IT Executive Interview Questions And Answers

This is a big picture question, and the trends the candidate identifies are less important than the candidate's ability to identify broad industry trends and articulate their impact. Essentially, you're assessing whether candidates can think broadly about what's happening in the industry and whether they actively monitor changes in the industry.

This question is more appropriate for staff than leaders, but in both cases will help tease out how candidates act in unclear circumstances. Can they provide examples of how they asked for clarity or came up with a plan to identify missing information? Or do they sound like they spin their wheels until someone else intervenes?

This is similar to the previous question, but the crux of this one is whether candidates are self-starters who can rapidly adapt to a changing environment. If they don't have experience dealing with change - or they struggle to answer - that should be a warning sign.

This is an interesting question, since the two extremes of possible answers may be "correct" depending on the role you're trying to fill. If you're looking to fill a strategy- or project-related role, where the candidate will be bouncing from project to project on a weekly or monthly basis, you want someone who is easily bored and constantly looking for new challenges. If you need a competent manager or staff member to run a steady-state process and sweat the details, you obviously want a very different candidate.

This is a subtle way of determining whether candidates understand the role they're applying for and whether their expectations match yours. If you're serious about a candidate and your expectations don't match, this will be a critical point of discussion as you move forward in the hiring process.

This is similar to the above question, but with a more long-term outlook. If a candidate expects development opportunities you can't provide, you'll need to reconcile that concern or end up with an unhappy employee. This question can also help determine whether the candidate has leadership aspirations and a plan to achieve them.

Case study questions may seem like a complicated process left to the business schools and consulting houses, but they can be as simple as summarizing a complex situation you faced and seeing how the candidate responds. Provide an overview of a recent situation you or your company faced and test the candidate's ability to identify and articulate a solution on the fly. Perhaps more important than the solution the candidates develop are the questions they ask. They won't have critical details or background on the problem, so observing how they gather information and begin to break down the problem is the most interesting aspect of case-style questions.

This seemingly straightforward question accomplishes a number of things. First of all, it's a good check of the ability to keep confidential information secret, as well as an indication of whether a candidate will badmouth a former employer. Second, this question tests the candidate's ability to think broadly and strategically. Like question 1, the content of the answer is less important than the thought process that goes into the answer - unless the best the candidate can come up with is something banal like, "My last employer should have bought better coffee."

If candidates mention a hobby or interest on their resume, ask them about it. Rather than making small talk, you want to see if candidates are well-rounded individuals and get some feeling for their personality. While "likability" should not be your sole factor for determining employment, many roles require some amount of sales ability, and certainly presentation and speaking skills. Hobbies can also tell you about a candidate's risk tolerance, willingness to experience new things, and general outlook on life. Even if the specific hobby in question is an activity you don't enjoy, use the question to check the candidate's ability to articulate and convey passion.

For candidates who will be managing others, present a difficult employee situation, ideally based on a challenge you've faced in the past. See if candidates ask relevant questions about the situation and observe their thought process in determining how to resolve the situation.

1. What is the difference between a hub and a switch?
2. What is a network?
3. What is Active Directory?
4. What is TCP/IP and what does it stand for?
5. What is a default gateway?
6. What does DHCP stand for?
7. What is an IP Address?
8. What is the significance of the IP address 255.255.255.255?
9. What are the 3 major classes of an IP network?
10. What is a Class D IP address?
11. What is OSPF?
12. A user is complaining of delays when using the network. What would you do?

► Have you planned and implemented additions and significant modifications to your company's IT infrastructure? ► Describe your contribution.
► Tell us about any procedures you have implemented to improve network security or in other areas.
► Describe the maintenance and administration routines you utilized to ensure effective corporate VOIP/WAN/IT network performance.
► Have you upgraded the company's telephone or email system to a VOIP or unified messaging system?
► Describe the process and the factors you considered in choosing the new systems.

► Describe a situation in which you were involved with one of the following: troubleshooting procedure, system backup and failure recovery.
► What IT tracking software have you used to monitor/maintain remote systems?
► Have you interacted with customers or internal clients on a daily basis?
► What level of help desk support have you provided to resolve IT-related issues?

► Describe your methods used to build and maintain subcontractor and vendors relationships and to manage the purchase of hardware and software products.
► Have you developed a disaster recovery/alternative plan to ensure continuous availability of computer systems throughout the Corporation?
► Have you developed an IT security policy?
► Describe the hands-on support and training program you used to ensure cross company utilization of computing infrastructure.
► Have you been responsible for the budget of the IT systems of the company? Tell us how you monitored costs, business plan and cash flow.

