| Question | Intent |
| Tell me a little about yourself | Get a background on the candidate - always interesting to see where this simple question takes them - I've had 15 second and 20 minute answers |
| Tell me about your background on Dynamics AX | When did they start with AX; what roles have they served in? |
| What interests you about this role? | This is important because I don't want them to say "I want to work for Microsoft". I'm not interested in someone who wants to get into Microsoft; I want someone who wants to be good at the Premier Field Engineering role |
| Where do you see your career taking you in the next 5 years? | What are their aspirations - this gets to the "Desire to Get Better" attribute |
| What do you think you are good at? What do you wish you were better at? How are you working to improve it? | This question takes a while to answer, but I want him to assess his strengths and talk about how he learns new things, and what's on his current "to do" list for new learning |
| Driving value and becoming a trusted advisor are key elements of this role. What are some ways you’d ensure that you drive value to your customers and build relationships such that you were a trusted advisor for each of your customers? | This gets to the trustworthy attribute I'm trying to understand |
| Who is the most senior and/or challenging audience that you have ever faced? What did you speak about? How did you prepare for it? What was the outcome? | This gets to the confidence attribute. If I get the sense he's backed away from those opportunities, I see a lack of confidence. I also want them to talk about the different way you present to a senior audience as opposed to a project team member. |
| Tell me what you think a job well done looks like for your customers. What metrics (objective measures) do you use to evaluate how you performed on a task or with a customer? | Most interviewees stumble on the question about "metrics" but I want him to articulate what a good job looks like in his eyes. Hopefully this answer includes something about how the customer is better off. |
| SCENARIO QUESTIONS | |
| You were scheduled to be on-site with a customer tomorrow and they called and postponed for another date two months out. You have nothing you have to work on tomorrow for any other customer; what do you do? | Here I'm looking for his priority list - is he going to study a new area, is he going to reach out to the rest of the team to see if they need help (best answer) or is he going to contact the rest of his customers to see if they need anything (another good answer). |
| A customer calls you at 4:30 on Friday to indicate their test upgrade failed and they are planning to go live the following weekend? You have another customer onsite visit scheduled for the following week. What do you do? | Some interviewees may think I'm asking them to work the weekend here; instead I'm trying to see if they are willing to trust their teammates to pick them up by either helping with this customer or their other customer. I also want them to call the customer to articulate the plan that will put this customer in good shape for their upcoming upgrade |
| A customer runs into a situation where the functionality that they receive through AX is not what they expected. This piece of functionality is key for the customer and they aren’t happy that the product was designed in this manner. You realize that this is important to the customer, but the chances of the product being changed to accommodate this request are extremely small. In your opinion, what’s the best way to handle this? | Here I'm trying to see how quickly they go to "make customizations". I want them to communicate the truth to the customer and exhaust other options before moving to creating the customization |
| TECHNICAL QUESTIONS | |
| Performance: What is the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index in SQL? | The way he answers this tells a lot - I actually don't want the "I just read this out of a textbook answer" either - some illustration of them actually thinking through when to do which is the best answer |
| Development: What are some of the common methods to override or add in reports and why would you override or add them? | I will ask first if he has any development background, and if the answer is no, we won't subject him to this question, but it's a great way to separate the talkers from the knowledgeable ones. [P.S. I don't know the answer to this question, but I keep the answer in my interview notes so I can tell if they hit on any of the key topics] |
| Application: Talk through the different costing methods in Dynamics AX | There have been changes through recent versions of AX, so I'm looking for their ability to go into depth about each of these methods - what are the pros and cons of each |
| Troubleshooting: Your customer contacts you to report an error they get in the AX app: "Message: Error executing code, DialogField object not initialized". Walk me through the steps you'd take to troubleshoot this issue | I want to see if he's seen such an error before and then his thought process for the steps to troubleshoot. We are going to have to do this when customers call, so I want him to show an understanding the mindset of troubleshooting |
| Question | Intent |
