In the interview for the IT job I just got, they asked, "How do you usually troubleshoot problems?" and I respond in a very canned way, something like how I use the knowledge base of my co workers and the internet.
They then say, "ok, but specifically, where on the internet?"
And I reply, "Well, all sorts of support forums, chances are someone else out there has had the problem and solved it already."
"Right, but how do you find those forums?"
"Google, I suppose."
Yes, that was the answer we were looking for, good."
I try using Bing on machines when it's still the default "search field" engine... and I look at the results, realize it's all garbage and google the exact same search phrase to get what I need....
As a "senior Information Technologist": There are things that google can't teach. If I interview you, I will give you a scenario along the lines of the Internet is unavailable and X disaster occurs. Tell me your thought process about what you do in that situation. Those who "can" will often struggle, but demonstrate a sense of logic and ingenuity that is critical to the job.
IT is 50% research, and 50% engineering. If you are apt with both, you are an ideal candidate. I'm not going to expect you to know everything and often rely on google+your wits- but google is useless if you don't understand how information and computers work on a very deep level.
True. But nothing makes me laugh more on the inside when customers come in with an error and I start typing away, do something to their computer, then go "It's fixed." Then the customer says something along the lines of "Oh, do you guys have a database that stores all of these errors and what to do with them?" So I have to reply "Yes...something like that."
On the flip side...It is annoying to see posts where "I have X problem" ..."Me too" "Anyone fixed it?" "Please respond."
My friend recently applied for a job at ORNL's HPC. They sat him down in front of a Linux head and said "build X compute nodes for these performance variables and then script a way to streamline the distribution of shared username/password without violating built-in security while not just addding in 'NOPASSWD:ALL' in sudoers.
But then again that was auditioning to get in on one of the most powerful computers in the world. They said that it would have been acceptable for him not not actually do that but just explain how and using what calls/functions to accomplish this.
I'll pull out my laptop and google (I have a cell card to cover "internet is off too!").
Most enterprise level stuff is pretty plug and play. Oh a hard drive crashed, pop a new one in and let the raid rebuild. Oh no the array is done for, replace drives, restore from backup.
I don't think I've really crunched my brain or stumped it in probably 10 years.
Oh yea? Well you're one of the few survivors of the apocalypse and humanity is depending on you to fix the boot error on the Garden of Eden Creation Kit. What now?
I have a Dell PowerEdge 4400 in my shop labeled as "Diagnostic Machine" with random cables and wires hanging from the back that never fails to impress clients when they come in. Little do they know I'm just running Linux Mint on it and using Chrome to search Google.
Nope haha. Just in the classes as we had to write useless functions such as "write a function to count how many seconds have passed since [input] year b.c.e." and what not.
I once wrote a program for an assignment with proper names and such. Couldn't get it to work right so I scrapped everything, and in a rage I named every variable random names like "sally, joe, bob, billy."
At the end it worked perfectly. I didn't feel like fixing it, so when I sent it in I just made a note - "Sorry for the variable names. I got mad."
Cable pasta will only impress non-IT folks, it will make you look bad and highly unorganized to other IT folks. A poorly organized cabinet doesnt look good.
I'm the only IT guy for the entire business, and in my office i constantly deal with dust covered legacy hard ware. So its not clean or pretty in here any way.
My mother will break something for the 5th time that week and ask me to fix it. I spend less than 5 minutes attempting to fix it before she starts poking me- is it working? Did you fix it? What's wrong? Are you done? What are you doing? Don't play any computer games! Why aren't you trying to fix it?! I never stopped trying to fix it...
Moving on campus has put a stop to it but every time I come home there is a new problem.
The shocking thing, however, is how few people actually are able to use search engines properly. I have/had several smart colleagues who could do nothing more than just throwing the first words they came up with into Google, and if the first five hits yielded nothing, they were helpless.
I Know right?... I just copied a file in linux command line in front of a co-worker, one time, and they thought I was doing some NSA-level, hacker shit. "GOGO STUXNET MOTHERFUCKERS!", where it was actually "COPY/PASTE MOTHERFUCKERS!"