► How do you keep yourself updated with technology, considering that technology today is enhanced almost every day?
► What kind of attitudes do you find it difficult to work with? How do you handle people with the particular attitude?
► How did you prepare for this job interview?
► In your previous job, did you handle a team? If yes, could you tell us of an example when you coordinated your team with the client in a successful manner?
► We expect our managers to work more than eight hours a day, how flexible are you with your work hours?
► What is the timeframe since when you have been looking for a job, or how long have you been looking for a job now?
► Can you share with us the most satisfying moments in your professional life?
► What are your financial expectations from the job?

► What is important to you on a job?
► What aspects of work do you enjoy most?
► What aspects of work do you enjoy least?
► What are your goals?
► What are your major strengths? Weaknesses?
► Where do you see yourself 10 years down the road?
► Why did you leave your last job?
► What did you learn from your last job?
► Why do you want to work for us?

► What is the difference between layer 2 and layer 3 in the OSI model?

► What is the difference between a hub, switch, and router?

► What is a VLAN?

► What is the difference between TCP and UDP?

► How do you distinguish a DNS problem from a network problem?

► What are a runt, Giant, and collision?

► What is a broadcast storm?

► What is the purpose of VRRP?

► What is a VPN?

► What is a default route?

► How do you set a default route on an IOS Cisco router?

► What is a metric?

► What is a MAC address?

► What is ARP/RARP?

► Describe a TCP connection sequence.

► What is MTU?

► What other TCP setting can you modify besides MTU to shorten packets?

► Tell me about yourself?
► Why did you leave your last job?
► What are your career goals for Information technology manager?
► What is your greatest weakness?
► What kind of salary are you looking for Information technology manager?
► Why do you think you would do well Information technology manager?
► What motivates you to do your best on the Information technology manager?
► How would you know you were successful on this Information technology manager?
► Do you think you are overqualified for Information technology manager?
► What have you learned from your past jobs that related to Information technology manager?
► Where would you like to be in 3 years? 5 years?
► What made you choose to apply to Information technology manager?
► What are key tasks for Information technology manager?
► What are top 3 skills for Information technology manager?
► Do you have any questions?

► Describe to me the stages you go through to update your domain DNS records?
► What are the restrictions on domain names?
► What experience do you have working with arrays in VN Script?
► How do you set up the VPN on a laptop for a new employee?
► How well do you know HTML, PHP, etc.?
► What browsers do not offer support for CSS coding?
► The network appears to be down. What steps do you go through to troubleshoot?
► What are "Psuedo-classes"?
► Have you attended any web conferences recently?
► What types of accuracy checks do you enact when you are coding?
► What is abstraction with regards to .NET?
► What query is used to bring up all of the tables from a selected database in MYSQL?
► What usually indicates that your virtual user script has dynamic data that is dependent on you parameterized fields?
► Why can't friend function be used to overload the assignment operator?
► Are you about to be on call at all hours of the day in case something goes wrong with the server?

► What is the difference between layer 2 and layer 3 devices?

► What is the subnet for a class C network?

► Have you configured a NIS server/client before? If so, describe what you did.

► Have your configured a NFS server?

► What are RAID 1 and RAID 5?

► What are the required components of Windows Server 2003 for installing Exchange 2003?

► What must be done to an AD forest before Exchange can be deployed?

► What Exchange process is responsible for communication with AD?

► What connector type would you use to connect to the Internet, and what are the two methods of sending mail over that connector?

► How would you optimize Exchange 2003 memory usage on Windows Server 2003 with more than 1Gb of memory?

► What are the standard port numbers for SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, RPC, LDAP and Global Catalog?

► Name the process names for the following: System Attendant, Information Store, SMTP/POP/IMAP/OWA.

► What is the maximum amount of databases that can be hosted on Exchange 2003 Enterprise?

► What are the disadvantages of circular logging?

► What is Active Directory schema?

► What are the domain functional levels in Windows Server 2003?

► What is the default domain functional level in Windows Server 2003?

► What are the forest functional levels in Windows Server 2003?

► What is a global catalog server?

► How can we raise domain functional and forest functional levels in Windows Server 2003?

► What is the default protocol used in directory services?

► What is IPv6?

► What are the physical & logical components of ADS?

► In which domain functional level, we can rename a domain name?

► What is multimaster replication?

► What is a site?

► Which is the command used to remove active directory from a domain controller?

► What is the file that's responsible for keeping all Active Directory databases?

Microsoft Excel

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Microprocessor, memory, peripheral equipment.

A personal computer operating system from Microsoft.