[154725] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: job screening question
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (goemon@anime.net)
Tue Jul 10 03:34:01 2012
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2012 00:32:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: goemon@anime.net
To: Jeroen van Aart <jeroen@mompl.net>
In-Reply-To: <4FFBB10A.2020508@mompl.net>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Jeroen van Aart wrote:
> William Herrin wrote:
>> This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
>> to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
>> clamping and RFC 4821.
>>
>> The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.
> I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and find a
> solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to have than
> having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.
>
> It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer to
> that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many things by
> heart has become incredibly moot.
If you are applying for a network position, you better know the *basics*.
Having to look up the basics is not a good sign.
Do you really want to hire someone who is going to have to look up basic
networking concepts for 30 minutes every time they are in a meeting and
asked a question?
-Dan
