Interview for IT position.

[PoorManQ45]

I just received a call requesting me to come in for an interview.

The position will be Verizon's internal help desk.

The lady said there will be a technical assessment. I really like the idea of that as I'm better at showing what I know then talking about it.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

[numbnuts240]

don't let them find your nico posts.

[RobPaulson]

Act and talk exactly like you do on these forums. Trust me, the interview will be flawless.

[PoorManQ45]

When they ask if I have any questions I want to ask about naps!

At my current job I'm the only one here. So once I get everything self sustaining I take a nap

[sentrastace]

good luck, im sure you'll do fine. help desk is an awesome job, until all of verizon implodes and youre up to your butt in work/calls for help lol.
technical assessments are definitely better to give a chance to show what you can do instead of talk. just polish up on all your basics...so you still have the books from school? I used to help my ex bf study when he graduated in IT for his help desk jobs. do you have any certifications?

[PoorManQ45]

good luck, im sure you'll do fine. help desk is an awesome job, until all of verizon implodes and youre up to your butt in work/calls for help lol.

Indeed! If it's anything like my last job that'll happen on a daily basis!

technical assessments are definitely better to give a chance to show what you can do instead of talk. just polish up on all your basics...so you still have the books from school?

I'm currently working in a bench tech position. So I use the basics alot. I'll brush up on them though.

I used to help my ex bf study when he graduated in IT for his help desk jobs. do you have any certifications?

I only have DCSEs, like 100s of them. I never bothered with the other certifications though as I was just too damn lazy... I need to get around to the A+ and Net+ tests. I should be able to walk in and take them as I've seen the latest test...

Any other advice?

[flohtingPoint]

When they ask "Do you have any questions?" (and they will), reply with something along the lines of "Yes, what is your biggest problem area and what can I do to help fix it?". Most of the time, the folks giving an interview are not technically savvy, so they wont have a reply, they'll just be impressed that you stepped up to the plate and laid your nuts on the table.

[PoorManQ45]

When they ask "Do you have any questions?" (and they will), reply with something along the lines of "Yes, what is your biggest problem area and what can I do to help fix it?". Most of the time, the folks giving an interview are not technically savvy, so they wont have a reply, they'll just be impressed that you stepped up to the plate and laid your nuts on the table.

Nice, I like that alot! Anymore?

Would it look bad if I brought a notepad with me with some questions?

[flohtingPoint]

Couldn't hurt. Act as interested as possible. Couldn't hurt to do some research on the company so that when they start going into a bit of the background of the company (and they will) you can chime in with a couple factoids you may have picked up from your reading. This will make you stand out as a candidate, as they'll remember you this way.

[RCA]

How did the interview go?

[PoorManQ45]

The interview is Tomorrow, Thursday at 9am.

It's going to be a little weird riding the motorcycle with dress clothes on...

[dre1507]

The interview is Tomorrow, Thursday at 9am.

It's going to be a little weird riding the motorcycle with dress clothes on...

I thought that's how all the kool people showed up to interviews.

[PoorManQ45]

The interview is Tomorrow, Thursday at 9am.

It's going to be a little weird riding the motorcycle with dress clothes on...

I thought that's how all the kool people showed up to interviews.

Hells yes! Full suit and tie! Hell, I wouldn't want to wear my riding clothes then. I'd just want to look pimp!

[Knightro2]

You aren't by any chance in the Tampa area are you? I worked at Verizon in their Data Services division in Temple Terrace for about 8 months as internal help desk (back in 2005). It was by far the worse job I have ever had. Verizon wasn't bad...it was the contractor that I worked for that Verizon hired to run their internal help desk.

Just curious.

[PoorManQ45]

I tried PMing you, but it says disabled... So I'll post it.

Yes, I am in Tampa, and the position is in Temple Terrace.

What kind of things were bad about it?

I'm honestly just looking for more money with a somewhat ok atmosphere.

Do you have any tips for the interview?

Thank you for giving me the heads up.

[93coupe]

Don't go to the interview with "lunch" written on your hand.

[Knightro2]

.

[93coupe]

Send me an email at [email protected]

Hurry up and send one so I can remove this post.

[AppleBonker]

Send me an email at [email protected]

Hurry up and send one so I can remove this post.

Hahahahahaha

[RCA]

Terrible...

[Knightro2]

I appreciate it guys. Just trying to help out a fellow forum member. So much for a Nissan COMMUNITY.

[numbnuts240]

Don't go to the interview with "lunch" written on your hand.

So much for a Nissan COMMUNITY.

yes, this is a community. one filled with a-holes.

Send me an email at [email protected]

Hurry up and send one so I can remove this post.

[93coupe]

So much for a Nissan COMMUNITY.

[PoorManQ45]

I appreciate it guys. Just trying to help out a fellow forum member. So much for a Nissan COMMUNITY.

If you don't can you post the information here?

I'll send you an email either way. I'd just like to keep all the info here so people can comment on it.

[Knightro2]

Here's a copy of the email to you:

I can't remember the contractor I started with. But they were bought out by another company while I was there.

Pretty much the interview was easy since I was coming from AT&T Wireless on the help desk in Orlando so I had the experience. They had my group of interviewees take an aptitude test about Windows XP. I passed and got hired.

