January 31, 2015 at 10:38 pm
xsevensinzx (1/31/2015)
Regardless, I've experienced simple questions like that in my past as a new guy to SQL Server. I think my last one is whether or not I knew what a CTE was. I just smiled and said, "Yeah, I know common table expressions and use them all the time." Then I shut my trap.
So what happened to the "outgoing personality" there? 😉
That's just my opinion though. I kept it simple and fun. Most of my interviews in the past outside of the database world have been pretty much the same. I actually focus more on my fun attitude and outgoing personality most of the time because I'm not applying to be a master at SQL (which I almost always say to the interviewer that I'm no master, but I love SQL and growing in knowledge every day). I'm applying to be a team player, someone is able to learn from my work and someone who knows enough to succeed or better. 😎
Opinion respected and all of that is greatly appreciated but if the interviewer has to pull everything out of you rather than you volunteering some extra information to show that you really have what it takes in SQL or as a system's DBA, it's not going to be that much fun for either side. Use that wonderful outgoing personality to shine for the thing they're trying to hire for.
It broke my heart during an interview the other day. Some guy had all the right qualities to be a perfect fit for the team but we just don't have the time to teach someone how to be an SQL Developer. Admittedly, that's a bit different than your case. This poor guy knew squat about SQL and I'm not sure why his recruiter even sent him for that well advertised requirement for the job.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
January 31, 2015 at 11:01 pm
yoshii (1/31/2015)
Thanks to Jeff and others' contributions. All discussions are valuable.@jeff. Thanks for the valuable feedbacks!
In my opinion, communication not only happens verbally, but also at implication level and non-verbal level. Actually, research shows that only about 30% of communication is in verbal form. Cheating is not the best sounding word. If I got you wrong, my apology. It's just I know that there're people who do not recommend reading interview questions before going into an interview.
for trick questions, in my opinion, ur examples are elaboration of technical facts, which stay on the technical side. I think trick questions will be more like you are being presented with 2 options, while u know there're advantages and disadvantages for both options, but u are being asked to choose one from the other. let's say you choose something different from the interviewer and the interviewer use ur choice to predict how u will work in his place, while you actually is willing and no problem of adapting to their practice. or any questions that may lead you to think ''so what's the story behind? something happened at this comany/team before?'' In short, a behavior test hiding behind technical facts.
about money, i have no problem spending money, if I think I can benefit from the products. However, after using it, I have no problem writing a review on how I like or dislike the products.
Thanks again, wish everyone well in his/her career path.
You're correct. A lot of times such choice "trick" questions are meant to test your non-technical skills. In most cases, I've found that there is no actual right answer because what they're really looking for is how you solve the dilemma of having the choices and your ability to justify/communicate what the though process was to make the choice. But you already know that. It shouldn't even be a bother for you.
Continuing in that vein, I've been known to talk briefly about possible advantages and disadvantages of both choices and wrap it up with quickly writing up some POP code to prove or disprove my own assumptions. That's also when I volunteer the fact that I can usually and very quickly whip up the code to generate a million row test table or two that runs in just a couple of seconds to test with.
Of course, that also plays right in with one of the questions that I ask during interviews. "How would you create and populate a single column table with a sequence of numbers from 1 to a million"? I'd fall out of my chair if someone actually volunteered the 4 different common methods that people use for that along with the reasons why you'd want to use one over the other and when. As it is, most people can't even tell me how to do it with a loop and that's the other point I've been trying to make. If you know what you're doing for the job you're interviewing for, take the advice that Brent's team gave. Take a deep breath and relax. If you don't know the stuff, then interviews are going to be a real bitch and no number of practice questions are actually going to help.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
February 1, 2015 at 9:14 am
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
Opinion respected and all of that is greatly appreciated but if the interviewer has to pull everything out of you rather than you volunteering some extra information to show that you really have what it takes in SQL or as a system's DBA, it's not going to be that much fun for either side. Use that wonderful outgoing personality to shine for the thing they're trying to hire for.
