nanog mailing list archives

Re: job screening question


From: Don Gould <don () bowenvale co nz>
Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2012 18:40:17 +1200

Ok, so I read over Williams OP...

I have 25 years IT experience... I've applied for a few jobs in my time... I thought to myself "I'll have a crack with a few comments!!!"...

....then I read down the next 30 posts and decided that perhaps I didn't really know enough about networking to really comment... ...and perhaps I needed a bit more grey hair and eat more RFCs for breakfast...

...then I read down the next 30 posts and realised that I really didn't know enough about computing to comment.... ...and perhaps my problem wasn't lack of grey hair, but just to much hair...

...Talk about a bunch of intimidating uber geeks! :)

I suspect that when I read down the next 30 posts I'll just back away from the computer slowly knowing that I'm just not smart enough to use this device.

But seriously guys, great thread with tons of really interesting stuff and a bunch of history.

D

On 6/07/2012 5:02 a.m., William Herrin wrote:
Hi folks,

I gave my HR folks a screening question to ask candidates for an IP
expert position. I've gotten some "unexpected" answers, so I want to
do a sanity check and make sure I'm not asking something unreasonable.
And by "unexpected" I don't mean naively incorrect answers, I mean
oh-my-God-how-did-you-get-that-cisco-certification answers.

The question was:

You implement a firewall on which you block all ICMP packets. What
part of the TCP protocol (not IP in general, TCP specifically)
malfunctions as a result?


My questions for you are:

1. As an expert who follows NANOG, do you know the answer? Or is this
question too hard?

2. Is the question too vague? Is there a clearer way to word it?

3. Is there a better screening question I could pass to HR to ask and
check the candidate's response against the supplied answer?

Thanks,
Bill Herrin



--
Don Gould
31 Acheson Ave
Mairehau
Christchurch, New Zealand
Ph: + 64 3 348 7235
Mobile: + 64 21 114 0699



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