Went in for 4 - 6 weeks of training for "Core" which is the Verizon support (they support other companies as well like FedEx and such). After 2 weeks my stats were high so I was pulled off the phones and put back into training for 4 more weeks to learn the systems for WellPoint (health care company) to support them.

My whole problem with the job was I was a robot. It didn't take any troubleshooting or thinking to do what you had to do. They have a system called CMIS (I think) that was pretty much a tree system with scripts. You asked the questions and popped in the answers and it would tell you what you had to do. The job was just boring to all get out.

Plus the contractor lied to me during the interview. I asked is it possible to be eventually rolled over to a full time Verizon employee. They said yes and it happens all the time. Well I get there and find out only 1 person had been rolled over in the past 3 years. Management was horrible, treated us like crap. If the WellPoint queue was slow I'd be dumped back into Core to help out but they wouldn't tell me...so I wouldn't have any of my Core systems up ready to go. So I started posting for other jobs pretty quickly and eventually got a job with Lifestyle Family Fitness which was a lifesaver. I'm now at Publix as a Systems Engineer in Lakeland.

If you need the experience I guess try and put up with it. But the benefits sucked and the pay wasn't all that fabulous...but then again...you didn't really need to have much tech experience except for how to operate a computer a read.

[PoorManQ45]

LOL, just replied to your email...

This sounds like my last job working for Stream International doing support for Dell. The difference being tha twe dealt with their customers whereas this will be with internal employees.

They had a system just like CMIS called DSN, and later Knowledge when they switched to Siebel, that held your hand. It was absolutely ridiculous. It literally was written so that a monkey could eventually figure out what was wrong with the computer. The problem was that this slowed me down so much! I eventually just stopped using it and troubleshooting my own way. I ended up blowing their metrics out of the water.

How would they respond if you didn't use CMIS? LOL

[Knightro2]

Ahh yes...Stream...I think they have a place in Lake Mary. I looked at them once.

At the time when I worked at Verizon I didn't have any certs. That job made me go out and get my A+. I updated my resume on Monster.com with it on a Monday and that Thursday I got a call about a job at LFF and was hired on Friday. Verizon was the first job I ever just walked into and quit right there and walked out. It was a good feeling. heh heh. I was the first of LFF's "official" IT department. So it was a medium size company that was about to explode. I was very lucky to get that job and it was a dream for a new IT tech starting out in the industry (I graduated UCF in 2003). Since they really didn't have much of an IT infrastructure I was able to get my hands on servers and such as we implemented new technologies...something that is very rare in any other company...like Publix. But my Director and supervisor were great teachers as well. So I got a lot of experience in the 3 years I was there. I eventually got my Network+ as well.

The downside was the pay. It was nice at first but for what I was eventually doing it was really low-ball. Plus I was traveling all the time to setup new clubs which was fun but wore on me, my wife...and dog after awhile. The Publix job just kind of landed in my lap. Long story but I was hired from the outside for a top level support position which is extremely rare. They couldn't find any good candidates on the inside. I'm a Workstation Systems Engineer which is Level 4. We are the top tier in tech support for the workstations and laptops (8000+ of them). We handle issues that Level 1 - 3 customer support can't handle plus we work on projects. Like right now I'm working on rolling out Windows 7 to all laptops, SMS 2003 - SCCM upgrade, and a host of other things.

For Sys Admin/Engineer...look at the MCITP. It's the new MCSE but for 2008 server and Windows 7. I'm about to start on that myself. I started studying for the MCSE a few times but got lazy.

As far as CMIS...I forgot what happened. I believe you had to fill out a bunch of extra stuff in the ticket so that the CMIS Admins could look into it and figure out if they needed to add it.

[Knightro2]

Ha! Siebel! We used that at AT&T Wireless. I was there during the upgrade so that the system could do Local Number Portability. It was suppose to go down on October 31st and come back up on November 1st. It didn't come back up until sometime in December. Only a few people in the whole company could be in the system before it crashed again. Ahh..the good days of answering the phone and saying, "Sorry, can't help you. Try again tomorrow."

[PoorManQ45]

Ha! Siebel! We used that at AT&T Wireless. I was there during the upgrade so that the system could do Local Number Portability. It was suppose to go down on October 31st and come back up on November 1st. It didn't come back up until sometime in December. Only a few people in the whole company could be in the system before it crashed again. Ahh..the good days of answering the phone and saying, "Sorry, can't help you. Try again tomorrow."

That's exactly what happened at Stream/Dell!!!

We were using a very nice Web interface Oracle database backend. Absolutely nothing was wrong with.

They decided to switch to a Siebel systems frontend over a Citrix tunnel.

The problem is that Dell was too cheap to invest in Sun Micro servers. So they used their own systems with a single or dual CPUs. These system were good for maybe 200 users. We had 600 users!!! They set up a total of 6 servers. Not bad, except the entire Dell network had over 5000 users accessing the servers!!!

Oh, and we did the same thing when the system was down. "My system is updating, please try back tomorrow."

[audtatious]

Ooof...PC/Help Desk IT....Sorry guys. I had enough of that crap during the 8088 days.