| Tell me a little about yourself | Get a background on the candidate - always interesting to see where this simple question takes them - I've had 15 second and 20 minute answers |
| Tell me about your background on Dynamics AX | When did they start with AX; what roles have they served in? |
| What interests you about this role? | This is important because I don't want them to say "I want to work for Microsoft". I'm not interested in someone who wants to get into Microsoft; I want someone who wants to be good at the Premier Field Engineering role |
| Where do you see your career taking you in the next 5 years? | What are their aspirations - this gets to the "Desire to Get Better" attribute |
| What do you think you are good at? What do you wish you were better at? How are you working to improve it? | This question takes a while to answer, but I want him to assess his strengths and talk about how he learns new things, and what's on his current "to do" list for new learning |
| Driving value and becoming a trusted advisor are key elements of this role. What are some ways you’d ensure that you drive value to your customers and build relationships such that you were a trusted advisor for each of your customers? | This gets to the trustworthy attribute I'm trying to understand |
| Who is the most senior and/or challenging audience that you have ever faced? What did you speak about? How did you prepare for it? What was the outcome? | This gets to the confidence attribute. If I get the sense he's backed away from those opportunities, I see a lack of confidence. I also want them to talk about the different way you present to a senior audience as opposed to a project team member. |
| Tell me what you think a job well done looks like for your customers. What metrics (objective measures) do you use to evaluate how you performed on a task or with a customer? | Most interviewees stumble on the question about "metrics" but I want him to articulate what a good job looks like in his eyes. Hopefully this answer includes something about how the customer is better off. |
| SCENARIO QUESTIONS | |
| You were scheduled to be on-site with a customer tomorrow and they called and postponed for another date two months out. You have nothing you have to work on tomorrow for any other customer; what do you do? | Here I'm looking for his priority list - is he going to study a new area, is he going to reach out to the rest of the team to see if they need help (best answer) or is he going to contact the rest of his customers to see if they need anything (another good answer). |
| A customer calls you at 4:30 on Friday to indicate their test upgrade failed and they are planning to go live the following weekend? You have another customer onsite visit scheduled for the following week. What do you do? | Some interviewees may think I'm asking them to work the weekend here; instead I'm trying to see if they are willing to trust their teammates to pick them up by either helping with this customer or their other customer. I also want them to call the customer to articulate the plan that will put this customer in good shape for their upcoming upgrade |
| A customer runs into a situation where the functionality that they receive through AX is not what they expected. This piece of functionality is key for the customer and they aren’t happy that the product was designed in this manner. You realize that this is important to the customer, but the chances of the product being changed to accommodate this request are extremely small. In your opinion, what’s the best way to handle this? | Here I'm trying to see how quickly they go to "make customizations". I want them to communicate the truth to the customer and exhaust other options before moving to creating the customization |
| TECHNICAL QUESTIONS | |
| Performance: What is the difference between a clustered and non-clustered index in SQL? | The way he answers this tells a lot - I actually don't want the "I just read this out of a textbook answer" either - some illustration of them actually thinking through when to do which is the best answer |
| Development: What are some of the common methods to override or add in reports and why would you override or add them? | I will ask first if he has any development background, and if the answer is no, we won't subject him to this question, but it's a great way to separate the talkers from the knowledgeable ones. [P.S. I don't know the answer to this question, but I keep the answer in my interview notes so I can tell if they hit on any of the key topics] |
| Application: Talk through the different costing methods in Dynamics AX | There have been changes through recent versions of AX, so I'm looking for their ability to go into depth about each of these methods - what are the pros and cons of each |
| Troubleshooting: Your customer contacts you to report an error they get in the AX app: "Message: Error executing code, DialogField object not initialized". Walk me through the steps you'd take to troubleshoot this issue | I want to see if he's seen such an error before and then his thought process for the steps to troubleshoot. We are going to have to do this when customers call, so I want him to show an understanding the mindset of troubleshooting |
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