Support.com interview questions

Had 2 round of interviews: 1 telephonic technical discussion and another F2F discussion with the Architect.

This interview was conducted by telephone, and it was my understanding that it was meant to evaluate my technical skills and knowledge. Initial questions were about my setup, to be sure that I had everything that would be required to perform the job from home. He asked me about my Internet connection, and my basic hardware setup. The tone in his voice dripped of looking down on me, hinted that everything I had was just barely acceptable. I use DSL, which has been rock solid for me, and I heavily use VOIP. The interviewer implied that VOIP will not work on DSL, and that unless I moved to Cable internet, my setup may not be acceptable. As to the hardware I was using, all of it was equal to, or better than what is required according to the company website. I also mentioned that I had better hardware available, but nothing seemed good enough for this person. Next, he started asking some technical questions. The first had to do with the difference between WEP and WPA. I expressed that WEP is no longer considered secure, and that I would advise against the use of WEP in most situations. I allowed for some very rare situations (such as old, critical equipment) in which it might be used, but if that occurred, I suggested that the equipment be isolated from any other network infrastructure. I then further defined the technical differences between the two. When I finished, I was asked if there was a difference in ease of use. I indicated that once either one is set up, it should be transparent. The setup for each is very similar (baring the push-button setup for WPA, which is currently vulnerable). The interviewer then asked me to define the difference between two viruses. I was not able to respond to this question, as I have educated myself on locating and removing viruses, but I do not always know them by name. I was allowed to use the Internet to research questions, but I was not comfortable doing this in an interview, and therefore stumbled here. Another question had to do with walking a customer through moving from a desktop computer on a cable modem, to a laptop using a new wireless access point (to be installed). I walked through this process in detail, with no feedback from the interviewer. I felt I did very well here, in spite of the fact that in a real situation, the customer would have provided feedback along the route, and asked questions if they did not understand. I think what bothered me most about this interview is that the interviewer remained silent through all of my responses. Since some of them were meant to demonstrate walking a client through a process, the environment was not realistic. I felt as though the interviewer had a condescending attitude through the entire call. I have worked in a help desk environment, as well as led training, for more than ten years. I always receive excellent reviews for my attitude and knowledge. I felt that this interview was a complete farce, and after this experience, I am not sure I would have wanted to work for such an organization. This position pays less than half of what any of my previous IT employers have paid. I was only interested in this job for the work-at -home aspect of it. The rating below for difficulty is set to average. I did so because the interview was not really challenging, it just seemed unrelated to what I understood the intent of this interview to be.