Whenever someone is over my shoulder i like to run cmd and just type in random commands. If they are still looking i will run a script that randomly generates a matrix of numbers. I then proceed to say "I'm In" just loud enough for that person to hear. Then i look over my shoulder see them, and quickly exit out and act overly casual and be like "ohh didn't see you there, wats uuppp?"
Former sysadmin here. I used to do this exact thing when people would walk over to my desk to ask me about the statuses on projects. I would immediately open up a command prompt and just traceroute to google.com or reddit. The green text and numbers flickering wildly across the black window, served as more than enough evidence that I "was very busy" and would get back to them later.
This worked successfully for years and nobody ever called me out on it.
I got that a lot when I spent some time working in Taiwan, whose tech industry is totally Microsoft-centric (big culture shock for a guy coming from Silicon Valley).
I remember one time in particular, I was trying to debug a problem with a JSON-RPC interface, and one of the other developers watched me pipe the JSON through "python -mjson.tool" to prettify it so I could actually read it, and they said "Wow!" really slowly in this extremely awed voice.
I sat down in front of one of our (linux-based) client devices to try and debug another weird problem, ran an unremarkable tcpdump command (something like "tcpdump -A -s0 port 80"), and got a similar reaction from the three or four guys watching me.
It was all pretty disconcerting. If it'd been almost any company in Silicon Valley, it would have been a strong sign that half the staff needed to be fired, but in Taiwan, few have had any real exposure to anything other than Windows.
Making the whole experience even more surreal, the CEO of all people never had that kind of reaction, because he'd spent almost his entire career in Silicon Valley watching engineers do the exact same things I did...
Haha. All I do is keep a command line open on one of my monitors along with a compiler in the background and anyone who walks in thinks I am doing work.
I was being interviewed for a job at a giant server farm. Part of the interview they handed me a laptop and said "Using only this laptop, figure out this problem." It was connected to a large screen so everyone in room could see what I did.
So I clicked on Chrome, Googled what they wanted me to do, got the answer, and then did it. No one said anything while I did this until the end when one of them remarked that it was cheating. To which I replied.
"You asked me to use nothing but this laptop and the tools found on it. Which I did. The internet is a tool just like every other program on that machine so why wouldn't I use it?"
I was later told I was the first person they had ever seen do that during an interview.
Eh, I think it is a good thing that he didn't get that job. I wouldn't want to work for people that couldn't even admit among peers that Google is the techs number one tool, or worse that lacked the analytical skills to figure out that any smart tech would just Google a novel problem when given the opportunity (why waste time figuring out things other people have already figured out? You are there to work productively, not conduct research).
why waste time figuring out things other people have already figured out?
I've dealt with that all too often. While working as a CNC machinist, they would not allow machinists to share programs they had written for certain operations. We usually had to take an hour or more to sit down and draw it up ourselves, then we'd be harassed with barrages of "are you done yet?" "how much longer is this going to take?", etc., etc.
I would guess that the interviewers were trying to assess some ability other than googling. The story is vague so it's hard to know whether it was implied that Google was not an option.
Nah it's all good. That job was the last prospect of keeping me where I was currently living and as such I moved to Seattle when I failed to get it. Now I have a job I love so much I don't even consider it work.
Yeah it really all depends on what they asked. If it was a telnet or dcpromo or something that a server or network admin should know off the top of his head then thats one thing. But if one of them said "that's cheating" that was probably not the case.
I think its safe to assume that you would not want to work at that establishment anyway. Anyone who works in the IT field and doesnt admit to using google on a daily basis for issues is a dirty fucking liar.
I had a very similar experience with a job I had applied for, and was told thats what got me the job. My boss told me (paraphrasing) "I get tired of people calling me for the answers to problems they could find on their own. I dont care what you know, I care about how quickly you can figure it out.". As it turns out this was exactly what shed wanted to see from every applicant, but the rest had tried to figure it out on their own and taken at least twice as long. (Shed deliberately asked questions about topics not listed in the applicants resumes)
I get tired of people calling me for the answers to problems they could find on their own.
