Exam Example for an interview - PBX Info :: Your Free PBX, PABX and Telephone Information Resource

***hsantos*** · 10-17-2003, 12:12 PM

Hi,

Im trying to find a small exam (max 50 questions) that I could
pass to new people that apply on our telecom jobs.

The exam would need to touch PBX, Call Center, CTI etc.

Where could I find this?

Thanks

**Chas2002** · 10-17-2003, 02:23 PM

I have a test that I use to give prospective techs...
What type of Call Center setup (Applications) are you using?
Do you want it heavy on MAC situations?
Or do you want it to lean more to Troubleshooting situations?

***hsantos*** · 10-17-2003, 03:19 PM

All of the Above is good... since we would use it for different kind of new hire!

Thanks

email to pbx@hsantos.com

**Chas2002** · 10-17-2003, 03:26 PM

What type of Call Center Apps?

***hsantos*** · 10-17-2003, 03:47 PM

Right now...
We use Symposium products but we will go with genesys products
by June 2004.

Also we have TAPI and CTI tools.

Thats why im looking for something more general that would be applicable to all..

freddog · 10-20-2003, 09:07 PM

I think you're going down the wrong path looking for exam questions for potential new hires. What you really should do is evaluate the strength of their overall experience rather than try to get them to pull little bits and pieces of info from memory. It's much more valuable to have them tell you about the most frustrating T-1 problem they've had to trouble shoot, and how they wound up solving the problem, rather than asking them "what does B8ZS stand for?". In my opinion, it's best to hire someone with the strongest understanding of how switches work. I'd rather hire someone with 5 years of experience installing turn-key Lucent G3 systems, with no Meridian 1 experience, over someone with 5 years of experience, only on the Meridian 1, doing nothing but DN/TN MACs.

***hsantos*** · 10-20-2003, 10:19 PM

The thing is.... we are having a lot of trouble hiring new peolple.
So not only we are looking for experience, but we also want
some way to test them on a general knowledge way....

A quiz seems to be one of the simpliest way to verify that....

TelcoHo · 10-21-2003, 04:37 PM

Before being offered and accepting my current position, I was interviewed by a company (the name slips my memory). Before the interview (keep in mind that this was the initial interview), they handed me (2) 4-page tests. One for analog circuits and one for high-caps. At that time, I had a very strong background troubleshooting and installing analog circuits in the military. They asked things like 'Explain Nyquist's Theorem in your own words' and 'explain what the frequency response and envelope delay tests actually do'. That crap is just that....crap! That was in 2001, and they're asking me to draw out analog to digital conversion, telling them how you come up with the 8k sampling rate and stuff. The high-cap test was crap too. One question asked for the 3 types of line coding typically used on t1's today. I said esf or d4 and sf were the only ones that I'd ever used. He said it could be unframed (with a real smug look). I said, if it's not framed then it only has a datarate of 1.536mb? He said 'right'. So by definition, it's not a t1 right? He went on to the next question, and I didn't get the job.

The bottom line is that if you decide to use a test, please don't intentionally try to come up with trick questions. Those serve no real purpose accept turning off potential employees. Also, you don't have to ask "What does TDM stand for?" type questions. Those don't tell you, the interviewer, anything at all. Like freddog suggested, ask questions that get the person to tell you what he would do (or has done) in specific situations. So you could say something like: You build a 2616 set on tn x-x-x-x, punch down the cross-connects and plug in the phone. It gets power, but doesn't get dial-tone. What would you logically deduce? (Possible T/R reversal, tn disabled, etc). From their resume, you already know their claimed experience level, but this proves it. It proves it because it doesn't test for a canned response that they could have memorized but really don't understand.

....my $.02,
will

***hsantos*** · 10-21-2003, 05:35 PM

But thats exactly what we are trying to do.
We dont want to give High Test with tricky questions...
We just want to know if the person knwo the basic in terms
of Telephony, PBX and CTI...

Kind of: Explain IVR in Front?

It is just ways to validate the general knowledge.

TelcoHo · 10-21-2003, 06:15 PM

Oh, I wasn't accusing you of anything hsantos.

I was just explaining the short-comings of the tests that I've had to take in the past in hopes that nobody else would ever have to take stupid tests like that!

thanks,
will

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