You should research extensively and prepare well before stepping into an interview room. These twenty-five questions should give you a foundation and some insights into what to expect.
1. Why Are You Interested in This Role?
I have been eyeing your company for quite some time and could not, therefore, resist when a chance came up. I admire your work policies, environment, and the success that you have achieved over the years. I want to be a part of that. I also believe that I have all it takes to succeed in this job, given that my skills and expertise meet the job description.
2. What Are Some of The Skills Required to Be Successful in This Role?
I will draw from some of the qualities that have seen me through this role. I believe that a network operating center technician should have vast troubleshooting skills since part of this job involves finding solutions to problems.
This role also requires good customer service, people skills, and a burning curiosity to learn. One must also have cybersecurity expertise and be flexible, as well as adaptable. Lastly, team working is essential owing to the nature of the work involved.
3. What Is the Right Mindset and Strategies Required for This Role?
Working in the network operation center has made me understand several things. One, team working is an essential tool and a strategy that every employer should embrace. I found out that worked moved smoothly whenever I put up a team. Team working also guaranteed me timely and accurate results, which I would have taken longer to achieve.
The perfect mindset for anybody working in the network operating center is an open pone. This field requires curiosity and willingness to learn, which one with a closed mindset cannot achieve.
4. What Are Some of The Roles of a Network Operating Centre Technician?
Having been in this field for seven years, my roles were overseeing all the networking equipment in the organization and conducting preventive maintenance. I also repaired and replaced both switches and routers, configure new servers, perform tests and make hardware and software upgrades.
I also made sure that all the networks operated with zero interruptions occasioned by failure or outages.
5. What Is the Biggest Challenge That You Foresee in This Job?
I took some time to look at your company’s modes of operation and equipment catalog, and I am glad with the job you have done. I, therefore, believe that I will not encounter some of the problems I have had in my previous years of service.
I also believe that since you have the right equipment and smooth operation, most potential problems will be minimal. We will always be able to solve these if we work together.
6. How Do You Stay Motivated in This Role?
I derive great passion from solving problems, however small. This has always given me the push to sit behind my desk and find solutions. I also meditate a lot, a behavior that has helped me gain lots of focus. I do not stop until I get done with a given task.
Lastly, I love success. I, therefore, channel all my energy to ensure that I succeed, despite the obstacles. I always strive to meet my goals and deadlines. The joy that I get from that keeps me coming to work, day in, day out.
7. Do You Consider Yourself a Team Player?
I appreciate the role that teamwork plays in this field. I have been paired with several teams repeatedly and can confidently confirm that I am a team player. Team working helps improve accuracy and fastens operations, which explains why I enjoy it. However, I also believe that some projects require independent effort and wish to confirm that I am also prepared. I am highly productive, be it in independent or teamwork.
8. What Would You Do If You Come Across a Situation Which You Cannot Easily Resolve?
I consider myself as someone who does not give up easily. Therefore, I will use all the resources at my disposal to try and come up with a solution. However, if I won’t still be successful, I will request assistance from my team members or supervisors.
I believe that we can get any information provided that we look for it wisely, which I will achieve by involving outside help. This has helped me get out of several situations in my career.
9. Have You Ever Had to Decide on a Situation with a High Risk of Failure?
During my last year in engineering school, I had to decide on a unit with a 90% failure rate. It was feared by even the most brilliant of students. Given that it was an area I enjoyed and wanted to venture into, I decided to pursue it, even with repeated warnings from most of my college friends.
Even though the ride was not as smooth, I managed to pass the unit and get a distinction. Still this day, I treat that as my biggest achievement in life.
10. What Do You Understand by Route Poisoning?
Route poisoning is a technique used to disable the router’s ability to send data packets through routes that no longer exist on the network. It aids in the exclusion of routes from the routing table. For this to be successful, networks inform other routers of invalid or non-existent routes through this technique.
Its main aim, therefore, is to prevent sending of unnecessary data packets over the network.
11. Why Should We Hire You Out of All These Applicants?
I cannot vouch for or talk about other applicants, given that I do not know them. However, I believe that I have the right experience to succeed in this job. I have worked with a number of top performers in the industry and posted an impeccable record.
I am also passionate about network operations, which has seen me better myself year in, year out. I can turn this organization into a powerhouse if given a chance, just like I did at my previous workplace.
