IT Consultant

Beyond repairing and replacing, IT Technicians are required to be expert communicators and attentive to user needs. In situations like the one above, candidates should demonstrate patience and try to distill a technical problem into consumable advice.

The candidate's answer will show their ability to ensure timeframes are adhered to in a dynamic project.

In addition to learning more about whether you like the products you use at your company, this question helps employers gauge your enthusiasm and knowledge. Do you get animated when discussing the benefits of certain tools? Do you seem to have a solid grasp of the positive and negative features of different technologies?

This question tests the ability of the candidate to counteract risks by implementing preventative strategies.

Ask stakeholders how they want change to happen

Negotiate with stakeholders on competing priorities

Tell them change is happening

Prepare them for the change

Make the change happen

Communicate that change has ocurred

Identifying patterns where staff need more support and coaching them to handle exceptions

Being available to team members on core competencies

Providing training and development opportunities for skillset outside of the organization

This question is designed to give insight into how you handle technology products with which you have less expertise. What steps have you taken to overcome a knowledge gap and ensure that you still get things done on time? IT interview questions such as these are also aimed to gauge how well you handle challenges and deal with stress.

This question is great because it shows you’re thinking ahead and about what you could contribute to the company should you be hired. It also provides another opportunity to assess the company’s culture and management’s understanding of the role they’re hiring for.

How will your performance be evaluated? Will you be judged on how solid your code is or just how many lines of code you write per day?

Asking how your performance will be evaluated gives you a good sense of how management understands the role. It can also give you a glimpse of corporate culture in action. If performance is based on the quality of the product, chances are company culture supports the idea of upholding quality.

You can also use this answer to highlight your performance in previous positions.

Provide examples on managing cost, schedule, scope

This is an interesting question, since the two extremes of possible answers may be "correct" depending on the role you're trying to fill. If you're looking to fill a strategy- or project-related role, where the candidate will be bouncing from project to project on a weekly or monthly basis, you want someone who is easily bored and constantly looking for new challenges. If you need a competent manager or staff member to run a steady-state process and sweat the details, you obviously want a very different candidate.

Listen carefully. The potential hire's answer will demonstrate their ability to close projects effectively. Some projects fail because they aren’t finished or closed properly. It is therefore important to establish whether your candidate has the drive to complete a project.

Discuss the need to balance projects that are innovative versus scaling or structuring enterprise processes

Utilize business case and how to determine big technology bets to drive innovation

Discuss need to validate claimed expertise

Provide examples on how to manage but not hamper outside consultants

IT Technicians should always be aware of the technological advances in computing power, security and software and should be able to identify new technology that could improve company operations. Candidates should describe how they stay abreast of technological trends, including reading blogs and furthering their technical education.

Every company has a culture just like every person has a personality. You won’t get along with everyone, and not every company’s culture will be a good fit for you. Many companies have demanding cultures. This can be particularly true in IT departments, where deadlines can be tight, expectations sky-high, and workloads heavy.

Asking about the company culture can give you a good idea of whether or not you want to work with this particular employer. It may look great from the outside, but it might not be right for you. Consider the interviewer’s response carefully.

This question tests a candidate's systems analysis expertise. Candidates should describe sub-netting as a process of splitting up a single TCP/IP network into a number of unique network segments. Look for answers detailing the benefits and drawbacks of the two network structures.

Candidates should detail their step-by-step troubleshooting process, including collecting information from users experiencing the error, establishing a hypothesis, testing it and implementing a corrective solution. The more detail, the more effective the methodology.

The candidate's answer will demonstrate their ability to motivate the project team to reach targets, and illuminate their management style. It is important to choose a candidate with strong people skills.