LIKELY QUESTIONS
- Can you walk us through your experience in systems administration, especially managing Windows/Linux servers, user accounts, patching, and uptime in an enterprise environment?
- Describe a time you diagnosed and resolved a critical network or server issue. What tools did you use, what was the root cause, and what was the outcome?
- This role includes cybersecurity implementation. What security controls have you implemented before for endpoints, servers, networks, backups, and user access?
- How have you handled ICT project coordination, such as system upgrades, migrations, deployments, or digital transformation initiatives, from planning to go-live?
- What approach do you use to maintain ICT asset inventory, license tracking, and preventive maintenance schedules across multiple devices and locations?
- Tell us about your experience with databases, software deployment, and user support. How do you balance hands-on troubleshooting with longer-term system improvements?
- Have you been involved in ICT procurement and vendor management? How do you define requirements, evaluate suppliers, manage SLAs, and ensure value for money in a public sector or regulated environment?
- NCCS serves a mission-driven public institution. How would you ensure ICT reliability, data protection, disaster recovery, and policy compliance while supporting staff with different levels of digital literacy?

BEHAVIOURAL QUESTIONS
- Tell us about a time you led the resolution of a major ICT incident affecting users or critical services.
Model approach: Situation - Briefly describe the outage or incident, affected users, and business impact. Task - Explain your responsibility for restoring service and communicating updates. Action - Show your triage steps, stakeholder communication, technical fix, escalation if needed, and preventive actions. Result - Quantify restored uptime, reduced repeat incidents, improved response time, or user satisfaction.

- Describe a time you implemented a security improvement that reduced organizational risk.
Model approach: Situation - Explain the security gap, audit finding, repeated incident, or compliance concern. Task - State your role in designing or implementing controls. Action - Cover risk assessment, chosen controls, user awareness, access reviews, patching, backup hardening, endpoint protection, or monitoring. Result - Mention fewer incidents, stronger compliance, successful audit, reduced vulnerabilities, or faster recovery capability.

- Give an example of a project where you had to coordinate different stakeholders such as users, management, vendors, and technical teams.
Model approach: Situation - Outline the project scope, timelines, and stakeholders involved. Task - Clarify your coordination role and expected deliverables. Action - Describe requirements gathering, project planning, vendor follow-up, testing, status reporting, risk management, and user training. Result - Highlight successful delivery, on-time rollout, minimal downtime, budget control, or improved service outcomes.

- Tell us about a time you improved an ICT process or solved a recurring operational problem.
Model approach: Situation - Identify the recurring issue such as repeated helpdesk calls, poor asset tracking, weak backup routines, or slow onboarding. Task - Define your responsibility to improve efficiency or control. Action - Explain the root cause analysis, process redesign, documentation, automation, checklists, monitoring, or training you introduced. Result - Quantify time saved, fewer tickets, better compliance, improved visibility, or stronger system reliability.

SMART QUESTIONS TO ASK
- What are the top ICT priorities for this role in the first 6 to 12 months: infrastructure stability, cybersecurity maturity, user support improvement, or delivery of specific digital projects?
- How is the current ICT environment structured in terms of servers, networks, cloud usage, endpoint management, backup, and security monitoring?
- What are the biggest operational or security challenges the team is currently facing, and what would success look like for the person hired into this position?
- How are ICT projects, procurement, and vendor performance managed across NCCS, and how much ownership would this role have in defining requirements and supervising delivery?
- Are there planned upgrades, policy changes, audits, or digital transformation initiatives that this role would be expected to support immediately after joining?

RED FLAGS TO WATCH FOR
- Vague answers about ICT priorities, reporting lines, or success metrics, which may indicate unclear expectations or a reactive firefighting environment.
- Signs of chronic underinvestment in infrastructure, backup, cybersecurity, licensing, or staffing, especially if they expect one person to cover everything without tools or support.
- Weak governance around procurement, vendor accountability, change management, or security compliance, which can create delivery risk and personal exposure in a public sector role.