12. We Have Seen That You Had a Successful Creer In Your Former Workplace. Therefore, Why Did You Quit?
I really enjoyed working at my former work post. I saw it grow, which still gives me lots of pride. However, I figured out that it was time to let another person serve and develop brilliant ways of improving and maintaining its networks. I also wanted new challenges, now that I was familiar with everything happening in the organization regarding network operations.
13. How Do You Prioritize Your Work?
How I prioritize my work depends on the situation and tasks. However, owing to the importance of prioritization, I normally like to first deal with tasks that require immediate attention. Therefore, I label the different tasks of the day based on their urgency when I step into the office in the morning.
However, if there are no tasks that need to be attended to urgently, I focus on the lighter ones, which can be done fast. This gives me time to energize for the more strenuous tasks of the day. I have also learned to balance some tasks alongside the prioritized ones.
14. Assume a Router’s WAN Link Goes Down. What Would Be the Right Steps to Undertake?
Whenever such a thing happens, the first step should be determining the reason for the failure, which can either be a physical or protocol issue. The latter can either be link authentication failure, configuration of the clock rate, improper access control, encapsulation mismatch, or duplex mismatch. I will then correct the error once I know the cause of the problem.
15. How Can One Troubleshoot a High CPU Utilization Problem in a Router?
Such problems normally show that the router is functioning abnormally. To know how to proceeds, one should first establish the cause of increased CPU utilization through different commands such as ‘show processes CPU and ‘show interface stat’. These normally check the process utilization. This scenario is mostly caused by high traffic flow, complex ACL or VPN, deployments, and ARP issues.
16. How Would You Respond to a Web Security Threat?
My immediate instinct after identifying a web security threat would be to use a firewall to block it. For this purpose, I would use a web application firewall or a layer seven firewall. (You can mention any other protection)
17. In Layman’s Language, Could You Please Explain to the Person at The Reception Desk What a Proxy is
A proxy filters the network traffic with two main aims. First, to prevent access to certain websites. It is for this reason that it is used in different institutions or workplaces for this particular purpose. I also used to monitor web activity. However, one of the most common uses of proxies, though not primary, is to hide the origin IP from outside networks. For example, when used to hide the origin IP, the computer IP address will be unique to the local network while the internet will see a different IP address by the proxy server.
18. Could You Please Diagnose This Issue: A Host Computer Cannot Be Accessed Over the Local Network Using the Host Name, but The Same Can Happen Using an IP Adress
Such an issue is normally caused by a problem with the Domain Name System, popularly known as the DNS. Most of the time, the hostname is not added to the DNS server, meaning that the network will not recognize it but instead recognize IP address locations. (You can then go ahead to show your troubleshooting method).
19. What Is DNS?
DNS stands for the domain name system. It offers a database association with lots of information about domain entities. Here is a clear explanation to understand this better. Computers attached to physical networks have IP addresses that are translated to hostnames by the DNS server. Therefore, instead of searching for a given IP address to connect with a computer on the network, you only need to remember the hostname, and the DNS will do the rest. The same also applies to website names.
20. Could You Please Tell Us What a Network Switch Is?
It is a device that generates a network that connects several devices for purposes of sharing data. It facilitates the receipt, processing, and forwarding of data in the form of data packets.
21. What Does the Term VLAN Mean to You?
VLAN, fully known as Virtual Local Area Network, acts as an additional network added to the physical one. It exists in the data link layer of the OSI model and keeps different aspects of many applications separate from the physical network.
When using a network switch, it is possible to group all the connected hosts and create one independent network.
22. Explain the Meaning of TCP/IP
TCP, fully known as Transmission Control Protocol, over Internet Protocol oversees connections between different computers. It is the medium for data packets sent back and forth through protocols such as HTTP and FTP.
23. Could You Please Explain the Meaning of BGP?
BGP, known as the Border Gateway Control, deals with the exchange of routing information between different automated systems found on the internet. The BGP is also known as the standardized version of the exterior gateway protocol.
24. What Do You Know About EIGRP Convergence Time?
Fully known as the Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol Convergence Time, it is the duration a router considers the host alive without receiving a single data packet. This setting can be adjusted within the router even though the hello time is usually set to three times the hello interval.
25. What Do You Consider the Best Ways of Testing Delay and Route Packets Between Two Connections?
I prefer conducting a traceroute test to determine connectivity and packet delay over IP. A good example is ‘tracert,’ a CMD command which reveals every node jump and latency with the route information.
Conclusion
These are some of the common interview questions in network operating center interviews. These should help you prepare well and impress the potential employer for a chance to serve at their organization.
