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Well, it happened! The moment I was terrified of — my knowledge being put to the test in a situation with real stakes.

My first technical interview.

I had a copious amount of notes, frantic reviews of everything I had learned, not knowing what would come up, a million different scenarios of could and WOULD go wrong.

It would be a disaster; I was sure of it.

HR interviews are easy — I actually enjoy them — but I’d never been asked questions about my technical knowledge!

The position: Help Desk / Administrator Assistant.

Not the perfect job or anything, and not the best salary (I’m taking a pay cut to even consider this job), but it’s definitely going to be a test of what I know! Help desk people essentially need to know EVERYTHING in terms of troubleshooting. If something goes wrong, you’re first person to be contacted.

There’s a reason it’s most people’s first job in the IT realm.

What could he ask??? There SO MANY potential topics….

Topics?

• My background / introduction
• Active Directory and Group Policy
  • FSMO Roles in AD. What are they?
  • Tell me about what you have done with Active Directory. What’s your experience with it?
  • At what levels can you implement group policies?
• DHCP
  • What is DHCP?
  • Where is the DHCP server built? Where does it live?
• DNS
  • What is DNS? What are forward and reverse lookups?
• VMWare
  • You mentioned it. What’s your experience with it?
• ISOs
  • Are you familiar with the different ISOs we use?
• How do you install operating systems on devices in enterprise environments (Windows 10/11)? How many ways can you do that?
• 1-2 troubleshooting scenarios
• Specific software I’ve learned about / installed in my IT journey

I honestly can’t remember the rest. They all came at me pretty fast! Haha

What are FSMO Roles in Active Directory??!!!

That was my first question, and I had no idea, and I said straight up that I had no idea, but if he could tell me the full phrase instead of the acronym, that might help.

Nope. Bummer. Not a great way to start.

But then, we hit a groove with the DHCP and DNS questions, for the most part. Then he hit me with “Where does a DHCP server live? Where is it built?”

I gotta admit, I had never really thought about it before, and I wasn’t sure. I know what DHCP is and how it’s used, but I never thought about BUILDING one or where it would be. Flubbed that one!

VMWare? Haven’t used it, but I mentioned that I used VirtualBox for projects, and it fulfills similar functions, and that I do know about it.

Then he hit me with questions about ISO — thank goodness I did my research on the website, which said they follow 9001 and 27001, and I did know what they represented (Quality and Infosec).

Nailed it! I did admit that I didn’t know the details, but would study, as it was a fundamental part of the job.

Those were the noteworthy questions I can remember, though there were definitely others.

All in all, it definitely wasn’t the disaster that I thought it would be. Aside from those couple of questions, I felt okay about it.

And I suppose my interviewer agreed, because it seems I’m being passed on to the next step of the process!

Wow, not a bad result for my first technical interview!

My key takeaways from this first interview experience are this:

1. You won’t know everything, and that can be okay…IF you admit that you don’t know, indicate you won’t B.S. the interviewer, and be amiable and willing to learn…..they’ll more than likely understand.
2. You don’t need to do “business speak” — speak plainly and be straightforward.
3. Take notes during the interview, and let them know that you’re taking notes. They appreciated that I took notes and let me know.
4. Show that you’re coachable and willing to absorb and understand and grow, and they’ll understand.

The biggest takeaway….was that it wasn’t all that different from an HR interview. The same soft skills apply, and you’re still you at the end of the day. You’re not pretending to be someone else, which is maybe what I thought before?

“I have to pretend to be this IT guy who knows technical stuff….”

But the thing is…I AM that guy now, and it’s hard getting that through my head, I suppose. I’ve been a teacher so long, and this is a BIG pivot in terms of career choice.

What a morning! Lots to learn! Can’t wait!