registry files with registry files saved in a Windows Restore Point. I've resurrected numerous machines that way. However, the way we tend to repair machines within small to large companies probably renders this question useless. I think it's usually preferable to just reinstall a corrupted machine or revert it back to a previous image backup.
Rick O Shay, I find people divided on the issue of using WireShark. I know the owner of an IT provider company for small business who believes that WireShark should be used by high level engineers and/or those who provide support for the products that the IT provider company sells. In other words, WireShark should never need to be used by Network Admins or System Admins; the problem is too deep if you're digging out WireShark. I personally use it occasionally but I don't like to have to use it either. Last time I used it I was troubleshooting an issue where outgoing email using our SMTP provider (non-exchange) and FTP uploads to our web server were failing. I eventually tracked down the exact device/IP address causing the problem and over a period of five weeks went back and forth with Network Solutions to get the problem resolved. Needless to say, we no longer use Network Solutions. I guess what I'm saying is that using WireShark is kind of a last resort thing for me.