What are some suitable interview questions to ask candidates for a GIS Analyst position?
I am looking for techniques for interviewing analysts at varied experience levels (we are currently looking at hiring for entry and senior-level positions).
In the past, I've asked questions about their most recent projects and what sites/newsletters they use to keep up with the industry.
How do you handle boring repetitive tasks?
If the answer doesn't mention scripting or automating then you should be wary. Candidates should have come across a scripting language or macros at some point in a GIS course.
What database experience do you have?
Many GIS analysts become responsible for geodatabases - whether or not they wish to or are suitable. Any experience with creating databases, primary keys, SQL, foreign keys etc. is going to be a big plus point.
What are the differences between raster and vector data?
I'd consider this the fizzbuzz test of GIS.
Ask them about their love and passion of GIS analysis. What have they done out of intuition following a lead on a project? What kind of analysis have they done out of pure curiosity? and ask for specific examples
Duties of a GIS Analyst can vary widely. For the last slot we filled, ArcGIS Server administration was a requirement, and all interviewed candidates had experience with it. We got them up on a whiteboard and had them, in as much as confidentiality would allow, draw detailed diagrams of ArcGIS Server setups they had configured/worked with in the past. This allowed us to get a good understanding of how much they understood the guts of one the systems/processes that we really needed them to manage.
Use your whiteboards, make them draw and diagram things out.
Maybe asking the potential employee to diagram a web mapping stack, or a workflow for field data collection? Look at the process, don't worry about software, is what I'm saying.
– Alex Leith Sep 20 '13 at 00:50I think asking about opensource or 'community' GIS projects would be a good way of exploring how broad their knowledge base is, and whether they have participated in these types of projects. Of course gis.stackexchange.com would be one example, http://www.openstreetmap.org/ could be another.
As GIS is a constantly evolving domain, you can ask about the technology watch practices of the candidate. For example their opinion about the technologies, tools and data source to know and to watch today.
I personally think a GIS analyst should be able to solidly walk through a solution to the Point in Polygon problem. This exercise exposes the spatial reasoning abilities of the applicant.
I think asking about what specific areas of GIS a candidate are interested in is always beneficial. Answers to this question will obviously be wide ranging (ex. Network topology, Distributed GIS, Cartography...etc), but should elucidate where they may fit in your project and/or organization. Also, how well they articulate their response can provide an insight into their communication skills; it is a bit of a tricky question after all.
I recently applied for a GIS job. Since it was a governement job with lot of applicants, they had a written part to make a first selection. Apart from the job specific part, there were some questions to check general gis knowledge:
A GIS analyst should know about datums, projections etc. Hence I would ask:
What is a datum?
What is a projection?
What is a RDBMS and what is versioning and how would you impliment it in a GIS? Have you taken advanced coursework in GIS analysis that is recognized by ESRI? Why is a GIS not a map and why? Do you have a computer science degree and do you think that is relevant and why? Do you have experience with Python, Unix, Linux, ArcGIS? Are you good at creating solutions, solving problems, and learning new technologies, software environments, and in creating and analysing geographic data? giving me several examples. Where are the best sources of various GIS data sets good for statistical analysis and why? What is root square mean error and why would that be relevant to address accuracy? What is scale and distance in a GIS database. The last one is a trick question BTW
Do you mind what tools you use?
We don't advertise what's in our toolkit as we want to attract a wide variety of people with database, scripting and analytical geo-experience; not necessarily ESRI experience or MapInfo experience. That can always be covered by a training course or two and enough time for ramping up the skills.
Start with the basics
What is a projection ?
What are different projection systems and what is difference between projected coordinated system and geographic coordinate system?
What is a scale?
What is geocoding?
What is reverse geocoding?
What is geo-referencing?
What is geo-processing?
Hardest Questions:
What is more important for you: money or work?
What are your weaknesses?
Define Diversity? [a real question asked by a GIS Manager in June 2009]
For an analyst role where they will presumably be problem solving, I think giving them a problem they have to walk through or a riddle puts them on the spot and helps to identifies strengths and weaknesses that may not present themselves in questions.
Even if it is a problem that they don't solve/can't solve - you can tell who gives up quickly, who thinks creatively, who gets frustrated etc. - a good indication of who you would like on your team.
Also what parts of previous project they liked the most - the process, coding, analysis, problem solving, debugging, thinking of different solutions.
I'm surprised that questions about the knowledge of spatial operations/queries did not come out.
Aside from the questions mentioned, we usually ask a newly - hired GIS person questions like:
Can you identify some spatial operations you encountered in GIS? (intersect, union, etc)
Given Area/Layer A and Area/Layer B, what spatial operation do you use if you wanted to determined areas that do not overlap in area/layer A and area/layer B?
What query you might want to use to identify fast food chains within X kilometers from this primary road? (expects something using a buffer function and not a query using the distance formula)
to gauge whether they can really do analysis in the context of GIS.
Do YOU have any questions you would like to ask us?
I dont know how many times I have taken the afternoon off of work for an interview where I am asked a million and one questions about myself for 55 minutes, and then at the end of the interview, maybe I get given five minutes to ask the prospective employers questions. Of course in the last five minutes, everyone is itching to go attend other meetings or to try and rush you out to keep schedule with the next candidate.
Remember, your best candidates will be interviewing you back. Treat the interview like a meeting between equals who both have busy schedules.
