Interviewing System Administrator recommended questions

First I think it's important to step back into your own past and think of what you know when you were first coming into your position. I would assume that some things are ok to be learned and it's important to keep this in mind so you dont weed out candidates with high potential to grow. Maybe try asking how to do the basic everyday tasks that anyone with hands on experience would know how to do or would know information about.

If you have the benefit of time, I find it helpful to step away from the questions and go back to review them weeks later to make sure even I still know the answers. Sometimes answers seem obvious at the time of writing but after day to day work of other tasks you may not be able to recall how to answer.

While knowledge is key, dont place too much emphasis on it. To me it's more important for the candidate to get along well with the team and myself if they show potential to proactively grow their skills and imvestigate answers to problems they dont know.

You can give them open ended questions about your configuration to try to get them to ask investigative questions.

Try to stay away from long arduous tasks like your install example because that could take a while and waste both your and the candidates time. Also double check with HR to ensure that your questions are allowable and consistent across candidates.

Thanks.

These are good suggestions.  

I want to know that this candidate can work with the core Windows Server application and roles from day one.  
I was thinking of asking  

1. "How would you create a GPO that only targets a group of users or computers?"
2. "What tools would you use to validate computer connectivity?"
3. "How to prevent users from logging on to certain computers?"
4. "What tools would you use to assess an issue a server or workstation is having?"
5. "What event happens on the second Tuesdays of every month?"

Question 2  I want to see is they have knowledge of tools like  PING, TRACERT, NSLOOKUP.

Question 4: I want to see what steps they take to troubleshoot an issue with a computer or server  like Event Viewer or Task Manger to see if there are weird things that will jump out to them and they can start looking for a solution.

Thanks for that insight.

Those are good suggestions.
This person will be wearing many hats. He/she will not just be solely dealing with sys admin duties, but will be involved with assisting Desktop Support team with issues as well.

I concur to that reply. I am do not have certs and I know people that have them and I know much more than they do.

I have done a round of phone screenings. One of the candidates did a great job highlighting his project achievements.  I am leaning towards him, but did want to see what they can do with a situation presented to them and some of these questions can highlight whether the candidate has this knowledge to start attacking the problem.

Can you recall if there were any changes since the last time you created a new mailbox?

That is interesting considering this candidate will be responsible for a lot of MS software.
I hope he says yes.

I was looking at it differently, but I like that angle.

Thank you all for this great feedback.

Thanks all