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Our SQL interview questions

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Re: Our SQL interview questions

#21

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

I'm not a SQL Developer, but anytime I get questions for which Google has answers to be found in 5 minutes or less, I'm quite hesitant to work there.

I respect interviews that go along the lines of: "What would you do if..." after giving a detailed description of their environment. But then again I'm a tools/OSes admin, so maybe it makes more sense for my job description. But anytime guys are too focused on third option you can give to the 'ls' command and don't ask real world questions related to potential or existing issues they have/had, I'm not really interested. I can use google, you know, if that answers your question.

I like questions where the interviewer can see years of experience not the amount of detail memorized from a manual.

I would imagine questions that are good to start with: how you as a developer usually start a design of a database? How do you plan it? I got this question once, it's really good. Can't answer that after reading sql book two days earlier. In contrast to his question.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#22

Post by jacques_chester »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #21

I'm not a SQL Developer, but anytime I get questions for which Google has answers to be found in 5 minutes or less, I'm quite hesitant to work there. I respect interviews that go along the lines of: "What would you do if..." after giving a detailed description of their environment. But then again I'm a tools/OSes admin, so maybe it makes more sense for my job description. But anytime guys are too focused on third opt…

These aren't "details memorised from a manual". These are fundamental primitives of SQL queries. You simply cannot express most serious questions without them.

If someone came to me and I asked them to write fizzbuzz, an answer of the form "I would google if-thens and modulo and print statements" would be a pretty obvious no-hire.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#23

Post by jfb »

arb99 wrote: post #19
free wrote: post #3

They seem to be quite simple. For what profiles are you asking these questions?. I have used very similar questions for dev ops role.

Yeah they seem quite obvious really. Serious question: is this really the types of questions asked for a dev job interview? (was still interesting to see.) >List all departments along with the number of people there (tricky - people often do an "inner join" leaving out empty departments) inner join seems the non obvious way to do it really IMO. select departments.name as "department name", (select sum(salary) from em…

They're looking for an outer join, I think.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#24

Post by arb99 »

mhd wrote: post #18

A sample SQL file with dummy data would be much appreciated, I think. I guess some of us would like to try their luck. At least this should be quicker in an interview situation than the usual "normalize this database" or "given this situation, define a database schema".

I made the tables quick to go through them. It could do with more data really but its got a few rows.

https://gist.github.com/abkr/5662615

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#25

Post by LekkoscPiwa »

jacques_chester wrote: post #22
LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #21

I'm not a SQL Developer, but anytime I get questions for which Google has answers to be found in 5 minutes or less, I'm quite hesitant to work there. I respect interviews that go along the lines of: "What would you do if..." after giving a detailed description of their environment. But then again I'm a tools/OSes admin, so maybe it makes more sense for my job description. But anytime guys are too focused on third opt…

These aren't "details memorised from a manual". These are fundamental primitives of SQL queries. You simply cannot express most serious questions without them. If someone came to me and I asked them to write fizzbuzz, an answer of the form "I would google if-thens and modulo and print statements" would be a pretty obvious no-hire.

I would imagine questions that are good to start with: how you as a developer usually start a design of a database? How do you plan it? I got this question once, I thought it was really good. On the spot I could tell the engineer who asked me that is experienced. Can't answer that after reading sql book two days earlier. In contrast to the questions from the post.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#26

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #13

I could nail those with the Django ORM, but I'd struggle to write syntactically correct SQL, not having done it in a while. But it says that your test machine has MS-SQL; with the machine in front of me, I could probably puzzle it out the join quirks with a couple minutes of trial and error.

I think if you don't give someone a machine you should be pretty forgiving about exact syntax.

Someone who can put together a statement that's broadly right with small errors normally means someone who is rusty (or nervous) but knows their stuff rather than someone who is guessing and a couple of follow up questions will usually confirm that.

General rule for me: don't ask anything that a decent IDE or 10 seconds with a manual / help file / Google would have prevented (unless you've given them a decent ID or similar in which case it's fair game).

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#27

Post by arry »

Which book would you recommend for learning this stuff? I'm not very interested in 800-p. gorillas; there surely must be something short, not too theoretical, and to the point.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#28

Post by megaman821 »

If you can only answer these using an ORM, then you really shouldn't put knowledge of SQL on your resume.

I am not really into giving programming tests to interviewees, but if you claim to have experience with something you should be able to answer simple questions about it.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#29

Post by jacques_chester »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #25
jacques_chester wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't "details memorised from a manual". These are fundamental primitives of SQL queries. You simply cannot express most serious questions without them. If someone came to me and I asked them to write fizzbuzz, an answer of the form "I would google if-thens and modulo and print statements" would be a pretty obvious no-hire.

I would imagine questions that are good to start with: how you as a developer usually start a design of a database? How do you plan it? I got this question once, I thought it was really good. On the spot I could tell the engineer who asked me that is experienced. Can't answer that after reading sql book two days earlier. In contrast to the questions from the post.

In a business setting, the conceptual/relational, logical and physical design of a database happens far less often than querying such databases.

Indeed, one of the reasons normalisation is such a Big Deal to relational bigots like me is that it makes SQL's querying tools much more useful and versatile.

Re: Our SQL interview questions

#30

Post by jbverschoor »

LekkoscPiwa wrote: post #21

I'm not a SQL Developer, but anytime I get questions for which Google has answers to be found in 5 minutes or less, I'm quite hesitant to work there. I respect interviews that go along the lines of: "What would you do if..." after giving a detailed description of their environment. But then again I'm a tools/OSes admin, so maybe it makes more sense for my job description. But anytime guys are too focused on third opt…

I don't run a school. Anytime a web-developer does not know basic sql or other basic knowledge, I refuse to pay salary, and even deduct the 1$ per minute. That five minutes just cost you $10
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