Sample Interview Questions for a CIO or CTO

General Questions: What are your top three priorities at this time? Has the economy affected your budgets and spending on technology and or IT projects? If yes, in what way? Who are the key stakeholders that you are responsible to? How do you ensure that IT plans, projects and objectives are aligned with the businesses business goals and objectives? How is your department organized? Do you participate in important product and service offering planning for your organization? If yes, how is that participation conducted?

Personnel: What kinds of programs are in place for personnel development? Is there a succession plan in place for the senior IT management? What kinds of incentive programs are in place for employees?

IT Governance: Describe the IT governance process on your organization.

Technologies: What are the most important technologies deployed in your IT environment/.

Desktops: With the new release of Windows 7 are there any plans to upgrade existing desktops? Is there any interest, impact or plans to do anything with Google s to be released operation system?
Page 1 of 4

Sample Interview Questions for a CIO or CTO

What if any kinds of thin client technology are the organization considering or deploying?

Documentation: (Specific for Teresa Ramos) Are there any plans for application development or deployment for the documentation department? If yes, what are they and what the goals and objectives for that deployment?

Telecommunications and Network: What kind of network architectures does the organization deploy? What is the security model for the network?

Data Center: (Efficiencies) Does the organization maintain its own server hosting facilities or are these outsourced? Many organizations are concerned with green issues such as electrical consumption and thermal issues. What if anything is your organization doing to deal with with Carbon footprint issues?

Security Security is growing in importance to all companies for number reasons. What are the most challenging issues at our company with respect to security?

Office Automation I have learned recently that MS is going to be offering Office on line. Is accessing Office online something that would be attractive and reasonable for our company to pursue as an enterprise IT strategy?

Page 2 of 4

Sample Interview Questions for a CIO or CTO

Technical Support Do you anticipate, if successful, our deployment of thin client technogy will reduce technical support costs? What is the current strategy for technical support, in-house outsourced or a combination?

Business Applications What are the important business applications the business is using today? Are there any planned changes in this environment? Content Management is an area of increasing importance and concern for organizations, is content management an issue of focus and concern in your organization?

Application Development Does the organization develop any of its own hardware and or software solutions? If yes, which one and for what reasons did the organization determine that it was necessary to develop instead of purchase? How is project management with respect to development activities conducted within your organization?

IT Budgets How is the budgeting process conducted with respect to Information Technology in your organization? In these economic times IT budgets are under intense pressure to deliver value and reduce expenses. What kinds of initiatives are being undertaken at your organization to achieve the goal of contributing to helping the business maintain profitability and effectiveness?

Page 3 of 4

Sample Interview Questions for a CIO or CTO

Disaster Recover and Business Continuity Does your organization have formal DR and BCP plans? If yes, are these plans updated on a regular basis? Also, if in place, are these plans formally tested and validated on a regular basis?

Compliance What compliance regulations is your organization subject to? What are the compliance obligations of the IT department and your office in particular? SOX and other regulatory requirements issues and budget constraints are frequently in conflict is this an issue at your organization? If yes, how is this being dealt with? If no, describe how management supports compliance with budgets.

Page 4 of 4