July 18, 2017 at 7:56 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:37 AM100s of phone screens of people with 5-10 years of "experience" who didn't know the most fundamental stuff. It's sad and frustrating.
My favorite response (so far) to this is "well, the stuff I do is much more complicated than that. I don't have room in my head for basics."
July 18, 2017 at 8:15 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:37 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 6:27 AMWe're running into the same issue. Lots of people with development in their backgrounds, or even Oracle, who don't understand the difference between what they did and the day-to-day operational / production DBA we're looking for. We want someone who understands some basic T-SQL and development, but we need someone to do security, backups, job troubleshooting, etc.Had a couple of interesting phone screens with at least one application talking himself out a job because he insisted on making sure we knew how good he is at this one thing at the end of the interview. It was as if nothing else existed for him but this one thing. But the job, it is more than one thing.
I feel your pain. It took us a year the last time I was involved in the hiring process. We wanted a mid-level DBA. 100s of phone screens of people with 5-10 years of "experience" who didn't know the most fundamental stuff. It's sad and frustrating.
Heh... that's been my experience, as well, and I'm glad I'm not the only one that's had to go through it. I thought I was just really unlucky.
I know some of you already know this but, a long time ago, I asked the "How do you get the current date and time" as an icebreaker to try to help people relax during an interview. Little did I know it was going to be a very accurate dummy detector. I've quit counting the number of people that supposedly have 5 to 10 years experience but the last numbers that I remember were 20 out of 22 people didn't know the answer... or much of anything else.
I also interviewed a fellow that claimed to have 10+ years of "performance tuning" experience under his belt. When he made that claim during the interview, I asked him to tell me what he knew about Clustered Indexes. His answer was that he'd never used them because he never had to work in a Clustered Server environment. :blink: Heh.... there's no way that I could make up something that insanely stupid. :pinch: Several others didn't know where to even begin for "natural" backups never mind having actually done a restore.
What really makes me angry about all of this is that they all claim to be a "DBA" of one sort or another and they actually have jobs that are "DBA Related" in one form or another. They're occupying space where there should be a good DBA for the sake of the company, earning big $$$ for being almost totally useless, AND they're giving the term "DBA" a really bad name. The words "TRY", "STUDY", and "LEARN" don't seem to be in their vocabulary.
Having run into several 3rd parties that provide SQL Server and hardware as a remote service with similar experiences, I have to admit that's all a part of why I distrust the cloud. I was doing some part time work for a small company and I determined that the 3rd party was providing the SQL Server backups. Get this... one full backup on the weekends and one log file backup per day. They didn't understand what was wrong with that. Their claim was that more frequent log file backups would take a whole lot more disk space.
Like I said, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. :sick:
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 18, 2017 at 8:20 am
Brandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:56 AMGrant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:37 AM100s of phone screens of people with 5-10 years of "experience" who didn't know the most fundamental stuff. It's sad and frustrating.My favorite response (so far) to this is "well, the stuff I do is much more complicated than that. I don't have room in my head for basics."
HA!
That's marvelous.
My personal favorite was the two different people applying for the mid-level SQL Server DBA job who lectured me, at length, on how stupid I was for asking them questions about SQL Server. After all, we'll probably be switching databases within six months. Why focus on the specifics of one platform? When I get a word in I explain that we'd been on it for (at the time) five straight years and saw at least another five of life (they're still on it, almost twenty years later by the way). Which prompts another lecture on how badly we're serving the company because we should be constantly swapping vendors to get the best deal.
And you wonder why so much utter crap databases get created...
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
July 18, 2017 at 8:27 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:20 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:56 AMGrant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:37 AM100s of phone screens of people with 5-10 years of "experience" who didn't know the most fundamental stuff. It's sad and frustrating.My favorite response (so far) to this is "well, the stuff I do is much more complicated than that. I don't have room in my head for basics."
HA!
That's marvelous.