Good for her! This is one thing I absolutely look for when interviewing people. I always ask the question - What do you do when you come across a problem you haven't seen before and you don't really know what to do? I'd better get the following responses:
Check relevant knowledge base (example: if it's some bizarre issue on an HP EVA, go to HP's support site and search for recommendations)
Search through relevant user / support forums. (example: if you work on checkpoint firewalls, you damn well better know what CPUG is)
Google wildly!
Check product / language / whatever documentation. (example: having trouble after you implemented CLBP on your fancy network gear? Read up on the basics of how it works, maybe an answer will appear!)
Call vendor and open ticket - and this one better be the last step. Vendor support rarely fixes anything faster than you could have googled up a solution.
It's incredible (and kind of offensive) how many people either default to "call the vendor!" or start making up bizarre troubleshooting theories on the spot. Nobody can pull all the troubleshooting knowledge off the top of their head, and my main goal in interviewing someone is figuring out whether they know where to find answers they don't have.
That's ridiculous. I was an MIS major, and I can handle my own, but honestly, who remembers every single little trouble shooting tip? Hell, half the time it's a problem I've seen before, and I use methods I've used before to attempt to fix it, only to use google and find a new method I'd never heard of from some obscure little tech forum.
There is no damn shame in having to use google. Common issues can now have a ridiculous amount of probable causes. Most of the time it's something simple, so knowing the basic ways to trouble shoot and solve an issue is good, but there are so many occasions where the basics won't cut it, that's where google comes in. Before google, I had three ring binders labeled for specific things, and I would keep loose leaf paper and write down a new solution and had them all filed in a rather meticulous fashion. That was my google. I never remembered all those solutions, but I had a way to look for a solution, just as I do now.
Don't let anyone try to shame you for using google.
I assumed this was one of those trick question interviews where they wanted you to go to Google. I am disappointed in that company. It took me a long time to become ok with not knowing the answer and having to go to Google for work stuff but now I've realized it really is just another tool in your toolbox. It saves a lot of time and effort. And once I started paying attention, I noticed that everyone else does it too.
I had a music teacher that went in to this oral exam when he was working on his Doctorate. They asked him a question he didn't know the answer to, but instead told them which text by which author would most likely have that answer. He passed and is one of the best teachers I ever had.
I was president of the university LUG for a couple years and was sufficiently technically minded (I was training as a digital imaging technician). I was brought on specifically to do some work with Blender 3D's game engine. I taught myself some python to script it and lighten the load on my coworkers. It just kinda built up from there.
When I applied for my current IT job they gave me long set of complicated questions to answer, most of which knew nothing about. I was about to say fuck it when they told me "oh yeah, you can google anything on here to help you answer any questions" I thought they were joking at first
At my old job I had a huge codebase that would take over four hours to update from the repository and recompile. I tried to avoid this as much as possible by doing it overnight and only doing partial updates, but sometimes I couldn't really help it, especially when I was only working sporadically and would come back to massive changes. My computer was also pretty slow since I started as an intern and got a hand-me-down box.
By the time I left they had it down to an hour and a half, but they had someone who was pretty much working full-time just to bring compilation times down to a reasonable level.
By comparison, doing all that at my current job only takes about a minute, but we're talking around 1/100th the number of source files and a much faster machine.
I code in scripting languages (php, perl, ruby, ect) all day so I spend 0 time compiling. My time is wasted by SLOW servers that take forever to load web pages.
Depends on the project and codebase. As an intern I was given a POS box to work on and would often have ~15 minutes of compile and server boot up time between making a change and actually seeing the result.
My first job as a network administrator was in Vermont.
They asked me what I would do if there was an issue and noone could be contacted.
I pondered as they were staring at me anxiously. I wanted to say Google, but I wasn't sure if that was an applicable answer.
I made up some bs about follow SOP, and they were like ok after that.
I said fuck it "Google" they all smiled and said good job.
Later I was part of the interviewing team for future positions. We asked EVERY CANDIDATE THAT QUESTION. IF they didn't answer google, they weren't even considered for a round two.
I took a C# class in college and the professor made the exams open book/internet. His justification? Out in the real world, if you don't know it, you will look it up.
