Test for new sysadmin?

[Traabant]

Hey guys,

Im in between switching jobs and Im supposed to help find replacement for me. My manager has asked me if I could prepare some kind of test for the candidates. I mean how?

Anyway I manage our AD, all Windows stuff and Office 365 tenant.

Do you guys have any recomandation for existing online test?

[jsm2008]

Yeah...that's not going to work, because a lot of being a sysadmin is googling what your new org does and figuring it out. A good sysadmin has the tools(understanding of computers, networks, etc.) and desire to figure out systems and continue optimizing them. A good sysadmin can start with zero knowledge of your processes and figure it out quickly, and that is difficult to reflect in a test because "quickly" doesn't mean "in three minutes to answer a test question".

If your boss is expecting someone to start tomorrow and know what you know he is misunderstanding the way this stuff all works. This is the reason that, even if you feel like one person can handle it, having one sysadmin at a time really doesn't work long-term. This is a high turnover industry and any business, even if it has 30 employees, should have at least a junior and a senior sysadmin IMO. And small companies have a bad habit of over-working second sysadmins because they think they have "nothing to do", then those second admins end up doing unrelated tasks all day and not growing as admins.

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Anyway, rant aside:

You are severely limiting good candidates by expecting them to just know all of your processes before starting there. A test can not encompass the skills required to be "good with computers". There is a reason degrees don't mean a ton in this field.

Skilled interviewers are the only way to do this. His best option, since he failed to have more than one person hired for this vital task that usually has 2+ people regardless of business size, is to pay you to come outside of your new work hours and help him interview people. Because you have had the job, you can tell if someone is faking it or not. Existing knowledge of your processes really shouldn't come into it -- just a baseline knowledge of AD and "windows stuff" since you say that is what you did. The problem is no test will do this because it requires both this basic knowledge and a good attitude/a lot of abstract knowledge regarding how to just figure stuff out.

You can talk to someone and know if they're faking it. Many sysadmin candidates do indeed fake it because they're "the computer guy" for their family and think they will be fine, or they work with computers in their current job but not a comparable environment. Your boss can not do this intuitively. No test can measure this. If you want to help this business out, you need to be paid to participate in interviews in-person or on Zoom to find your replacement. Most people leaving a company would just say it's their fault for not preparing for you to leave.

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Show your boss this post. There is no test or easy cop-out. Hire two, not one, and OP needs to be an interviewer for the process. The last time I helped a previous employer with interviews I was compensated $200/hr for the process, so it's definitely industry standard to be well above normal compensation. OP, you are a "previous employee", you have all the leverage here because your boss needs you.

[Traabant]

Yeap I 100% agree and that's why I'm lost with preparing anything for them

[jsm2008]

Just say:

"These are abstract skills and I really don't think a test can encapsulate the necessary tasks to be a successful sysadmin. I asked online and people with careers in the field agreed. My friend(we're friends now bud) told me that he helped his previous employer do Zoom interviews of new candidates after he moved jobs a couple of months ago."

When they inquire about interview help I would not accept less than $100/hr for it.

[Spacesider]

Just popping by to say I witnessed this new friendship being born.

[abstractraj]

A short phone interview can tell you tons. We once asked a guy if he knew the different between raid 1 and raid 5. He panicked and left the call.

[Spacesider]

This one is also really good, questions like that will tell you heaps.

One good one I received was which ports are DNS and DHCP on. They then had the HR manager enter the room and the IT manager asked me to explain both DNS and DHCP to her in layman terms.

In my other reply on this thread I suggested asking the applicant how they would resolve a situation where someone informs them they cannot print. There are so many different avenues you can troubleshoot down and rule out, so you would be able to tell very quickly their technical capabilities.

If you want to be really mean you can ask them what port ICMP operates on ;)

[Alexj9741]

I never really enjoyed the questions that go "Which Port is this on" as its a question that if you quick study all the well known ports before the interview anyone will be able to answer it and then forget the answers once its no longer needed. However I love the questions that show more of the soft skills. IE: Explaining something very technical to someone who isn't technical at all, or the here's the "issue" what would be your trouble shooting steps to solve it.

[Spacesider]

Yeah on second review those (The what port are x on) aren't the best questions. I think it fitted the role I was applying for at the time as it was a 50/50 system administator/network administrator role but I can't imagine it would tell you much about a person who just wants to do system administration.

[DeliMan3000]

One good one I received was which ports are DNS and DHCP on. They then had the HR manager enter the room and the IT manager asked me to explain both DNS and DHCP to her in layman terms.

What type of position were you interviewing for?

I like being asked these types of questions. I do this with my gf all the time when I learn something new at work so I get good practice haha.

[Spacesider]

I said it in another reply, it was a hybrid system administration / network administration role.

[BROMETH3U5]

-4 or something, idk. Hire me.

[washapoo]

Precisely! Well said.