My personal favorite was the two different people applying for the mid-level SQL Server DBA job who lectured me, at length, on how stupid I was for asking them questions about SQL Server. After all, we'll probably be switching databases within six months. Why focus on the specifics of one platform? When I get a word in I explain that we'd been on it for (at the time) five straight years and saw at least another five of life (they're still on it, almost twenty years later by the way). Which prompts another lecture on how badly we're serving the company because we should be constantly swapping vendors to get the best deal.
And you wonder why so much utter crap databases get created...
Wow! Again, I thought I was the only one that was admonished by interviewee's and their bloody recruiters for such things. That's apparently how a lot of the dummies get DBA and Developer jobs. It's just sick.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 18, 2017 at 8:30 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:20 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:56 AMGrant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 7:37 AM100s of phone screens of people with 5-10 years of "experience" who didn't know the most fundamental stuff. It's sad and frustrating.My favorite response (so far) to this is "well, the stuff I do is much more complicated than that. I don't have room in my head for basics."
HA!
That's marvelous.
My personal favorite was the two different people applying for the mid-level SQL Server DBA job who lectured me, at length, on how stupid I was for asking them questions about SQL Server. After all, we'll probably be switching databases within six months. Why focus on the specifics of one platform? When I get a word in I explain that we'd been on it for (at the time) five straight years and saw at least another five of life (they're still on it, almost twenty years later by the way). Which prompts another lecture on how badly we're serving the company because we should be constantly swapping vendors to get the best deal.
And you wonder why so much utter crap databases get created...
Because lecturing the person interviewing you and telling them they are doing a disservice to the company is a sure way to get hired. Not to mention the utter rubbish that is spewing forth in the first place. You have to wonder about some people...
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/
July 18, 2017 at 8:34 am
Sean Lange - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:30 AMBecause lecturing the person interviewing you and telling them they are doing a disservice to the company is a sure way to get hired. Not to mention the utter rubbish that is spewing forth in the first place. You have to wonder about some people...
It is usually an interesting time when you realize someone has switched from failing at basic technical issues to failing at basic human interaction.
July 18, 2017 at 8:40 am
ZZartin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:34 AMIt is usually an interesting time when you realize someone has switched from failing at basic technical issues to failing at basic human interaction.
Heh... it does help keep the interviews short, though. 😀 I have ended interviews in as little as 3 questions and that includes the current date/time question. A lot of people say that I need to be kinder and more understanding in that area to which my response is that they're posers and fakers and deserve no such treatment.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 18, 2017 at 8:40 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:20 AMHA!
That's marvelous.
My personal favorite was the two different people applying for the mid-level SQL Server DBA job who lectured me, at length, on how stupid I was for asking them questions about SQL Server. After all, we'll probably be switching databases within six months. Why focus on the specifics of one platform? When I get a word in I explain that we'd been on it for (at the time) five straight years and saw at least another five of life (they're still on it, almost twenty years later by the way). Which prompts another lecture on how badly we're serving the company because we should be constantly swapping vendors to get the best deal.
And you wonder why so much utter crap databases get created...
Those are both priceless.
July 18, 2017 at 8:41 am
Sean Lange - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:30 AMBecause lecturing the person interviewing you and telling them they are doing a disservice to the company is a sure way to get hired. Not to mention the utter rubbish that is spewing forth in the first place. You have to wonder about some people...
Let's bite the hand that was going to feed us. Since I have been working with SQL Server for over 20 years the last thing I would do is lecture a potential employer. I want them to hire me if I am interviewing for a job not have them tell me to take a hike. But I also know that SQL Server is just a tool and it has its place, just like the NoSQL databases have their place and sometimes that means working with side by side if that is what is needed. I just haven't really learned about the NoSQL databases like MongoDB.
July 18, 2017 at 9:30 am
Grant Fritchey - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 8:20 AMHA!
That's marvelous.
My personal favorite was the two different people applying for the mid-level SQL Server DBA job who lectured me, at length, on how stupid I was for asking them questions about SQL Server. After all, we'll probably be switching databases within six months. Why focus on the specifics of one platform? When I get a word in I explain that we'd been on it for (at the time) five straight years and saw at least another five of life (they're still on it, almost twenty years later by the way). Which prompts another lecture on how badly we're serving the company because we should be constantly swapping vendors to get the best deal.
And you wonder why so much utter crap databases get created...
WOW! You can see my databases :ermm::crying:
Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
Anon.
July 18, 2017 at 10:43 am
In this round of interviews, I made Jeff's "Name one method of getting the current date & time from SQL Server" one of my questions. Every single person seemed surprised by it and only 3 people could answer it right off the bat. One person started talking circles around the question as if I were asking him to go to RDP or something and ended up... I don't even know where. But only 3 out of our phone screens could answer and only one of those three said "there are others, but I don't know them because I never use them."
Kudos to that person.
July 18, 2017 at 11:31 am
Brandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 10:43 AMIn this round of interviews, I made Jeff's "Name one method of getting the current date & time from SQL Server" one of my questions. Every single person seemed surprised by it and only 3 people could answer it right off the bat. One person started talking circles around the question as if I were asking him to go to RDP or something and ended up... I don't even know where. But only 3 out of our phone screens could answer and only one of those three said "there are others, but I don't know them because I never use them."
Kudos to that person.
I'm curious, Brandie... How many people did you ask the question of?
And, yeah... hat's off to that one person. That's one of the kinds of answers that I'm looking for other than the one word answer.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 18, 2017 at 12:19 pm
Jeff Moden - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:31 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 10:43 AMIn this round of interviews, I made Jeff's "Name one method of getting the current date & time from SQL Server" one of my questions. Every single person seemed surprised by it and only 3 people could answer it right off the bat. One person started talking circles around the question as if I were asking him to go to RDP or something and ended up... I don't even know where. But only 3 out of our phone screens could answer and only one of those three said "there are others, but I don't know them because I never use them."
Kudos to that person.
I'm curious, Brandie... How many people did you ask the question of?
And, yeah... hat's off to that one person. That's one of the kinds of answers that I'm looking for other than the one word answer.
I think we've had 10-15 phone screens so far. Which isn't a lot but the pickings are kinda slim around here.
July 18, 2017 at 12:24 pm
Brandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 12:19 PMJeff Moden - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:31 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 10:43 AMIn this round of interviews, I made Jeff's "Name one method of getting the current date & time from SQL Server" one of my questions. Every single person seemed surprised by it and only 3 people could answer it right off the bat. One person started talking circles around the question as if I were asking him to go to RDP or something and ended up... I don't even know where. But only 3 out of our phone screens could answer and only one of those three said "there are others, but I don't know them because I never use them."
Kudos to that person.
I'm curious, Brandie... How many people did you ask the question of?
And, yeah... hat's off to that one person. That's one of the kinds of answers that I'm looking for other than the one word answer.
I think we've had 10-15 phone screens so far. Which isn't a lot but the pickings are kinda slim around here.
Jacksonville, FL... Right?
That may explain all the recruiter calls lately... 😀
July 18, 2017 at 12:52 pm
Jason A. Long - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 12:24 PMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 12:19 PMJeff Moden - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 11:31 AMBrandie Tarvin - Tuesday, July 18, 2017 10:43 AMIn this round of interviews, I made Jeff's "Name one method of getting the current date & time from SQL Server" one of my questions. Every single person seemed surprised by it and only 3 people could answer it right off the bat. One person started talking circles around the question as if I were asking him to go to RDP or something and ended up... I don't even know where. But only 3 out of our phone screens could answer and only one of those three said "there are others, but I don't know them because I never use them."
Kudos to that person.
I'm curious, Brandie... How many people did you ask the question of?
And, yeah... hat's off to that one person. That's one of the kinds of answers that I'm looking for other than the one word answer.
I think we've had 10-15 phone screens so far. Which isn't a lot but the pickings are kinda slim around here.
Jacksonville, FL... Right?
That may explain all the recruiter calls lately... 😀
If they have to go out of State and still can't find people willing to move, doesn't that say something?
Viewing 15 posts - 59,281 through 59,295 (of 66,712 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply