job candidates
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 01:05:48 +0000
I am unable not figuring out how to search for "#!" on Google. (For those of you who are not Unix experts, this sequence tells your shell how to interpret a script file. Normally, an line beginning with "#" is a comment, but if the first line of a script begins with "#!/path/to/shell", the script will be executed with the specified shell, e.g. sh, csh, tcsh, zsh, perl, what-have-you.)We had a sysadmin candidate come in for an interview today. My question which (unfortunately) stumped him was about what to do if the system clock is wrong. The answers I expected were "date" (to set the clock), "rdate" (remote date, to set the clock to match another server), and/or check the NTP (Network Time Protocol) setup. (I'm pretty sure that some of you who are not sysadmins will have come up with at least one of those.) I wasn't expecting "type 'sync' at the boot prompt." He was thinking "synchronize", and that was the only command he could match with what he was thinking. I'm not sure there is a "sync" command at the boot prompt (i.e. before the OS is running), and the Unix "sync" command has nothing to do with the system clock; it flushes any not-yet-written data from buffers to disk (something you'd want to do before you halt a system). [And if you're at the boot prompt, you've shut the system down; pretty drastic for adjusting the clock.] There were also questions about the functions of various /etc files, or which files were relevant to other functions, that he could not answer. At least he admitted to not knowing things instead of trying to pull anything over on us. (His wrong answers were simply wrong, not trying to convince us he knew things he didn't.)
My team lead just came by with a résumé from a 2nd candidate that's mostly identical to the résumé for today's guy - same jobs at the same times, the same bullet points (accomplishments) listed under each job, and the same skill sets. Did one copy the other, or are both copied from some third party? (Maybe our HR people should be sending the résumés through those systems teachers use to catch plagiarized term papers?) The 2nd résumé also has a lot more spelling errors. (If you can't be bothered to proofread and spellcheck* your own résumé, can I trust you to be attentive to details doing sysadmin?) And is it likely that the skill set of someone under 30 would include COBOL, FoxPro**, Ada, RPG, or Pascal?
*Firefox (which runs on Linux) will spellcheck my text when I upload it to a job site. No expensive software required.
** Actually, I learn that the latest version of Visual FoxPro was released in 2009, so it's not a dead language.[2016/10/01] Dreamwidth forced me to change my (weak, but not absurdly weak, nor obvious) password before letting me post this entry. I'd like to know why it's suddenly a problem now, since I've probably had the same password on this account for all of its 7+ years. Yes, my account could be hijacked, but I don't think there's much value to anyone in hijacking this account; I don't have a lot of readers, nor access to any celebrities. (And I think my readers would immediately recognize a change in tone if anyone else were posting here. (Heck, even a recent date is a HUGE flag, for now.)) I am using that password at other sites, but there's only one other site where I use this account name (LJ), so broken security at other sites wasn't going to give anyone this login/pw combination.
I guess this means LJ → DW crossposting will be broken, for now. I'm not posting on LJ, so there's no reason to expose the (new) password there.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/497941.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
I am unable not figuring out how to search for "#!" on Google. (For those of you who are not Unix experts, this sequence tells your shell how to interpret a script file. Normally, an line beginning with "#" is a comment, but if the first line of a script begins with "#!/path/to/shell", the script will be executed with the specified shell, e.g. sh, csh, tcsh, zsh, perl, what-have-you.)We had a sysadmin candidate come in for an interview today. My question which (unfortunately) stumped him was about what to do if the system clock is wrong. The answers I expected were "date" (to set the clock), "rdate" (remote date, to set the clock to match another server), and/or check the NTP (Network Time Protocol) setup. (I'm pretty sure that some of you who are not sysadmins will have come up with at least one of those.) I wasn't expecting "type 'sync' at the boot prompt." He was thinking "synchronize", and that was the only command he could match with what he was thinking. I'm not sure there is a "sync" command at the boot prompt (i.e. before the OS is running), and the Unix "sync" command has nothing to do with the system clock; it flushes any not-yet-written data from buffers to disk (something you'd want to do before you halt a system). [And if you're at the boot prompt, you've shut the system down; pretty drastic for adjusting the clock.] There were also questions about the functions of various /etc files, or which files were relevant to other functions, that he could not answer. At least he admitted to not knowing things instead of trying to pull anything over on us. (His wrong answers were simply wrong, not trying to convince us he knew things he didn't.)
My team lead just came by with a résumé from a 2nd candidate that's mostly identical to the résumé for today's guy - same jobs at the same times, the same bullet points (accomplishments) listed under each job, and the same skill sets. Did one copy the other, or are both copied from some third party? (Maybe our HR people should be sending the résumés through those systems teachers use to catch plagiarized term papers?) The 2nd résumé also has a lot more spelling errors. (If you can't be bothered to proofread and spellcheck* your own résumé, can I trust you to be attentive to details doing sysadmin?) And is it likely that the skill set of someone under 30 would include COBOL, FoxPro**, Ada, RPG, or Pascal?
*Firefox (which runs on Linux) will spellcheck my text when I upload it to a job site. No expensive software required.
** Actually, I learn that the latest version of Visual FoxPro was released in 2009, so it's not a dead language.[2016/10/01] Dreamwidth forced me to change my (weak, but not absurdly weak, nor obvious) password before letting me post this entry. I'd like to know why it's suddenly a problem now, since I've probably had the same password on this account for all of its 7+ years. Yes, my account could be hijacked, but I don't think there's much value to anyone in hijacking this account; I don't have a lot of readers, nor access to any celebrities. (And I think my readers would immediately recognize a change in tone if anyone else were posting here. (Heck, even a recent date is a HUGE flag, for now.)) I am using that password at other sites, but there's only one other site where I use this account name (LJ), so broken security at other sites wasn't going to give anyone this login/pw combination.
I guess this means LJ → DW crossposting will be broken, for now. I'm not posting on LJ, so there's no reason to expose the (new) password there.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/497941.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]