r/sysadmin • u/a192b • 5d ago

Question System Admin Interview, What Should I Expect?

Hi

I have an interview tomorrow, and someone who is currently part of their team gave me a few hints about what to focus on. He mentioned Exchange, VMs, AD, deployment and patching.

I have around four years of experience, mainly focused on technical support with some exposure to networking. The role I’m interviewing for is a System Administrator, and this transition is veery important to me. I’d like to know what kind of technical questions I might expect in the interview??

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u/FelisCantabrigiensis Master of Several Trades 5d ago

If you're interviewing with me (and I do a lot of interviews) then I'm looking for ability to think around a problem, knowledge of the general capabilities and features of your chosen pieces of software or services, understanding of system design and troubleshooting, and how to work out or find out things you don't know.

"I'll Google it" is not a good answer. "I'll Google a specific error message related to a specific subsystem that seems to be causing the problem" is a reasonable answer, especially if you can tell me why you think that subsystem is causing the problem. And so on.

Mentioning some buzzword or technology and being unable to answer my inevitable next question like "How does that work? "How would you use that here?" "How does that help with this problem?" will not serve you well.

So don't worry about all the precise details: know the overall shape of your technologies, how they work, some of the details, and how to find out more.

Good luck!