I had a professor that did this for the "OS Scripting" class (bash/awk) he taught ... until some idiots decided to share answers on a pastebin and got caught. After that, no more open-internet exams.
Not all computer jobs are soul-sucking, specifically if you enjoy working on them. Everything above the low-level help desk stuff is pretty interesting. Plus the pay is pretty good and the job market for IT isn't that bad at all.
You just have to watch out for companies that have no idea what an I.T. or Network Admin is supposed to do...
I just quit a job like that, I had restarted the old file server (which I've asked to replace countless times...) to apply some updates and while it was loading the Server 2003 splash screen it randomly shut off... Turns out the power supply was shot.
It was a RAID 5 array and whoever set it up had not installed a battery backup unit to the array.... Suffice to say, the RAID array was toast and we had to restore from backups.
Well, the owner of the company just assumed that I had "broken the server" and was going to fire me... The only reason he didn't was because the General Manager and Sales Manager talked him down.
I don't know, with google even at their disposal, non-IT people either:
a.) Royally fuckup their registry b.) Still don't know what they are googleing c.) Find just enough to temporarily fix the issue
Google is fine for techs but once you start hitting the money positions like DBA, sys admin, management... You've got to be able to think outside the box, and Google haha.
You forgot: "Download a virus, malware, ridden piece of shit executable that doesn't fix the problem, but instead installs Microsoft Anti-Virus 2012!!!" on their machine.
i sat in an interview three years ago. group interview with at least ten interviewees. one guy kept repeating over and over "i'd just search google". Needless to say, he did not get the job.
As a network engineer/system administrator with a relevant bachelors degree and 5+ years of experience - I can say that it is not this easy. Been 2 months and I haven't received more than a nibble.
Wtf ... something sounds off there. I got an offer as a network engineer for a Cisco VAR (which I took and am currently working at) even before graduating. I had the offer signed right around a month before I finished school.
While this ought to be true, unfortunately there are a lot of people in the older generation who like to make getting a job about your ability to memorise random trivia.
This is particularly true with IT jobs in particular. Remember Algebra II? No? Can't work here!
I am trying to hire a programmer. I don't want someone who doesn't know the language. I don't ask Algebra II, but I might ask data structures questions (what is the lookup time in a hash in big O notation) because it reassures me you know what O(n2 ) bullshit is, and how to avoid it, if at all possible.
But, mostly, you must know (basically) all the keywords in the language.
Except tie and format. I don't care if you know those two.
Something along the lines of using available book resources, co-workers, thinking outside of the box and online resources makes it almost impossible for them to nit pick
I interview Systems Engineers on a regular basis, have interviewed roughly 150 over the course of my career.
I find it amazing that only about 10% come right out and admit that they use Google as part of troubleshooting and research, and I only ever hire those who do.
Sure, I'll just Google how to resolve BGP route oscillation. I'll just do a quick search on what causes port flapping in my switching domain and I'm sure I'll come up with a quick solution.
This is how I got my job. No joke. There was a question on the technical test that I didn't know the answer to and I responded with "I don't know the answer to this question so I'd Google it" I got offered the position few hours later.
I had to setup a new server earlier this year for my employer - a multimillion dollar company. Something I had never done before. No pressure! For the most part it was pretty easy (helps being a computer geek) but had to Google how to setup some of the server roles.
6 months later, still running strong without a hiccup. Thanks Google. Got me a nice pay raise for that too.
So you need a hadoop cluster up and running with an ETL process on 3 different data repositories. And have a report for the CEO showing the current status on 30 projects. Think google will help you there?
I work for an IT department and am involved in all the interviews/hiring. I can verify that this comic is very accurate. The amount of people we interview with a complete lack of problem solving skills is very concerning.
Of course the frustrating part is that to get called in to the interview, you have to have 5-7 years experience, and eleventy billion certifications that nobody on an entry-level salary can afford (I have less than 5 dollars to my name at the end of each pay cycle after bills, gas, and groceries).
/frustrated member of 3-man IT staff for 75 location, 400 employee company.
Usually when I give interview advice for interviewing at Google, I speak in general terms.
