I had a CCIE come into our group. He was useless,it turns out that he was excellent at memorizing and taking tests and had got his CCIE in only 9 months but had no practical skills, he could barely CLI into a switch!
Years ago we got a contractor with more than 20 years ok Win XP experience. I stated to my boss that was funny as Bill Gates at the time had less experience. His resume padding skills were quickly exposed
i test all new techs that come in for an interview. As a long term employee and senior engineer, I am at the end of the interview process. After HR has done their work, I am given the GO/no_GO flag to see if this person actually has the skills, knowledge, ability, personality to fit into our environment
Along with real technical, process, equipment queries, i ask a few "special " questions
I ask then if them know about the special military power needs we have. Many states YES
I explain to them that them we use 3 phase DC for security purposes. some people, yes some people do acknowledge this.
For those i ask them what connector they use. this is where the bluffing really starts and my fun begins.
as a final question, i ask then if they are familiar with POE as we use this to power our end devices from a central source. I tell them we use POE over fiber and i need them to calculate the optical power levels needed to supply our devices as well as the QOS power markings that should be set.
As they think of their answers to this, i walk them out the interview room and rip up their resume. I say don't call me I call you
Lesson for all interviewers.
Ask real questions, simple and some tough and 1 or 2 even bogus ones.
The people you want are ones that will stand up to you and say, I don't know or i have not heard of that
I want honest people that i can trust, respect and train
i worry about experts as they are often the ones that know the least
I don't want dishonest or sneaky people or worry about "what are they doing now"
I want people to want my job. They will make me look good as i want my bosses job also/. As well i need succession planning for i cant say i will be there for ever. If you don't do succession planning, don't expect a good reference from your old boss when you move on to a new position.