Skill assessment for potential

employees

Network administrator interview questions

Name:

Date:

Question
Based upon the job description that youve seen, please
describe the skills and experience you have that make
this position a good fit for you.
Please describe the technical environment of your
current (or most recent) position, including the number of
users, number of IT staff, your job duties, your work
schedule, etc.
Please describe the greatest accomplishments of your
professional career.

Please describe the importance you place on customer

service vs. technical skills.

How do you keep your technical knowledge and skills

current?

Please describe your greatest technical challenge and

how you overcame it.

What does good customer service involve in this

position?

You are working alone when the following calls come in:
The CEO cant access his e-mail.
Your good friend cant print.
A crabby user cant log in to the network.
The Internet router goes down.
Prioritize the calls and describe why you would service
them in that order.
Please describe the biggest mistake youve made in
your professional career and what you learned from it.

If you were given 60 days, an unlimited budget, and full

authority, what would you change about your current (or
most recent) position and why?

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Answer

Skill assessment for potential

employees
Question
Because of our small size, this position involves
performing a wide variety of tasks, such as changing
toner, clearing printer jams, maintaining equipment,
providing assistance to users, etc., in addition to network
administration. How do you feel about performing tasks
that are not technically challenging? This position
requires a punctual and reliable individual. Does this
describe you?
Its 4:50 P.M. and youre frantically trying to meet a 5
P.M. deadline to complete a task for your manager. You
have an important commitment at 5:15. A user asks you
to help him move a file cabinet, which is not part of your
job description. What will you do and why?
Who have you learned the most from in your life and
why?

Please describe how you determine if youre doing a

good job.

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Answer

Skill assessment for potential

employees

Network administrator questions

Name:

Date:

1. A user has left the company and you need to create a new user with the same rights and permissions.
Please describe two ways to create the new user.

2. Users can send e-mail locally but cannot send e-mail to external recipients. Please describe how you
would troubleshoot and resolve this problem.

3. A remote user in Kansas, who is not technical and is scared to death of computers, calls for help. The
user logged in to your network via the Terminal Server. You determine that the solution to the users
problem requires an edit of a hidden, read-only file, deleting a system file in the winnt\system32 folder,
and creating a simple batch file on the users computer. Please describe the tools you would use to
resolve this problem.

4. Describe some of the technical documentation you have created or maintained, if any.

5. A user complains that when she prints a document in any application, the printer prints garbage. What
is the most likely cause of the problem?

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Skill assessment for potential

employees
6. You just installed a service pack on the file, e-mail, SQL, and print servers. You rebooted all the
servers, and now the service pack installation is complete. Before you go home for the evening, what
additional steps, if any, should you take?

7. Users are complaining of slow performance when they run server-based applications. The server has
the following specifications:
Compaq 1600
800-MHZ Pentium 3
256 MB of RAM
18-GB EIDE Hard Drive
10/100 NIC
Connected to a Cisco switch
The performance monitor shows the following:

Memory - Pages/Sec: 5
Physical Disk - % Disk Time: 20 percent
Processor - % Processor Time: 90 percent

What is the best way to improve the systems performance?

(i.e., If the %Processor Time number stays over 75 percent for a consistent amount of time, then upgrade
to a faster processor or add a second processor.)

8. Please write a short paragraph describing DHCP.

9. A users roaming profile is not accessible. Describe how you would solve this problem.

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Skill assessment for potential

employees
10. A user entered his username and password on his computer, but he cant access a network
application. What is most likely the problem?

11. You are working in a Citrix MetaFrame environment. There are two Citrix servers, which are properly
configured for load balancing and both have Microsoft Word loaded. Some users can use Word, but some
cannot. What is the most likely cause of this problem?

12. What is the very first thing you should do when upgrading to Windows 2000?

13. You are troubleshooting a difficult problem and have run out of ideas. The application displays an
error code. Please list what resources you would use to resolve the issue.

14. Users are complaining of slow Web browsing and file download speeds. Describe how you would
resolve this problem.

15. How do you check for network connectivity?

16. A user asks you for tips on how to avoid e-mail viruses. What advice would you give her?

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Skill assessment for potential

employees

Network administrator experience inventory

On a scale of one to five, with 1 being never used and 5 being expert, please rate your knowledge and
experience in the following technologies. (Check the box that corresponds with your answer.)
Expert Knowledge

2002 TechRepublic, Inc. www.techrepublic.com. All rights reserved.

Strong Knowledge

Windows 2000
Professional
Windows 2000 Server
Windows NT 4
Windows 98/ME
DOS
Citrix MetaFrame
Active Directory
Microsoft SQL 2000
Microsoft SQL 7
Other SQL
Microsoft Exchange Server
2000
Microsoft Exchange Server
5.5
Web Page Design (HTML)
Web Page Administration
Network Security
Router Configuration
Database Report Writing
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Access
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft Outlook
PDAs (Palm, Blackberry,
etc.)
Wireless Networking
Network Printing
Document
Scanning/Document
Imaging
Network Monitoring Tools
PBX/Voice Mail Systems
Valley Oak Systems Portal

Comfortable With

Limited Experience

Never Used

Technology