I think the problem is when to go into more detail unless it's asked by the person interviewing you. I mean, some of you senior guys can go into so much detail about every aspect of SQL Server. Then to boot, you can also likely bring out a story from experience where something went terribly well or tragically bad with the topic you're talking about. This both shows the interviewer that you know the answer, the knowledge of what you are answering, some work experience on what you answered and depending on that story, a quality use case on what to do and not to do.
I just feel in my experience in the software development industry (not just databases), it's very hard to the gauge someone because they didn't read your mind and go into much more detail on simple questions. The whole point of the interview is for you as the interviewer (or interviewee) is to seek out information about the potential candidate, not potentially sit in the corner and say, "I'm thinking of a number 1 through 100..."
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
It broke my heart during an interview the other day. Some guy had all the right qualities to be a perfect fit for the team but we just don't have the time to teach someone how to be an SQL Developer. Admittedly, that's a bit different than your case. This poor guy knew squat about SQL and I'm not sure why his recruiter even sent him for that well advertised requirement for the job.
This response goes with the previous quote some too. 😛
I know what you mean here. You can't just hire based on if the person is a good guy or not depending on the position. This makes absolute sense. What I was meaning is if the guy has the technical potential or qualifications for the job, is someone that you can put on your team and most importantly, if he is someone you can mold and make better. The only way I know how to gauge the last part is through character reads and judgements on top of questions of how they deal with certain situations like conflict, issues and so forth.
I am very firm on the stance that everyone is learning. No one knows everything regardless of experience. I would never put anyone on my team that I did not feel I could develop or feel the team could develop them into something better. As a manager or leader, I'm in the business of building teams and people. If I get the notion the person is going to be stubborn, not listen to reason (or the team) and likewise, it's going to be a hard sell for me to recruit them regardless if they have 2 years experience or 30.
I've seen too many teams of rockstars that have crumbled because they cannot work together and have no synergy.
That's why I think it's important that not going into detail is not everything. As the interviewer it's my job to unearth that information from the candidate in the limited amount of time I have him/her before me. It's still critical they show me what they are made of too, but I'm not going to shoot them down because they did not read my mind and go the extra mile on every question. That's because I would never truly know if they could or not unless I asked (pushed) them just like I would on my team.
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
volunteering some extra information to show that you really have what it takes in SQL or as a system's DBA,
On that note, I feel some of the best minds I've worked with have had trouble with communication. It's one of the most notorious issues when hiring highly technical positions in this industry. That doesn't mean everyone is, but I feel you hit a lot of roadblocks on really smart technically gifted people if you judge them simply on communication versus the knowledge and willing to improve said communication if you know that I mean. Likewise, I think communication is easier to improve than say teaching someone how to code from nothing. 😀
February 1, 2015 at 9:38 am
xsevensinzx (2/1/2015)
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
Opinion respected and all of that is greatly appreciated but if the interviewer has to pull everything out of you rather than you volunteering some extra information to show that you really have what it takes in SQL or as a system's DBA, it's not going to be that much fun for either side. Use that wonderful outgoing personality to shine for the thing they're trying to hire for.
I think the problem is when to go into more detail unless it's asked by the person interviewing you. I mean, some of you senior guys can go into so much detail about every aspect of SQL Server. Then to boot, you can also likely bring out a story from experience where something went terribly well or tragically bad with the topic you're talking about. This both shows the interviewer that you know the answer, the knowledge of what you are answering, some work experience on what you answered and depending on that story, a quality use case on what to do and not to do.
I just feel in my experience in the software development industry (not just databases), it's very hard to the gauge someone because they didn't read your mind and go into much more detail on simple questions. The whole point of the interview is for you as the interviewer (or interviewee) is to seek out information about the potential candidate, not potentially sit in the corner and say, "I'm thinking of a number 1 through 100..."
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
It broke my heart during an interview the other day. Some guy had all the right qualities to be a perfect fit for the team but we just don't have the time to teach someone how to be an SQL Developer. Admittedly, that's a bit different than your case. This poor guy knew squat about SQL and I'm not sure why his recruiter even sent him for that well advertised requirement for the job.