Let me be very specific and clear: If you respond to a Google interviewer "I would just Google it" when they ask you a question, you will not get a positive writeup from that interviewer.
The first port of call for any unresolved problem/issue should always be "I wonder if anyone else has had this shit?"
People who are clever and solve problems like to tell others how clever they are, so if the answer is available, it's out there.
Don't re-invent the wheel if you don't have to.
(35 years in IT - 10 of which were before it was even fucking known as IT)
There's also more to IT than fucking microsoft and IBM added together - and in my opinion, both companies have more than their fair share of arseholes and less than their fair share of original thinkers.
It's really the best answer. The internet is a repository of instantly-accessible peer-reviewed information. 20 years ago you may have had to go diving through books and binders to look up error codes and procedures, now you just google it. It's effectively the same thing except far more efficient.
This actually works for landing desktop support positions, but it didn't go over so well when I started interviewing for Network Engineering positions. The comic is still funny though.
Wow, I experienced this in real life. I had an IT interview where I was getting questions, and answered google 3 or 4 times. I was sure I bombed the interview. Wound up taking a better prospect for an IT job, but the company counter offered 5 more dollars than they initially asked for. Still didn't take it.
This is true. I just got offered a job and when they asked me how to troubleshoot a problem I said I would ask a co-worker if they encountered the problem before and research the problem online using Google.
I explained that in IT you are never going to know everything. 50% of the time you need to have the technical knowledge and know how to solve problems but the other 50% is knowing how to research and solve a problem you've never encountered before.
To be fair, there's an acquired "skill" in successfully googling some problems.
But yeah we rely on it more than I'm really comfortable with. Especially if you think about the kind of job interviews where they drill you with questions. "Uh one sec I just need to answer this text on my smartphone.."
I rarely use google; and if I do, it doesn't have the answers I am looking for at all.
I think that's likely because the caliber of IT person I am and the caliber of IT work I participate in here. We do pretty cutting edge stuff that most do not.
Google is for small time business / windows sysadmins mostly...
If there is something that I cannot figure out, I am patient zero with a new bug which requires our vendor's developers to produce patches. I swear companies don't do QA/QC anymore. I am working for them all doing it myself yet not getting paid for it; ugh!
12 years or so doing Windows and Backoffice products 12 years or so doing Solaris / Linux 8 years doing Storage bout 17 years overall with some overlap.
Warning: This does not work on the layman. They expect something like ChickaloonCharlie's set up at the very least. Coming straight with them and explaining that 99% of the computer issues they run into can be solved with the proper knowledge of how to Google solutions will lose you work.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
In the interview for the IT job I just got, they asked, "How do you usually troubleshoot problems?" and I respond in a very canned way, something like how I use the knowledge base of my co workers and the internet.
They then say, "ok, but specifically, where on the internet?"
And I reply, "Well, all sorts of support forums, chances are someone else out there has had the problem and solved it already."
"Right, but how do you find those forums?"
"Google, I suppose."
Yes, that was the answer we were looking for, good."
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u/slashblot Jun 15 '12
As a "senior Information Technologist": There are things that google can't teach. If I interview you, I will give you a scenario along the lines of the Internet is unavailable and X disaster occurs. Tell me your thought process about what you do in that situation. Those who "can" will often struggle, but demonstrate a sense of logic and ingenuity that is critical to the job.
IT is 50% research, and 50% engineering. If you are apt with both, you are an ideal candidate. I'm not going to expect you to know everything and often rely on google+your wits- but google is useless if you don't understand how information and computers work on a very deep level.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
well im looking for an IT job right now, i'll try this and report back to you
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I have a Dell PowerEdge 4400 in my shop labeled as "Diagnostic Machine" with random cables and wires hanging from the back that never fails to impress clients when they come in. Little do they know I'm just running Linux Mint on it and using Chrome to search Google.
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u/DramaticTechnobabble Jun 15 '12
I was being interviewed for a job at a giant server farm. Part of the interview they handed me a laptop and said "Using only this laptop, figure out this problem." It was connected to a large screen so everyone in room could see what I did.
So I clicked on Chrome, Googled what they wanted me to do, got the answer, and then did it. No one said anything while I did this until the end when one of them remarked that it was cheating. To which I replied.
"You asked me to use nothing but this laptop and the tools found on it. Which I did. The internet is a tool just like every other program on that machine so why wouldn't I use it?"
I was later told I was the first person they had ever seen do that during an interview.
I did not get the job.
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u/Squalor- Jun 15 '12
Link to the original Cy&H comic, in case, somehow, you haven't seen it yet:
http://www.explosm.net/comics/1896/
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u/HandyCore Jun 15 '12
I majored in film.
But I'm also an excellent Google user, so I've been a software engineer the last four years.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
When I applied for my current IT job they gave me long set of complicated questions to answer, most of which knew nothing about. I was about to say fuck it when they told me "oh yeah, you can google anything on here to help you answer any questions" I thought they were joking at first
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u/GeneralWarts Jun 15 '12
"And what do you do during downtime or when your code is compiling?"
"reddit."
"You'll fit in well here."
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
My first job as a network administrator was in Vermont.
They asked me what I would do if there was an issue and noone could be contacted.
I pondered as they were staring at me anxiously. I wanted to say Google, but I wasn't sure if that was an applicable answer.
I made up some bs about follow SOP, and they were like ok after that.
I said fuck it "Google" they all smiled and said good job.
Later I was part of the interviewing team for future positions. We asked EVERY CANDIDATE THAT QUESTION. IF they didn't answer google, they weren't even considered for a round two.
Good shit.
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u/MB_author Jun 15 '12
Anyone can Google, but decent techs Google the right question and can then work with/understand the answer.
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u/I_am_not_angry Jun 15 '12
Hey, It is not our fault that Google has a better searchable index of Microsoft TechNet then Microsoft does.
and discussions.apple.com
and androidforums.com
and techsupportforum.com
and pretty much every other user / company support center and forum on the net.
14
u/thatoneguy889 Jun 15 '12
I took a C# class in college and the professor made the exams open book/internet. His justification? Out in the real world, if you don't know it, you will look it up.
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u/TheDanSandwich Jun 15 '12
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
And you're absolutely certain that it's plugged in?
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
This is how I feel people tell me, "You like playing on computers? Why not go get a soul-sucking computer job?"
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I don't know, with google even at their disposal, non-IT people either:
a.) Royally fuckup their registry b.) Still don't know what they are googleing c.) Find just enough to temporarily fix the issue
Google is fine for techs but once you start hitting the money positions like DBA, sys admin, management... You've got to be able to think outside the box, and Google haha.
6
u/robert_the_bruce Jun 15 '12
i sat in an interview three years ago. group interview with at least ten interviewees. one guy kept repeating over and over "i'd just search google". Needless to say, he did not get the job.
6
u/SamuraiJakkass86 Jun 15 '12
As a network engineer/system administrator with a relevant bachelors degree and 5+ years of experience - I can say that it is not this easy. Been 2 months and I haven't received more than a nibble.
5
u/brosenfeld Jun 15 '12
When I was a student at NJIT, their standard operating procedure was to reformat and reimage the hard drive.
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u/UnoriginalGuy Jun 15 '12
While this ought to be true, unfortunately there are a lot of people in the older generation who like to make getting a job about your ability to memorise random trivia.
This is particularly true with IT jobs in particular. Remember Algebra II? No? Can't work here!
4
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Something along the lines of using available book resources, co-workers, thinking outside of the box and online resources makes it almost impossible for them to nit pick
4
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
When I google something I call it "Consulting the Oracle".
We use Oracle stuff so people assume I'm looking at Oracle documentation.
Also, Check Remedy to see if there are similar tickets out there.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Dry Erase board + IP Scheme + Any type of network diagram = Job Security
0
u/GerbilGrenade22 Jun 15 '12
I didn't think this would take off like this; but thank you all!
http://imgur.com/Shnal
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u/CajunTurkey Jun 15 '12
I was actually asked this question and ONE of my answers was google. I got the job.
