I had a job candidate in today as a matter of fact. I ran him through my standard aptitude tests.

Firstly I asked him to complete the "Computer Technician" Brainbench.com test. This test is quite difficult to do well in if you don't have any real experience.

Secondly, I gave him a machine that I reserve just for testing candidates. It's an old Compaq Deskpro 5133 - yuk!

I told him the machine refuses to POST (look for consufused look - POST?). The hard drive has Win95 on it and I would like you to test the sound card and modem.

It had a bad SIMM - Basic test - Will highlight his testing methology.

I had also disabled the hard drive controller from within the BIOS - Medium test - Not only does he need to be able to diagnose the fault, he also needs to know that a Compaq's diagnostics are on a partition on the hard disk so he'll need to create a diags disk to to re-enable the controller.

The modem was an older Lucent chipset based PCI WinModem - Great test - Only someone with serious experience will know the Compaq/Lucent issue (It's great to watch the candidate set up a dial up account, click connect and watch as the machine reboots itself as the on-card speaker carries on making sound. Oh? You think the modem is bad? Try this one then - Hand him another Lucent modem).

For the record: Today's candidate performed excellently and we now have a new tech.

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Does the damn thing work - NO,
Did you screw with it - YES,
Does anyone know - NO,
HIDE IT!