Cisco Interview Questions

[dks1]

I recently applied to a company, and before I even walked into the interview, they had me take a "personality test". One I got there, they made me take an "IQ test". And then before I met with the hiring manager, they made me take a "Network Engineer Exam.".. they told me I had a half hour to complete this. This is NOT a company I would want to work for... but I copied the questions on the Engineer exam. Tell me how many of these you could answer....I'm a CCNP, and found a lot of them difficult!
1) Observe the following static route:
ip route 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 Gig1/1
• What is an advantage of referencing interface Gig1/1 instead of a next-hop?
• What is a disadvantage
2) What is a “floating static” route?
3) What is a route-map? Name three configurations that might reference a route-map.
4) Observe the follow access-list:
ip access-list extended OUTSIDE_ACL
deny any 10.0.0.0 0.0.0.255
This ACL is applied inbound to an interface. Will inbound traffic destined to 192.168.0.1 be
allowed or denied?
5) An inbound extended ACL named ALLOW_IN exists on your company Border Router. It is applied to the “outside” interface with the “access-group ALLOW_IN in” command. A junior admin accidentally deletes ACL_ALLOW_IN from the running-config. Is inbound traffic permitted or denied on the outside interface? Why?
6) Your company wants to configure an Internet Border Router with the following policy: Any traffic leaving the internal network destined to the internet is permitted. Traffic sourced from the public internet addresses is to be controlled with and extended ACL applied inbound and to the outside (internet facing) interface. An internal user wants to be able to browse a website at 100.1.1.1 port 80 from his PC with source IP 90.1.1.1.

Does the ACL need to be modified to permit the connection to 100.1.1.1? If so, write an ACL statement that would facilitate the connection.
7) What is a jumbo packet? How would you enable jumbo packet support on a Cisco device? Since configuration steps very between devices/models, choose any device and explain.
8)Write the CLI statements for configuring an industry-standard trunk link between two Cisco switches.
9) Write the CLI statements for configuring an etherchannel between two Cisco 3560 switches. Use two connections between ports G0/1 and G0/2 on each switch respectively. The etherchannel should be configured to disable negotiation between switches.
10) What is ACS and how is it used?
11) You have two Cisco routers with OSPF running on a single link between them. The subnet for the link is 10.1.1.0/30 How would you configure the interfaces to bypass the DR election and immediately form an adjacency during start-up?
12) What is netflow and how is it used?
13) What Cisco feature is available on medium to upper level platform routers (6500, 7200, ASR series…) that allows you to view current traffic through the router at the CLI?
14) An OSPF area is configured as “totally stubby” What will “show ip route ospf” reveal at the CLI?
15) In your personal professional experience, have you worked with a company that had a public BGP number? What was the number(s)?
16) You are troubleshooting a connectivity issue from a PC within your network to a public site. The PC is using a custom application that forms a TCP connection to port 5555.
a) What common CLI tool can you use to test the connection from the PC?
b) You find that the connection is not forming. What very common application could you use to
analyze the connection attempts?
c) You suspect that the problem is not network related and is probably due to an issue at the far
end. The remote party confirms they are receiving your traffic. What indication seen with
this tool could support your claim?
17) Your company has the registered C-class range 50.50.50.0. From your border router you will form a BGP peering relationship to an IP 1.1.1.1/30 remote AS 1111. Your BGP peer has IP 1.1.1.2.30 and your AS id 5555. You have two internal interfaces on your border router as well. The IP for one of these interfaces is 50.50.50.1/25and the other is 50.50.50.129/25. Write all necessary CLI commands to advertise your class-C range to AS 1111.
18) A router learns the following routes to destination 10.0.0.1:
VIA OSPF: 10.0.0.0/26 next-hop 172.16.1.1 VIA EIGRP: 10.0.0.0/24 net-hop 172.20.1.1
VIA STATIC: 10.0.0.0 next-hop 192.168.1.1 VIA RIP:1.0.0.0/28 next-hop 192.168.50.1
19) Please draw a layer 1 network diagram
20) Please draw a layer 2 network diagram
21) Please draw a layer 3 network diagram

 

[Dinkytoy]

A lot of companies follow this kind of test setup. My current company has a REALLY evil set of development questions and the interviews and exam can take 4 hours and only about 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 pass that get that far and to get that far they've already gone through a phone interview and an online test.

I don't see why a network specialist wouldn't have to do similar at some places.

Incidentally I'm going through CCNP Route exam prep at the moment, and I can answer most of those, or least have good shot at them. Some of the wording is poor, but I would hope there would be a discussion following the test if it was a marginal score.

Any test they should be producing should be at least loosly inline with the work you will be expected to do if you can't do it (even if their expectations are unreasonable for the target salary or qualifications) then they won't want you.

 

[kmcferrin]

I think that it is far more common for developers to undergo some sort of exam process during an interview than it is for people on the infrastructure side, especially since development can be such a creative process. There are usually many ways to solve a particular problem via code and employers typically look for developers who have strong problem-solving skills and are able to quickly write efficient, if not elegant, solutions.

Building infrastructure is much more black and white: you're either following best practices or you're not. The deployed solution will either work or it won't. Being able to test for creativeness and efficiency is less of a benefit unless you're looking for an architect-level employee.

If I had to be honest, I'd say that this company/hiring manager sounds like someone who has been burned in the past by someone who could ace an interview without really having in-depth knowledge. I have three major problems with these types of interviews:

Firstly, the questions are typically written by the technical team, who fired off a few questions in a spare minute. The meaning of the questions is often ambiguous in such a way that the only way to answer it "correctly" is to know what the person had in mind when they wrote it. IT people tend to be very poor communicators.

The second problem that I have is that the questions tend to be drawn from real-life scenarios or use-cases within the company that may not mimic the experiences of people in the wider world. You can be very familiar and competent with a particular product or system, but unless you have run into the exact situation that the interviewing company has then you are unlikely to know the answer.

But by far the biggest problem that I have with tests like this is that they seem to be less about testing knowledge and more arranged towards letting the testor feel superior to the testee by bringing up obscure points and "gotchas". In many cases it's little better than a hazing ritual. I actually once worked for a company that put their candidates through a team interview, where literally a dozen people sat around the candidate in a semi-circle asking them questions and shooting down their answers. Fortunately I was hired by a manager that was a friend so I was able to avoid it, but the interview was definitely as much about amusing the people asking questions as it was doing any technical screening.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator