4 ms·

I'm always wary of consultants - we've had some really bad experiences using recruitment consultants. I absolutely agree that the main aim of an interview is t

I'm always wary of consultants - we've had some really bad experiences using recruitment consultants. I absolutely agree that the main aim of an interview is to determine if a candidate is able to think in a structured and analytical way. I'm much more interested in talking about situations when you might choose UDP over TCP, rather than being able to recite the details of a particular HTTP specification

xxqs 15y ago
I meant technology consultants, not really recruitment consultants :) besides, you can silently participate in the interview, or review the sound recording afterwards.
aen1 15y ago
Sadly enough, I've been ask the UDP/TCP question many times, so I have a good answer, though I have never studied either in depth. So, in theory that would be a great question. But, it is asked too often to really be of any use.
- xxqs 15y ago
  actually a great interview question is what happens when you click a link in the browser. All the steps down to how deep you understand it: through the kernel calls, DNS packets, ARP, Ethernet frames, IP routing, TCP acknowledgements, HTTP headers, MIME types, and so on.
  - aen1 15y ago
    How is that good? It's all memorization
    - xxqs 15y ago
      nope, this is all about understanding the logic and how the system components interact with each other. Besides, you can dig deeper in any direction, depending on the candidate profile. For a network engineer, understanding on the packet level is important. For a web programmer, the interaction between server and client is important (HTTP headers, MIME types etc, webserver scalability etc.). For a sysadmin, understanding of processes and interaction of applications and OS is important. All those can be derived just from a simple question -- what happens when you click on a link
      - tomblomfield 15y ago
        I agree - you can memorise answers on a fairly generic level, but digging deeper in a relevant area, or talking about edge cases, exposes whether a person really understands what's going on.
        xxqs 15y ago
        besides, how can one memorize if the questions are unknown?

xxqs 15y ago

I meant technology consultants, not really recruitment consultants :) besides, you can silently participate in the interview, or review the sound recording afterwards.

aen1 15y ago

Sadly enough, I've been ask the UDP/TCP question many times, so I have a good answer, though I have never studied either in depth. So, in theory that would be a great question. But, it is asked too often to really be of any use.

xxqs 15y ago
actually a great interview question is what happens when you click a link in the browser. All the steps down to how deep you understand it: through the kernel calls, DNS packets, ARP, Ethernet frames, IP routing, TCP acknowledgements, HTTP headers, MIME types, and so on.
- aen1 15y ago
  How is that good? It's all memorization
  - xxqs 15y ago
    nope, this is all about understanding the logic and how the system components interact with each other. Besides, you can dig deeper in any direction, depending on the candidate profile. For a network engineer, understanding on the packet level is important. For a web programmer, the interaction between server and client is important (HTTP headers, MIME types etc, webserver scalability etc.). For a sysadmin, understanding of processes and interaction of applications and OS is important. All those can be derived just from a simple question -- what happens when you click on a link
    - tomblomfield 15y ago
      I agree - you can memorise answers on a fairly generic level, but digging deeper in a relevant area, or talking about edge cases, exposes whether a person really understands what's going on.
      - xxqs 15y ago
        besides, how can one memorize if the questions are unknown?