SMS Admin interview questions...

I' d like to start a thread that can be captured into a document for posting to the site. Frequently, I receive emails asking for a list of questions to ask SMS 2003 interviewees, and it would be nice to gather the best questions and make them available on the site.

Post your best interview questions here...

OK.

1. How many sites and site servers do you have?
2. How many clients do you have (total and average per site)?
3. How do you staff your SMS infrastructure?
4. What feature helps you most?
5. What feature gives you the most headache?

I would ask scenerio based questions. Such as how would you set up an SMS environment with 200 mobiles users, 1000 central users, and 500 remote users in 5 different sites with varying connection speeds. Have them give specifics like how many secondary sites, DPs, MPs, etc would be used or suggested and then have them justify the answer.

Good Questions.
It is very important to get an SMS admin that understands the internals of how SMS works in addition to how, on the surface, to use SMS.

“Describe in technical detail how inventory gets from my laptop to an SMS web report.”

This is one question that allows me to gauge the level of technical proficiency of a SMS Admin candidate. As the candidate starts talking, you will quickly gain an understanding of how much the candidate knows about the internals of how SMS works. You know you have someone good if they start talking specifics about inventory files & folders, MOF, WMI, Provider, SQL & IIS. Additionally, with the exception of follow-on or leading questions that you can ask as they are describing the process, this allows for the candidate to do all the talking.

for SMS admins...

I would ask the basics... what are boundaries? What types of sites are there? what is a Sender? What is a proxy management point?... etc.. to do a quick weed out.

I would ask what they have done in the past and formulate questions based off that. " So you setup 20 new secondary sites at your last job, tell me why you would create a secondary site rather than a primary site or just no site at all?" , " At your last job you say the environment was in advanced security mode? How did that help you with you job? What was required for that? How did that change things from regular security?" ...

I would then ask troubleshooting questions, names of log files, experience with doing troubleshooting, where to find info, where things are located, requirements for certain things BITS, MP, RP, etc...

I would then setup a virtual environment (or have them do it) and have them perform several tasks that admins need to perform on a regular basis.

The problem is for companies is that usually if they are looking for a SMS admin that may be because their old one just left and they need soemone new that knows things. In this case it is hard for companies to ask question because the person interviewing usually doesn' t know anything about SMS and neither does anyone left at the company. So really it comes down to stated experience and calling references. Interview the past employers.

T

Give two examples of how you would uninstall the MP (assuming you have the 2003tookit installed)?

1) via command line (on sms site server) ccmclean.exe /mp
2) from the sms console under site systems uncheck MP...click OK then via smstrace watch the mpsetup.log file

Give different examples of how to automate advanced client installs, and the pros and cons of each one:

-via GPO (can control at granular level) won' t needlessly reinstall the clients
-client push wizard, good because of its effectiveness, but dangerous
-startup-scripts, good because it catches the laptops, but bad because it may take longer to login

the sms client is also dependent on what other windows service? -wmi

you check and notice a few machines have not inventoried recently what might you check for?
-sms agent is running
-wm is running
-the machine was removed from the db and rediscovered
-the client was removed and re-add
-you have a poor automation method and keeps reinstalling the client on this machine daily
-the client didn' t install properly

You must have someone that has at least a little knowledge on the product to detect who is preaching from a book and who has actually done specfic things with the product.

I tend to disagree with some of the in depth questions on things like setup since sometimes you might run into a different issue on different installs , like when I set up 2003 many issues that were not documented and fixes not found via MS.

I would ask ?s like who do you handle OS, Office updates, reboot methods, have you done anything not in a book that has helped you or your company. I tend to see TOO many people preaching from a book about dlls and alot of things that you dont interact with daily and the like but when a problem arrises it seems like there is no troubla shooting exp. or real world issues.

explain roaming

explain the new features of service pack 1

I want to distribute office 2003 to 5000 desktops what would you do?

1000 of those distributions failed how would you go about trouble shooting?

i have only one thing to add, what would you do when your SMS database becomes SUSPECT. It happens and is not a pretty scenario, but it proves they know how to use the recovery tools, sms backup, SQL commands, services, service accounts, and how not to freak out in an emergency situation....

