Questions about a IT job

riff_man79

OK

I have 2 questions about an interview i have coming up. Its for a IT helpdesk admin role.

What kind of technical questions can i expect?

Whats the deal with shift allowance. Is it there to make the salary package look bigger ( i say this becasue a friend told me this)? Is it only paid when you work out of office hours? or if your doing a 10/12 hour shifts is it paid all the time?

I've been in IT a few years but only in the one job so forgive my lack of knowledge on the above.

dade

riff_man79 wrote: »

Whats the deal with shift allowance. Is it there to make the salary package look bigger ( i say this becasue a friend told me this)? Is it only paid when you work out of office hours? or if your doing a 10/12 hour shifts is it paid all the time?

.

it's paid when you work shift work. as in the company has a couple of different operating shifts. one could be from 7 am til 3 pm, another from 3pm to 11 pm and another from 11pm to 7am. on week one you work teh morning, on week 2 you work the mid and on week 3 you work the night.

the shift allowance is paid on top of your basic salary while you work on this 3 week cycle. now some places have different cycles,this is the cycle i worked donkeys years ago for Motorola. some of them do it that you work for 12 hour days normally over a 4 day period.

if the company reverts you to a basic 9 - 5 then you loose this additional premium

JDLK

Ive worked in IT management and have done a few of these interviews- can you give the job specs ie the ones that were listed on the advertisement. Also it would be helpful to know if the IT support role is internal or customer facing ie will you be supporting fellow employee's or the companies customers. Is the company multi national or a local SME?(small/medium enterprise)

riff_man79

its just you basic helpdesk, desk side role.
Servers, operating systems (windows only)
Citrix
Network troubleshooting etc

The company is multi national, part of it will be customer facing but majority is internal.

JDLK

riff_man79 wrote: »

its just you basic helpdesk, desk side role.
Servers, operating systems (windows only)
Citrix
Network troubleshooting etc

The company is multi national, part of it will be customer facing but majority is internal.

If you've spent time in a similar role then I doubt they will quiz you too heavily but if you havent then you should become familiar with the "old favorites" What would you do if someone calls and says......
"I cant print"
"I cant get on the internet"
"Word has crashed and Ive been working on a doc for an hour"
"Windows has crashed"

Remember to start the diagnosis from the basic level "Is it plugged in", "Is the light on" etc (I know this is pretty obvious but its expected)- dont dive into talking about TCP/IP, routing and all that jazz to impress- start at hardware and work your way up to software. For HDS you shouldnt need to go beyond the PC but you might be expected to trace the connectivity back to the switch- after that I think they would be wrong to expect anymore- senior tech level

Dont worry too much though- HDS is an entry level position and as long as you are patient, presentable, polite, eager to learn and have a basic knowledge of IT/customer service then you should be ok.

I wouldnt worry about the servers or citrix- they shouldnt be quizzing you on those- any issues with those should be left to senior techs- and its unlikely a customer or non tech internal employee will be calling you about fixing a server. You could let them know you are interested in learning from the senior techs about servers though (shows your interested in progressing).

Good luck with it, HDS is where you pay your dues in IT, I work with senior IT project managers who can still remember some of the crazy calls they did when they were in HDS (I can aswell).

Stacksey

O so can i, "Do IT empty the bins" and "Can i order some milk for our branch"

I couldnt believe when i got asked those questions on the helpdesk, thats also when i realised that i needed to get off the helpdesk