Just finished an interview for an internal transfer into an entry IT support role yesterday. Before all of this i networked with 2 HR employees to help me get into it and also wanting updates after days.
I have no technical job experience but I have created IAM Home labs and 3 months of ticketing simulations and having 2 years of customer service in that same company I'm being interviewed for.
In my past interviews, the rejection signs were obvious. The last one ended with the interviewer buttering me up with “too bad you don’t have much experience,” and the others had the usual “we’ll keep you in mind” talk.
This one was different. Nobody softened anything. Nobody mentioned “other opportunities” or me “finding something else.” Most of the conversation was about the transfer itself. They weren’t sure whether an internal employee should go through orientation or just transfer over.
The main reason why im confused was because the main manager who i talked with in my in phone interview needed to leave early to get to a meeting so he was trying to find quick interview questions and even so he was still late so he had to leave when we were done but he still talked about "paperwork" that he was assuming i had to go through because I was a internal employee. But didn't say anything about sending a email or any sort of contact to keep me updated. After this interview I sent him a thank you email with some questions.
How the questions went:
Customer service: My stories and answers came out clean. No stuttering, no blanking, and a few of the interviewers actually agreed with my choices.
Basic technical stuff: DNS, VPN, Task manager and Resorce Monitor and the troubleshooting steps of “computer is running slow.” I walked through the troubleshooting steps and explained what each one means.
Where I struggled: Outlook local configuration and Microsoft ID/account stuff. I still answered with reasonable troubleshooting steps, but I wasn’t detailed because I honestly didn’t know it well. These were 2 questions, my troubleshooting steps were correct.
I was upfront that I have no technical experience. When they asked about RDP vs VPN, I told them I didn’t know what RDP stood for. He told me, and I reasoned from there that it’s basically remote access. I knew VPN fully.
I didn’t bluff on anything. I’m hoping the honesty and the troubleshooting mindset count for something.
What did irritated me was just stacking questions on the questions itself. It was very annoying for them to just not take the answer to my question which I was confident that it was correct. Even looking back at my interview I was confident that I didn't mess anything up because each of my answers were little to no stuttering and slow paced and even when I went blank I still recovered.
I know I can’t predict the outcome, but compared to my past interviews this felt like a completely different energy in a good way and bad way.
For those of you who have been on either side of the table: does a logistics-focused conversation and a possible second interview with the manager’s boss sound like a good sign?
And any tips on prepping for Outlook and Microsoft account topics in case there’s a round two?
Source: r/interviews · by /u/Op_Jokeer