I've interviewed serveral freelance consultants and most of the time these folks are pretty knowlegeable and just have a general discussions about the technologies and how he/she architect around the solutions and you will quickly see how in depth the person knows about architecture and engineering and implementation as well. If he/she can't deliver the message effectively with reasonable knowledge than reject them. In order to have open discussion like this, yourself have to know indepth about this products and solutions in order to understand what he/she answered or proposed. If you just need verification whether the person is knowledgeable then use some common questions from VMware admin guides etc..and ask accordingly and if he/she can answer 7/10 that is a prospective candidate. Not everyone like to memorize those configurations but if they know random questions that is trainable and workable candidate.
So, I would focus hard on technologies, architecture, implementation and administration tasks for day to day operations and have him explain his past 4 years role and I would check with employers to make sure he's legit. I would follow these questions sequentially:
1. Can you introduce about yourself (education, experience and jobs) for the past 2-4 years? (make sure to verify employments to confirm legitimate records and functions)
2. Can you briefly explain what are the VMware products and what circumstances you'll be implement them? the more he pointed out the better but key products should be (ESX hosts, SRM, View, Lab Manager, ThinApp)
3. Can you use a board to diagram the designs a large scale ESX environment and what are the components and how they communicate? this will proof if he knows the ins/outs of (storage, networking, database, security) and systems.
4. Do you have any experience implementing DR solution and please explain? (make sure the guy understands the criticality of disaster recovery and for consultant DR is a critical aspect)
5. What is your greatest strength and weaknesses? How do you manage to overcome those weaknesses? (gives us understandings what he does best and not and see if it fits our organization)
6. Can you tell me why I should hire you for this job? (this will give them person a chance to wrap up with their skillsets and assessment and make sure he's confident with the interview)
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Regards,
Stefan Nguyen
VMware vExpert 2009
iGeek Systems Inc.
VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant