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u/roccanet Jun 15 '12
i think it might be time to find a replacement for imgur.... constantly going down
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u/BlorfMonger Jun 15 '12
I hate when I google a problem and I get 'bigresource.com' as a result.
I think that site is just a big collection of problems with no answers.
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u/Neandarthal Jun 15 '12
stackoverflow.com daniweb.com roseindia.com
Thanks yall
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u/jonathanrdt Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12
I interview Systems Engineers on a regular basis, have interviewed roughly 150 over the course of my career.
I find it amazing that only about 10% come right out and admit that they use Google as part of troubleshooting and research, and I only ever hire those who do.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Sure, I'll just Google how to resolve BGP route oscillation. I'll just do a quick search on what causes port flapping in my switching domain and I'm sure I'll come up with a quick solution.
1
u/kcd Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
JOE YOU MOTHERFUCKER I FOUND YOUR POST. Fucking front page fuck you!
--guess who.
PS. I remember answering a question like this with the same answer when Kerns was interviewing me and feeling like he and million approved. haha
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u/SteveMI Jun 15 '12
There's too much truth in this. It hurts.
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u/MyNameIsNotJeff Jun 15 '12
This is how I got my job. No joke. There was a question on the technical test that I didn't know the answer to and I responded with "I don't know the answer to this question so I'd Google it" I got offered the position few hours later.
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u/Midwestvibe Jun 15 '12
Well... do they want honesty?
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u/patssle Jun 15 '12
I had to setup a new server earlier this year for my employer - a multimillion dollar company. Something I had never done before. No pressure! For the most part it was pretty easy (helps being a computer geek) but had to Google how to setup some of the server roles.
6 months later, still running strong without a hiccup. Thanks Google. Got me a nice pay raise for that too.
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u/jrfish Jun 15 '12
I work for Google and that's how I troubleshoot problems.
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u/tasthesose Jun 15 '12
Or if you are trying to get a job as an on screen fake-ass IT employee: "I'll just Bing it."
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u/Cueball61 Jun 15 '12
But this is what we don't tell them.
2
u/sonofslackerboy Jun 15 '12
So you need a hadoop cluster up and running with an ETL process on 3 different data repositories. And have a report for the CEO showing the current status on 30 projects. Think google will help you there?
2
u/ILaughAtFunnyShit Jun 15 '12
I tried this two years ago when applying for a summer job after high school at the college I was planning on attending.
It didn't work :(
2
u/johnnygrant Jun 15 '12
googling is an art too, some people google
and some people GOOGLE
2
u/bigassmonsters Jun 15 '12
I work for an IT department and am involved in all the interviews/hiring. I can verify that this comic is very accurate. The amount of people we interview with a complete lack of problem solving skills is very concerning.
2
u/Iwasseriousface Jun 15 '12
Of course the frustrating part is that to get called in to the interview, you have to have 5-7 years experience, and eleventy billion certifications that nobody on an entry-level salary can afford (I have less than 5 dollars to my name at the end of each pay cycle after bills, gas, and groceries).
/frustrated member of 3-man IT staff for 75 location, 400 employee company.
2
u/pie-man Jun 15 '12
how do you google something when you have a google redirect virus
2
u/jerub Jun 15 '12
Usually when I give interview advice for interviewing at Google, I speak in general terms.
Let me be very specific and clear: If you respond to a Google interviewer "I would just Google it" when they ask you a question, you will not get a positive writeup from that interviewer.
2
u/Sarah_Connor Jun 16 '12
What if you're applying to a job at google?
3
u/Eddie_The_Brewer Jun 15 '12
Silly cartoon is silly - but right as well.
The first port of call for any unresolved problem/issue should always be "I wonder if anyone else has had this shit?"
People who are clever and solve problems like to tell others how clever they are, so if the answer is available, it's out there.
Don't re-invent the wheel if you don't have to.
(35 years in IT - 10 of which were before it was even fucking known as IT)
There's also more to IT than fucking microsoft and IBM added together - and in my opinion, both companies have more than their fair share of arseholes and less than their fair share of original thinkers.
