job screening question

Tue Jul 10 07:32:21 UTC 2012

On Mon, 9 Jul 2012, Jeroen van Aart wrote:
> William Herrin wrote:
>> This is, incidentally, is a detail I'd love for one of the candidates
>> to offer in response to that question. Bonus points if you discuss MSS
>> clamping and RFC 4821.
>> 
>> The less precise answer, path MTU discovery breaks, is just fine.
> I would say that the ability to quickly understand, troubleshoot and find a 
> solution to a problem (and document it) is a far better skill to have than 
> having ready made answers to interview questions learned by heart.
>
> It should take a skilled person less than 30 minutes to find the answer to 
> that question and understand it too. The importance of knowing many things by 
> heart has become incredibly moot.

If you are applying for a network position, you better know the *basics*. 
Having to look up the basics is not a good sign.

Do you really want to hire someone who is going to have to look up basic 
networking concepts for 30 minutes every time they are in a meeting and 
asked a question?

-Dan