William

All of these are great questions, I think I could answer one or two, OK, maybe 1

Anyone know a website with SMS salaries? I am trying to justify a raise (for me and my collegue) but there aren' t any cataglories in any salary website the specifically mention SMS, except for Computerjobs.com

http://myitforum.techtarget.com/forums/tm.asp?m=37081&p=2&tmode=1

Funny, I found that just after I posted this question. But these anwswers are old. I want to find what the current market in my area is. (Boston)

I would like to add the following to all the great questions..

What daily maintenance do you do on your site??
What weekly maintenance do you do on your site?
What periodic maintenance do you do on your site??

As they say prevention is better than cure..

Hard part about sms is that most answers to questions about it really begin with " Well, that depends..." Arguably more important for the prospective SMS admin to know how to look up the answer to MCSE style questions about SMS as for them to know off the top of their head.

By far, the best question to ask a prospective SMS admin is " What motivates you to want this job?." The answer should be similar to, " the thrill of solving complicated technical challenges or problems."

Best to find out what they don' t know, tell them they have 3 hours to do something they don' t know how to do, and check back with them in 3 hours to see how it went. SMS related or not. Give them a computer with access to the internet as a reference and a phone with long distance/international calling enabled(phone a friend).

If they have enought contacts built over the years to be able to call someone and have them walk them through a process they don' t know how to do themselves, hire them. You' ve just hired a resourceful admin and everyone else they have ever met for the price of 1. If they know where to look on the internet to find the answer, hire them. In the case of a forum, you' ve just hired the collective talent, knowledge and experience of the forum.

I' m not saying basic knowledge of SMS isn' t important. You have to be able to understand a question to be able to even really begin to answer or look up an answer.

Also, you should base raises based on a value assessment of what you do that effects the bottom-line positively. Relatively easy for me to do because I' m the only SMS Admin for 4000 clients worldwide.

Whenever I do a software push corporate wide or to a department(patches, office upgrades, virus scanner upgrades, etc), I get an outside contracting company to quote how much it would cost to contract them to do the same job manually in the same amount of time.

If you can add a feature to SMS like the OS Deployment Feature Pack and show that you are getting much more value from the system now than you did before, salery increase should be easy to justify if not demand. Helping prevent network takedowns through patch management helps too.

Good questions folks, hope I never have to interview with most of you. To give this a different spin: as the guy going into an interview, I' d obviously try to relate my past experiences and some specific problems I' ve encountered (...perhaps leave out the part how the great folks at MYITForum helped me resolve the issues!)

Honestly, experience should be the key, and a good interviewer should be able to decipher the difference between " BS" - (Book Savy) and " real experience" .

And given SMS' s complexity and possible diversity, I don' t care who you are, you' re not going to know everything about the product and every typical setup \ environment. I' d want someone who is ready to admit that, but looks forward to a possible challenge.

Soft skills should also be on the menu such as persistence, grace under pressure, good communication skills, teamwork etc...

I agree with xgene19. I would also try to fit in all the questions I' ve posted on MyItForum that were toughest to answer (or are still in limbo). Hey, why not try to collect some useful knowledge while interviewing? 2 birds with 1 stone.

some of these questions are pretty tough. i think i know SMS pretty well but dang. i see i need to hit my book again if i ever have to interview.

it good to through tough questions at them tho... they dont always have to answer the question correctly to get a good score. the response and they way the rationalize is a good indication of there thinking skills.

With the multitude of faults in all versions of SMS I see the community has spoken to their experienced stregnths. SMS is no different than any other administrative IT role and thus should not be handled any differently. 9.875321 times out of 10 the individual conducting the interview is not as knowledgable as the prospective employee. This is why bullsh!t somes in pounds.

three questions

1. Explain how SMS uses IIS to send policy
2. explain how SMS works in a primary/child relationship, (collections, queries, etc)
3. Explain how you would troubleshoot a web reports not working

William