This response goes with the previous quote some too. 😛
I know what you mean here. You can't just hire based on if the person is a good guy or not depending on the position. This makes absolute sense. What I was meaning is if the guy has the technical potential or qualifications for the job, is someone that you can put on your team and most importantly, if he is someone you can mold and make better. The only way I know how to gauge the last part is through character reads and judgements on top of questions of how they deal with certain situations like conflict, issues and so forth.
I am very firm on the stance that everyone is learning. No one knows everything regardless of experience. I would never put anyone on my team that I did not feel I could develop or feel the team could develop them into something better. As a manager or leader, I'm in the business of building teams and people. If I get the notion the person is going to be stubborn, not listen to reason (or the team) and likewise, it's going to be a hard sell for me to recruit them regardless if they have 2 years experience or 30.
I've seen too many teams of rockstars that have crumbled because they cannot work together and have no synergy.
That's why I think it's important that not going into detail is not everything. As the interviewer it's my job to unearth that information from the candidate in the limited amount of time I have him/her before me. It's still critical they show me what they are made of too, but I'm not going to shoot them down because they did not read my mind and go the extra mile on every question. That's because I would never truly know if they could or not unless I asked (pushed) them just like I would on my team.
On that note, I feel some of the best minds I've worked with have had trouble with communication. It's one of the most notorious issues when hiring higher technical positions in this industry. That doesn't mean everyone is, but I feel you hit a lot of roadblocks on really smart technically gifted people if you judge them simply on communication versus the knowledge and willing to improve said communication if you know that I mean. Likewise, I think communication is easier to improve than say teaching someone how to code from nothing. 😀
No one is talking about reading minds. Also, when I elaborated my answer to an interview quest it only took about another minute of time and as I said, answered several of the interviewers questions at the same time. He had allotted 30 minutes for his questions on the phone interview, he was done in under 15 minutes because of how I answered his questions. If he wanted to learn more, he had plenty of time to ask additional questions.
February 1, 2015 at 10:57 am
The bottom line (I think) here is that there's really no way to actually know what will happen during the interview and you have to be prepared for whatever. One also has to remember that the right kind of experience helps and if you're not getting such experience at your current job, then it will be strongly beneficial to spend some time learning the trade by participating in forums and doing your own training. Part of what I'm in awe of is that some people will pay good money to get questions or interview training but they won't spend the nearly trivial amount of money to buy a copy of the Developer's Edition of SQL Server and invest the time in self training. People also have to remember that most companies don't mind training you a bit but, all else being equal in a group of candidates, the person that actually knows their stuff better than the others will be the winner of the position.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
February 1, 2015 at 6:11 pm
Jeff Moden (2/1/2015)
The bottom line (I think) here is that there's really no way to actually know what will happen during the interview and you have to be prepared for whatever. One also has to remember that the right kind of experience helps and if you're not getting such experience at your current job, then it will be strongly beneficial to spend some time learning the trade by participating in forums and doing your own training. Part of what I'm in awe of is that some people will pay good money to get questions or interview training but they won't spend the nearly trivial amount of money to buy a copy of the Developer's Edition of SQL Server and invest the time in self training. People also have to remember that most companies don't mind training you a bit but, all else being equal in a group of candidates, the person that actually knows their stuff better than the others will be the winner of the position.
I tried going that route, but I feared that I would train myself to do the bad things and never know it. So, I spent my time finding a senior and learned from him while also doing the Microsoft certification training to get the fundamentals down. It worked out great.
Paying for answers to common questions is not something I would do for sure, but I understand the reasoning.
February 2, 2015 at 6:50 am
Jeff Moden (1/31/2015)
It broke my heart during an interview the other day. Some guy had all the right qualities to be a perfect fit for the team but we just don't have the time to teach someone how to be an SQL Developer. Admittedly, that's a bit different than your case. This poor guy knew squat about SQL and I'm not sure why his recruiter even sent him for that well advertised requirement for the job.
Lucky I'm not looking for a job with you then Jeff 😛 😉
Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
Anon.
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