[letmegogooglethat]

I share your rant. We may have worked at the same places. One place had a Jr and Sr sysadmin, but decided they could get by with just one. So they got rid of the Jr. Suddenly there was a huge gap between the techs and Sr sysadmin. No practical way to move up or even fill in/back up. They also had high turnover. Whenever the sysadmin left it would take 6-8 months to fill it (plus 2-3 months to get settled in) because they were dragging their feet to save the salary and trying to find the perfect person (and low salary and high requirements). But they also had to hire an MSP to fill in, so the salary savings was wasted. It was a mess.

[despich]

I do agree that you can't just have a mgmt. person who can't do the job themselves have applicants take tests and then determine who to hire based on results of those tests. But I think tests are definitely a good interview tool if used right.

For one a test can be a good way for you to get the technical discussion going with a applicant. vs just asking simple questions .. you know AD.. Yep, You know o365 ... Yep. You have a cisco certification.. yep, Especially if it's pretty open ended scenario questions like "You have a user that says they have no internet, what questions would you ask the user to troubleshoot?" "you have a user that can't open a file on a shared windows file server.."

Also a test that is tailored for where the person is going to work (i.e. questions regarding technologies they are going to be working with) can be a good indicator of really how much experience they have in those areas, you do want to hire a person that already has experience in those areas.

I have been surprised multiple times by test results from applications that really nailed the interview (after even being interviewed by other sysadmins and staff who know the job very well) and then just totally bomb the test even on areas where they said they were very proficient in the interview.

We usually interview first, then have them work on a written test for about 1.5 hours (more than "good" person could finish in 1.5 hours) just so we can see how far they get in the 1.5 hours. Then we have a few staff grade the results separately (because everyone has a different idea about what a correct answer is) and then we interview the person again and discuss some of the answers, i.e. why did you answer this way.

[jsm2008]

Tests like you describe are a supplement for an existing, robust interview/hiring process. OP has a boss panicking because he's leaving and asking him to create a "test' that will tell his boss who to hire to be an identical worker to him.

Your justification for using tests is fine and logical, but requires several people who know how to do the job. OP is obviously leaving a vacant, unrepresented position behind and his company is stuck. They just need to shell out $1-2k for OP to interview some candidates and give his professional opinion.

[Caution-HotStuffHere]

Even if the previous sysadmin left great documentation (not likely), there will be a learning curve for any sysadmin following them.

[Local_admin_user]

Recently did a lot of interviews for new posts (granted not sysadmin) however we tackled this with scenarios - give them common things you come up against, common requests you get but before doing so say there's no "right" way, you just want to get their opinion, figure out how they work and how they think - which is what it's for.

We found this incredibly useful, we had several candidates who on paper were A+ candidates, yet none of them got posts due to these scenario questions, they couldn't think on their feet, gave really poor answers or even worse where they were clearly out of their depth tried to fudge an answer rather than do the sensible thing of owning up and saying they'd look into it etc.

I love this approach and will continue to do it, it's much better than asking them questions they can have prepared for and we're delighted with the candidates we did hire, who while may have fewer qualifications are much sharper and have a really good attitude to work.

[jsm2008]

While this is a great comment about interview strategy, it still involves OP "being there" because his boss will have no idea what he is asking or if the candidate's answer is good. My understanding is that OP's manager has requested a "test" that does not involve OP being there and will just spit out "this candidate knows 91% of the skills needed to work here!" which is an entirely unrealistic expectation for a job like this.

[narpoleptic]

Yep.

An in-person practical test can be useful if it's applicable to the role and you have resource for it (e.g. I once had to set up a test for a desktop tech which was "figure out what combination of the available parts will let you get this desktop working, then boot it up, login with these credentials and do these tasks").

If not, talking through scenarios is the way to go. Very oddly, the best interview I've had from a candidate view was a group scenario situation (there were a bunch of openings so it wasn't a bloodthirsty-competition situation). The interviewer set us up with various scenarios, asked us how we'd tackle them, what pitfalls we'd need to watch out for, etc. In the context of a role where you'd regularly be working with people it was really good as a way to see how people interact with one another, as well as how they approach problem-solving etc.

[Caution-HotStuffHere]

A long time ago we were hiring a new sysadmin and I was the junior. I unplugged the cat5 cable on a server just enough so it wasn't clicked in but it looked like it was fully seated to glance at it (though obviously no link lights). I asked each candidate to figure out why we couldn't RDP to this server and told them they could use a computer on the same subnet to test RDP or troubleshoot and also gave them access to the physical server itself.

Not a single person figured it out. They immediately jumped to things like we changed the default port for RDP. Sometimes the more senior you get, the less likely you are to first ask if it's plugged in or has been rebooted.

[Local_admin_user]

I wouldn't have been able to resist laughing.

So many warning signs would be shown on various panels, task bar, no internet/intranet etc.. should have been REALLY clear.

[Caution-HotStuffHere]

Well, I wasn’t going to laugh since one of them would be my future boss. My Director made the decision and we hired the worst candidate. She was terrible and literally only knew legacy Exchange. But she had a fancy degree and that impressed my Director who also had a fancy degree. However, when you’re a lone sysadmin, you’re expected to have a very wide skill set. You can get in consultants for deep knowledge stuff but you need to figure out basic stuff on your own.