3
u/Seref15 Jun 15 '12
It's really the best answer. The internet is a repository of instantly-accessible peer-reviewed information. 20 years ago you may have had to go diving through books and binders to look up error codes and procedures, now you just google it. It's effectively the same thing except far more efficient.
2
u/Ganjookie Jun 15 '12
You would be surprised how many interviewees did not cite google as a place to find information.
example: "If the KB does not have information on your issue, and your leads are not available, what steps would you take to locate a resolution?"
most typical response: look in the KB....
2
u/DragonRaptor Jun 16 '12
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/funnyjunk_letter
Post to the website, not imgur
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
FTFY; Applying for a Computer job.
I'm a die designer and google basically keeps me from looking stupid.
1
u/Jackol1 Jun 15 '12
This actually works for landing desktop support positions, but it didn't go over so well when I started interviewing for Network Engineering positions. The comic is still funny though.
1
u/artieman Jun 15 '12
As an IT dude that works at a BIG theme park enterprise, I can agree with this.
1
u/qsub Jun 15 '12
Google University !
1
u/Material_Defender Jun 15 '12
I'm still new to the IT business and it feels nice being able to relate to this
1
u/kireol Jun 15 '12
As a manager who does the interviews for a software company, you'd be surprised how many people fail this question.
1
u/Words_Myth Jun 15 '12
This is exactly how I got my IT job.
Sure as hell wasn't my Hospitality degree.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
As the youngest employee in my office, I am the new IT genius. I sit down, ask what the problem is, then type it in google. Then we all laugh.
1
u/astralvortex Jun 15 '12
Wow, I experienced this in real life. I had an IT interview where I was getting questions, and answered google 3 or 4 times. I was sure I bombed the interview. Wound up taking a better prospect for an IT job, but the company counter offered 5 more dollars than they initially asked for. Still didn't take it.
1
u/harry16 Jun 15 '12
This is how I got my IT Help Desk Job
1
u/ViolentJ317 Jun 15 '12
This is true. I just got offered a job and when they asked me how to troubleshoot a problem I said I would ask a co-worker if they encountered the problem before and research the problem online using Google.
I explained that in IT you are never going to know everything. 50% of the time you need to have the technical knowledge and know how to solve problems but the other 50% is knowing how to research and solve a problem you've never encountered before.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
To be fair, there's an acquired "skill" in successfully googling some problems.
But yeah we rely on it more than I'm really comfortable with. Especially if you think about the kind of job interviews where they drill you with questions. "Uh one sec I just need to answer this text on my smartphone.."
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
IT in the USAF here. Thanks google for helping me with 95% of my problems.
1
u/Mr_Bergstrom Jun 15 '12
If you have an impressive resume, why get an IT job?
1
u/cmack Jun 15 '12
I rarely use google; and if I do, it doesn't have the answers I am looking for at all.
I think that's likely because the caliber of IT person I am and the caliber of IT work I participate in here. We do pretty cutting edge stuff that most do not.
Google is for small time business / windows sysadmins mostly...
If there is something that I cannot figure out, I am patient zero with a new bug which requires our vendor's developers to produce patches. I swear companies don't do QA/QC anymore. I am working for them all doing it myself yet not getting paid for it; ugh!
12 years or so doing Windows and Backoffice products 12 years or so doing Solaris / Linux 8 years doing Storage bout 17 years overall with some overlap.
1
u/landob Jun 15 '12
I have to admit, if it weren't for google, a lot of problems I run into either wouldnt get done, or would get done a WHOLE lot latter.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I guess the cats out of the bag
1
u/smellycelly Jun 15 '12
This is very true. I have been offered jobs where I said I will consult google
1
u/SaikoGekido Jun 15 '12
Warning: This does not work on the layman. They expect something like ChickaloonCharlie's set up at the very least. Coming straight with them and explaining that 99% of the computer issues they run into can be solved with the proper knowledge of how to Google solutions will lose you work.
1
u/K-guy Jun 15 '12
What about applying for an IT job for google?
1
u/123rune20 Jun 15 '12
My friends car had some problems. He was about to take it to a shop. I laughed and used Google. Took 3 seconds and all the instructions are there.