We recently had a position available for a Senior Network Engineer and had a plan to filter the majority of the candidates out via a technical interview and shortlist two or three candidates for a thorough second interview. The idea on paper sounds pretty good so I set up a lab for the candidates to complete. This went through some beta testing at the office which was very interesting. During the beta testing in the office some said the lab was fair (those with a 80%+) while some complained that it was to easy (those who scored in the 60’s), ironically. The majority of the candidates who applied for the position already passed the CCIE written and was apparently preparing for the lab, therefore some harder questions were added to 1) make the lab more challenging and 2) make the lab interview a full hour long. Personally I think one hour is still a bit short for a practical interview, four hours would be ideal.
The mini lab consists of four devices. The candidates only have ‘enable’ access to one device where all the configuration is to be done. The other three devices have been fully preconfigured. In other words if the configuration is done correctly all links or neighbors will come up correctly as well. The candidates have exec access to the three preconfigured devices, but not access to change the configuration. This allow them to verify their configuration but also one or two questions required that the candidate do some show commands on the preconfigured devices to determine the missing part of the puzzle.
In a sense the lab interview was a failure due to the candidates failing miserably. I decided to mark the lab for each configuration individually as the questions built on each other. Full marks were awarded if the question was configured correctly even if it did not work due to an earlier mistake. Depending what the mistakes were the interviewee would score between 1 and 2 points out of 3 for each question. Examples: If the candidate knew what was needed to complete the configuration but had a wrong ip address they scored 1 point. If they configured a question correctly but made a typo or silly mistake they score 2 points. This made the scores look a bit better and did not punish ‘pressure’ mistakes to harshly. The objective of the interview was to determine the technical ability of the interviewee, therefore typo’s and real silly mistakes were a minor issue.
Interview Lab
This lab will also be good preparation for other practical interviews or even for someone in the early stages of CCIE lab preparation. What is your view? Is the lab above ccnp/ccip applying for a Senior Networking position? What would you say is a reasonable score taking into consideration the scoring method?
I will publish the Solution Guide in a follow up post.