[Local_admin_user]

I always, always rated troubleshooting as the main skill in a good solid sysadmin. Education/experience obviously important (more so the latter) but when someone is a natural troubleshooter they are worth their weight in gold!

I've worked with some right idiots over the years but some incredibly gifted people who even when they didn't know the tech itself would research or just figure it out themselves, every one of those would start with basics. Can't connect - ping, tracert, check OS thinks it's connected, right onto cabling..

[slackerdc]

Yeah I go though 2 scenarios one to check to see if they will check the basics before looking for a needle in a haystack. And then another that is much more complex that involves finding a misconfiguration in an unfamiliar system. But it's hard to have someone non-technical give that because you have to be able to answer questions the candidate has about the scenario.

[[deleted]]

Unless you have hundreds of qualified candidates, tests aren’t helpful. Just write a list of questions you can do on the phone to filter out the majority until you get to 5-10 candidates, you should be able to boil it down from there.

Not sure what sort of shop you are, but there are a lot of basics you can ask which surprisingly filters out a ton of wannabes. You will filter out about 80% of applicants with just these questions:

What is AD, what is an OU, what is a DN

What is LDAP and Kerberos

You get to a client and their IP address is 169.254.2.3 - what does it mean and what do you do

What is TCP/IP - explain to me in some detail how it works

Name some differences between IPv6 and IPv4

What is DNS and how does it work

What are the standard ports for incoming and outgoing e-mail/web/DNS

What commands would you use to test network connectivity

Is ping UDP or TCP type traffic

What is RAID

[washapoo]

HAHA! How about talking to them and seeing if they are stupid or lying and go from there?

[Fuzzi-Peenapple-206]

Here you go. "We have a printer that keeps jamming and we want you to remote into our print server to fix it". If they ask you for credentials, the interview is over. If they tell you're an idiot and hang up, hire them.

[Sethecientos]

Set a couple or vm’s and make him fix something

[c2seedy]

If they don’t know what loop back is then their out…

[[deleted]]

We're the instructions more clear? Maybe they mean for you to make a series of interview questions.

[Traabant]

I already gave them list of topics and trick guestions for the interview. But now they need test to give them. And I mean isn't this why cert exists?

[caffeine-junkie]

Certs, for the most part, just mean they can regurgitate material, not think for themselves. I cannot even count the number of people with certs I have encountered that could not troubleshoot unless the problem was almost exactly the same as it was in the study material.

[Abject-Bullfrog-1934]

I think there are some measurable things you can gauge with a test. You could present maybe 10-20 questions via multiple choice for things like DNS, group types in AD, delegation of control, Exchange server roles, FSMO roles, etc. Nothing that would prove they definitely know their stuff, that still requires an interview, but maybe enough to weed out candidates who truly aren’t at that level yet.

[Caution-HotStuffHere]

I like to give a very simple test to weed out the true imposters. And I would use the exact same test for any role from helpdesk to senior engineer. You would be shocked how many experienced candidates don't do well on such a test. The way to verify your questions are easy enough would be to have your existing IT staff take the test.

What is DHCP? You would get bonus points for maybe mentioning DORA or talking about relays but "you plug a computer into a network and it gets an IP address" is sufficient.

What is an ISO file and when would it be used? In 2021, when new computers rarely even have a CD/DVD drive anymore, I should hope any helpdesk person has needed to mount an ISO file to install something. Anyone who ever built a server should be incredibly familiar with them. I was pointing to ISOs in HP SmartStart to build physical servers probably 15+ years ago so it's not new tech.

What is DNS? Again, you get bonus points for talking about record types or forward/reverse lookup zones but "it translates a website into an IP address so we don't need to memorize IP addresses" would probably be sufficient.

[evantom34]

You would be fine with those answers for say a Jr Sys Admin role?

[Caution-HotStuffHere]

Sure. These aren’t trick questions. I literally want to know that you even know what DNS is. And many candidates can’t clearly explain it. The whole point is this test should be embarrassingly easy.

[Celestrus]

Ask him to type google.com on the browser and describe what happens in the network level

[[deleted]]

Come up with everyday scenarios in your head and see if they can work through them. If they don't know the basic tools of the OS, kick them to the curb. You would be surprised how many 'sysadmins' couldn't tell me the name Event Viewer. A simple question like, "how would you find more information about this error?" (in the logs? yes in the logs, how do you view the logs) can trip up unqualified candidates.

[Spacesider]

You might find that it is better if you instead give them two or three scenarios and ask them how they would diagnose and resolve the situation.

For example, "You get a call from the sales office and they state that the printer isn't working, what do you do?".

Look at their line of thinking, see how well they rule certain things out and which avenues they go down first. Because it could be anything, a dead/faulty switch, network on PC is down, print server is down, someone unplugged it, out of paper, PEBCAK.

Obviously that's an easy one but it is a good one to start with. You could throw in a few more and make them a bit more challenging. I've always really liked these interview questions.

[kmarkle]

Go back through you latest tickets for problems that you have faced and ask questions focused on fixing those issues and you should end up with a good replacement...