How to source and shortlist {role_name}

Where can you find qualified {role_name}?

  • Professional network : Leverage your professional network and reach out to former colleagues, industry peers, and tech community members to ask for referrals.
  • Educational Institutions:
    • Universities with Strong IT Programs: Partner with institutions that offer computer science and IT programs. Target schools known for producing skilled engineers in systems management and IT support.
    • Technical Colleges: Look for graduates from technical colleges that specialize in IT infrastructure and systems administration.
  • Company Career Pages:
    • Your Company Website: Ensure your career page clearly outlines the role’s requirements, benefits, and opportunities. Include success stories from current engineers about their work in production support.
  • Role-Specific Job Boards:
    • Dice: A tech-focused job board that is particularly effective for finding candidates with production support and DevOps skills.
    • Indeed: A widely used job board that can attract a large pool of candidates with varying levels of experience in production support.
    • Glassdoor: Utilize Glassdoor’s job posting feature to reach candidates who are researching companies and looking for support engineering roles.
  • Geography-Specific Job Boards:
    • United States:
      • LinkedIn Jobs: Target specific locations and industries in the US.
      • SimplyHired: Another job board that aggregates postings and can help reach a broad audience of tech professionals.
    • India:
      • Naukri: One of India’s largest job portals, frequently used to find tech and engineering professionals, including production support roles.
      • Shine: A job board in India that connects employers with top engineering talent.
    • UAE & KSA:
      • Bayt: A leading job board in the Middle East, widely used to find engineering and technical professionals.
      • GulfTalent: A popular job portal in the Gulf region, ideal for sourcing candidates in UAE and KSA.
    • Remote Positions:
      • We Work Remotely: A leading platform for finding candidates interested in remote work, particularly in tech roles.
      • Remote OK: Another well-known job board for remote positions, ideal for sourcing candidates with experience in production support and DevOps.

What are the best practices for headhunting {role_name}?

  • Leverage Technical Networks: Engage with engineers on platforms like GitHub, LinkedIn, and Stack Overflow. Participate in groups and discussions focused on production support, incident management, and system reliability.
  • Engage Passive Candidates: Many skilled Production Support Engineers may not be actively looking for new opportunities. Reach out to passive candidates by highlighting unique challenges, growth opportunities, and the impact they can make at your company.
  • Utilize Referrals: Ask your current IT and engineering teams for referrals. Engineers often know other professionals in the industry who may be a good fit for your role.
  • Attend Industry Events: Participate in or sponsor conferences, webinars, and meetups focused on IT infrastructure, DevOps, and system reliability. These events provide excellent opportunities to network with potential candidates.

"Find Talent Quickly" – Leverage Headhunting and Referrals

How to shortlist candidates?

Once you have started to get applications from applicants, a thorough screening process and shortlisting of prospects will help you make the most of your time spent with the most qualified ones. 

Automated shortlisting tools :

Automated screening quickly filters out unqualified candidates, saving time for manual review. This allows the manual process to focus on the most promising candidates, ensuring the best ones are considered for further evaluation.

Screening questions to auto-shortlist based on predefined criteria

like qualifications, location, experience, and skills. Either use job board or use an ATS such as whitecarrot. Here are some questions for {role_name}

  • How many years of experience do you have working in a production support role?
    • Auto-Reject Criteria: Less than 3 years of experience.
  • How many years of experience do you have with incident management processes?
    • Auto-Reject Criteria: Less than 2 years of experience.
  • Are you located within [specified location] or willing to relocate/work remotely?
    • Auto-Reject Criteria: Not willing to relocate or work remotely if required.

Skill based question to auto shortlist candidate

Analyze the skill test data to automatically shortlist top-performing applicants. (recommended screening test time - 15 minutes). Here are some skill test questions for {role_name}

Incident Management

Assessing the candidate's ability to manage and resolve incidents efficiently.

  • What is the primary goal of incident management?
    • a) To escalate incidents to the development team
    • b) To restore normal service operation as quickly as possible (Correct Answer)
    • c) To update documentation after an incident
    • d) To monitor system performance
  • Which of the following is a common incident management tool?
    • a) Nagios
    • b) Splunk (Correct Answer)
    • c) MySQL
    • d) Git
  • What is a post-incident review?
    • a) A report generated during an incident
    • b) An analysis conducted after resolving an incident to identify root causes and improvement opportunities (Correct Answer)
    • c) A meeting to discuss upcoming incidents
    • d) A documentation update

Troubleshooting

Evaluating the candidate's ability to diagnose and resolve issues in production environments.

  • What is the first step in troubleshooting a production issue?
    • a) Reboot the server
    • b) Identify and define the problem (Correct Answer)
    • c) Notify the stakeholders
    • d) Update the incident log
  • Which tool would you use to analyze system logs for errors?
    • a) Excel
    • b) Wireshark
    • c) Splunk (Correct Answer)
    • d) Jenkins
  • What is the best approach when you are unable to resolve an issue quickly?
    • a) Escalate the issue to the next level of support (Correct Answer)
    • b) Ignore the issue and move on
    • c) Document the issue for later review
    • d) Restart the system

Scripting

Testing the candidate's ability to automate tasks and improve efficiency through scripting.

  • Which scripting language is commonly used for automating tasks in Linux environments?
    • a) JavaScript
    • b) Bash (Correct Answer)
    • c) HTML
    • d) SQL
  • What is the purpose of a shebang (#!) at the beginning of a script?
    • a) To comment the script
    • b) To specify the interpreter that should be used to execute the script (Correct Answer)
    • c) To define a variable
    • d) To include a library
  • How would you schedule a script to run at a specific time on a Unix-based system?
    • a) Use the at command
    • b) Use the cron command (Correct Answer)
    • c) Use the cp command
    • d) Use the mkdir command

Note - Auto reject candidates if scores less than 70% in this section

One way video interview

Recruitment Bullet

Use tools like hirevue, whitecarrot.io to ask candidates pre-recorded questions about their experience and skills.

Recruitment Bullet

Use sample question given in scorecard.

Collect other information 

Recruitment Bullet

Collect data from shortlisted candidates, such as salary expectations and visa status.

"Shortlist in Seconds" – Use our CV scoring feature to get top candidate recommendation

Manual candidate profile shortlisting:

Recruitment Bullet

Thoroughly review the CVs of the top scoring candidates from the automated process

Recruitment Bullet

Look for evidence of the required skills, experience, and achievements

Recruitment Bullet

Review the candidate’s portfolio or GitHub repositories to see examples of their work.

Schedule recruiter calls with the candidate

Recruitment Bullet

Use a tool like calendly or whitecarrot to allow candidates to self-schedule calls based on your availability

Recruitment Bullet

Confirm the call details (date, time, dial-in info) with the candidate via email

What questions to ask in the recruiter phone screen?

Recruitment Bullet

 Use scorecard for rating candidates for recruiter

Recruitment Bullet

Sample scorecard : 

Criteria Sample Question Rating (1-5) Comments
Technical Expertise How did you resolve a critical production issue, and what steps did you take to prevent it from reoccurring?
Problem-Solving Ability How do you prioritize incidents when dealing with multiple production issues simultaneously?
Cultural Fit Describe a time when you worked under pressure to resolve an incident. How did you handle the situation?
Communication Skills How do you communicate complex technical issues to non-technical stakeholders?
Experience with Tools What tools do you use for monitoring and managing production environments, and how do they enhance your work?
Recruitment Bullet

Check for consistency in responses from the candidates.

Recruitment Bullet

Record such scorecards in an ATS like whitecarrot or use google doc