Interview questions

[russell cpanuk]

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We are at the moment in the midst of recruiting a new member to our team.

Obviously the new staff member will have a lot to learn about the industry and therefore it would help if the candidate had some basic computer knowledge.

I have set out a 25 questions to ascertain the candidate’s knowledge, before we settle down to the interview.

Within them are a few computer related Questions, which I would expect any competent person to know, coming in to/or already in this industry.

As this role is for a Merchant Sales Manager, are we asking too much? Some off our office say yes and some say no.

These are the computer related questions; it would be interesting for see your point of view.

1) Convert this binary number to decimal. 10111011=
2) Convert this decimal number to binary. 210=
3) Add these two binary numbers together 01101011 plus 11110010=
4) What is known as a (CPU)?
5) What is known as (RAM)?
6) How many bits are in a BYTE?
7) How many bytes in a megabyte?

Like I said basic, but are we asking too much from a sales related role?

[gadget]

'Sales' manager you say ..

They may have a question of their own after these questions .. which way is the exit?

[KirstyM]

Well, are these questions about things that will be absolutely core to the role? Do they need to know those things to sell your product?

Because if they're not, I'd say you are risking alienating your prospective candidates, or at the very least putting them off their stride so badly that they give an awful interview. I'd personally wonder if I was at the right interview if confronted with that, because despite 8 years commercial experience in Account Management, SEO & Affiliatedom.... I can't answer a single one with any confidence!

Perhaps that says more about me than anyone else though, lol.

[marky]

Some pretty uneccesary questions tbh - some would be seen as patronisingly basic and others just irrelevant dependant on ones knowledge. Why are you bothering with asking them to convert binary if they aren't going to need to do that in their role? (or are they ? eek) Basic mental arithmetic or percentage calculations, almost possibly relevant ...

I'd have to say, given those questions I would be really doubting the role I was interviewing for was actually the role I would eventually be given. I know some very competant sales and marketing people who would struggle with most of those questions


Gives a very bad message to the candidate I think and an interview is a two way process, you have to sell the company to a good candidate as much as they have to impress you

[haggul]

I've been working in IT for 15 years and to be honest I'd even question the need for the binary arithmetic for a developer type role - when is it actually going to come in useful?Don't think I've used it since I answered the exam questions!! Much better to ascertain their understanding of common software apps, current technologies etc.

After all there's only 10 types of people that can count in binary so you'd alienate 50% to start with

[TheBoyMitchell]

Haggul - thats my favourite joke, and no-one ever gets it!

*gets geek hat*

[mainlime]

Well, between you, me and Haggul there's at least 11 people who get the joke

To answer the first post, those questions are ridiculous. I wouldn't ask them of an IT manager let alone a sales manager. Nobody needs to be able to do binary maths in their head.

[nim-b]

Agree- those questions seem pretty pointless, if as you say the role isn't for a developer but a sales person.

If you want to test their computer knowledge why not give them a short practical test? Surely just getting them to do some internet research or compile a spreadsheet would be a far better way of testing them.

Work out what computer skills they will require for the job, and test them on those. Anything else will just scare them.

[kier]

I have to agree that these really don't seem relevant to a sales based role although I suppose it depends on the exact nature of the job they'll be doing. A more practical test such as general maths skills or using excel etc would be better. You should also bear in mind that as these questions are quite technical you might find the kind of person who can answer them is someone who can't find technical work for whatever reason and so is looking for sales jobs when you could have a less specialised test which would leave you with a better overall sales candidate who you could teach about any technical aspects whilst on the job.

[russell cpanuk]

Thankyou for your comments, very interesting, what prompted the question on this thread was the differences in opinion within our own office. Now from your feedback, I can clearly see that this sort of questioning is unnecessary! (By the way I was for it)

My logic was simply to make sure that the candidates have an understanding of the machine they work on every day. (But I suppose you don’t need to know how an engine works, to drive a car). However, I know when talking to merchants, they ask many questions that need technical knowledge, so my thoughts were to test them on how much they know, but like any sales team they only have to ask our tech team for clarification. So I will delete those questions and replace them with more sales related ones.

You can imagine, now I have been proved wrong, how much **** I am getting from other team members.

[lady_stardust]

As far as sales goes, the motto should be "recruit the attitude, train the skill". If you require a good level of technical knowledge then discuss it with them in the interview rather than firing off a list like that. Reminds me of my IT GCSE.

[drivetowin]

Best interview technique for a sales person - give them a simple object, a pocket calculator, an umbrella or one I got given once a waste paper basket - and get them to sell it to you (obviously give all candidates the same object) - then give the job to whichever one 'sells' it to you.

For sales as long as they can write and add up then as lady_stardust goes the rest is pretty irrelevant - the key issue is 'can they sell?' - if they can, the techie stuff you can train into them.

[axod]

7) How many bytes in a megabyte?

Debatable. If you're a hard drive manufacturer, then it's 1,000 in order to make your hard drive look like it has more storage. For everyone else it's 1024.

I agree with drivetowin. Get them to sell you a pen or something. Can they articulate the benefits of said item to you? Also ask them to sell the pen to you for £1. Then ask them to sell the pen to you for £1,000. See how they change their tactics...

[russell cpanuk]

"Debatable. If you're a hard drive manufacturer, then it's 1,000 in order to make your hard drive look like it has more storage. For everyone else it's 1024."

Took me a little time to get my head around this, but i know what you mean.

[lurker]

You could just hire anyone who uses more than 3 phrases from web economy bulls**t generator . (you'll have to correct the url as there's a sweary-filter on this forum)

Anyone who can "productize integrated functionalities" will go far in this industry.