How to Prepare for an IT Support Interview

In an interview for an IT position, you will be asked general interview questions, but you will also most likely get questions related to solving IT issues and customer service. Here are some examples:

  1. How would you prioritize the urgency of two different problems and why? For example, if one user must give a presentation right now and their laptop is not connecting to the projector vs. another user who isn’t able to access email.
  2. Tell me about a time you worked with an unhappy customer. What did you do?
    • It is important avoid an example where you just passed the problem to a manager. Instead provide an example where you were able to calm the client down and find a solution. (Your example does not have to be IT related. This is about keeping your composure under pressure, with a customer there.)
  3. Walk me through, step by step, how to do something that is not technical.
    • Here you want to demonstrate that you can explain how to do something, to someone who has never done it, without missing a detail or a step. A classic answer is how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, by starting with “walk to the cupboard and take out the jar of peanut butter” and “go to the refrigerator and take out the jar of jelly”. Once a WIT student walked Harvard IT through making chocolate chip cookies, which they made all the time, and they got the job.
  4. Define X or Y. Examples: Define the internet. Define a router and a switch.
  5. How would you troubleshoot a particular situation? For example, when a user comes to you with a blue screen, what would you do?
    • To answer, you will need to walk through the steps of how you would try to solve the problem.
  6. When you have trouble solving a problem, what do you do?
    • The intention of this question is to see if you know how to research a problem in general, and then if you hit a wall, do you know how to ask for help. It is important to talk through your process of figuring something out. Think about the kind of problem, who you would ask for help, when, and in what order.

Additional Resources:

  1. Check out www.geeksforgeeks.org’s page on common networking questions.
  2. Listen to our WITworks Radio interview with hiring managers, including one who hires IT co-ops: https://cdn.uconnectlabs.com/wpcontent/uploads/sites/46/2019/06/WITworks-Radio-85.mp3.