April 17, 2013 at 10:05 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Asking for Interview Questions
April 18, 2013 at 1:14 am
I think that those candidates of value will pick up this information and run with it and those trying to be devious will locate it anyway e.g. by pretending to be an interviewer looking to ask up to date questions and asking for peer advice. (And, no. I have never done this :crazy:)
The information is just a metaphorical piece of rope really; a good candidate will show that they can take that rope and apply it usefully (perhaps ineptly but honestly and better than not) whilst the devious poor candidate will lack the understanding they claim to have and highlight their own failings and hang themselves.
Either way it is for the actual interviewer to recognise the candidate for the value they bring. Including potential (good and bad). I don't think we should hinder the development of those with potential nor should we push the bad practices underground.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 18, 2013 at 1:41 am
"I am highly torn on how to handle requests and content on interview questions, but ultimately I think that putting more information out there is the best way to handle things and allow people looking for jobs, as well as those hiring, to educate themselves. "
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+1 vote
To put information and experiences; either related to any side of interview desk is helpful for the people.[/font]
April 18, 2013 at 2:33 am
+ 1.
April 18, 2013 at 2:40 am
I'd concur that a rising tide floats all boats; I'm reminded of someone who I knew early in my career who jealously guarded information about how things worked. Pretty sure it never did her any good. Disseminate what you know and think - it can let you know where you might be thinking wrongly (or potentially just differently) to other people who may one day stand between you and your ideal job.
April 18, 2013 at 3:19 am
I would help the OP if I feel the person has taken some effort in trying to find answers themselves and is not plain lazy.
I have found numerous posts where the OP could have done some basic things mentioned below and found the answers themselves
1. Looked up in Google or BOL
-- They probably don't do this as they are bombarded with numerous links and feel lazy to go through them to find the best one.
2. Try creating a scenario in testing environment and see the results
-- Laziness again in my opinion
If I feel the OP is just lazy, I just ignore and move away.
But, if there is a genuine effort from the OP's side to learn, I think most of us over here do help.
How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help - Jeff Moden
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/
April 18, 2013 at 6:01 am
There's a tendency in IT circles to use questions that have a more or less definite answer. Yes, it is important to assess a candidate's skills, but from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery, I find it far more important to include much more open-ended questions.
For example, one of the best interview questions I ever heard was: "If I asked you to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, what would you do?" You can tell A LOT about a person by how they answer that.
When I was taking a course to get my A+/Network+ certifications, our instructor related his interview experience for the technical school. Part of the interview was to give a five-minute lesson on how to use a mouse to several of the current staff. Of course, the staff would do things like using the mouse backwards, picking the mouse straight up in the air whenever someone said, "Move the mouse up" and so on.
As a final example, I read about a man who would take candidates for senior positions out for breakfast. He said he would never hire anyone who put salt on their food before tasting it because he felt it indicated they made decisions without assessing a situation first.
In my mind, you get more value out of questions that reveal a person's work habits, how think and how they learn. Frankly, I'd rather hire someone with fair-to-middlin' tech skills who has great personal or customer service skills and shows a demonstrated willingness to learn. I'll teach them the tech. Beyond just asking how a candidate would handle a given situation with, say, a networking problem, I would also ask questions such as;
-How did you learn networking? School? Book? Internet? Good old-fashioned hacking?
-What part of networking is the most difficult for you? The easiest? Why?
-Of all the computer skills out there, which one do you want to learn that you currently know little to nothing about? Is there something you're learning about right now?
When it comes to assessing skills, rather than just giving a technical "fizzbuzz" test, review the answers with the candidate and ask them WHY they took a specific approach or gave a certain answer. If they have no clue, ask them how they might go about coming up with a solution.
You may also want to think about asking questions such as, "Do you work better in the morning or evening?" or "If you did get the job, tell me how to manage you."
The point I am belaboring is that technical assessments are certainly a necessary part of an interview process, but in my mind they are only a part, and in most cases should be a starting point.
____________
Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.
April 18, 2013 at 6:27 am
I don't understand why someone would get annoyed by a forum post asking for interview questions, sounds like there are quite a few people that are kinda snobby in these forums.
April 18, 2013 at 6:27 am
To my eyes, those two comes up with the way I feel are the best.
One from Phil Factor:
https://www.simple-talk.com/blogs/2009/01/22/technical-interviews-and-tests-have-got-to-stop/]
And the other from Grant Fritchey (Half DBA oriented):
http://www.scarydba.com/2012/09/24/interviewing-a-dba/
You get a call from one of the business people. They tell you that the database is running slow. What do you do?
That get a lot information out of the person in front of you.
Both refers on the solving skills and the approach someone take in front of a problem rather than evaluating skills which a parser does more accurately than most human can ever does or remember tons of specific pages of precise syntax like google and msdn does better than any human...
Finally, there's the "human" side which I feel is mandatory. A great working environment is very important and I look forward to positive type of people.
You got those three, for me you're amongst the best people there is.
In short, you got some skills, if you don't, you will be able to get the info you need to get it done and being positive brings a great value for teamwork and as a general way of life that I like.
my 2 cents
April 18, 2013 at 6:48 am
churlbut (4/18/2013)
I don't understand why someone would get annoyed by a forum post asking for interview questions, sounds like there are quite a few people that are kinda snobby in these forums.
+1 !!!!!
I actually posted what I felt were valid counter arguments in the last thread on this subject on why withholding interview questions ultimately helped no one and pretty much got one fellow so upset he described me as some sort of forum bully. It did motivate me to take a break from here but in hindsight it looks downright comical.
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic1407022-263-1.aspx
April 18, 2013 at 7:16 am
churlbut (4/18/2013) I don't understand why someone would get annoyed by a forum post asking for interview questions, sounds like there are quite a few people that are kinda snobby in these forums.
patrickmcginnis59 10839 - I actually posted what I felt were valid counter arguments in the last thread on this subject on why withholding interview questions ultimately helped no one and pretty much got one fellow so upset he described me as some sort of forum bully. It did motivate me to take a break from here but in hindsight it looks downright comical.
This is becoming a common problem in a lot of "help" blogs and forums. You especially see this in the "StackExchange" threads. There a lot of times a question/answer is posted and it is deemed not helpful, not a valid question, a duplicate, or given some other reason and the posts are deleted or modified. I also am seeing a lot of responses that are mean, snobbish, and downright nasty.
This is very true when posting a question on a development method or tools. The questions are deemed "not a valid question" that will cause arguments. Well, sometimes it is a good thing to have a deep discussion on development methods. This is especially true now is relation to the Microsoft programming stack. With all Microsoft's changes of direction in the last couple of years (Silverlight, XNA, forms, WPF, MVC, MVVM), it is difficult to get a good idea on how to proceed when starting a new development project.
If we continue to denigrate and put down questions, especially from the new developers out there, you will see less and less people doing this for a living. We need people who are willing to extend the helping hand no matter how stupid a question seems.
This site has really been a very open and inviting place to post questions and responses and I am amazed at how much I learn and still need to learn.
Thanks,
Anton
April 18, 2013 at 7:17 am
The problem I have seen in most of the posts asking for interview questions is a lack of effort on the part of the poster. Most of the time they just ask for answers to a broad range of questions and don't even try to answer them themselves. I'll help someone who is genuinely trying to learn and understand the topics they are asking about, but most just want answers.
The other problem is some of these questions asked are experience related, how would you work toward a solution in a given situation. Or more important, the interview question asks about a problem one had in the past and what they did to solve the problem. You can't fake this type of answer, so why try.
April 18, 2013 at 7:17 am
This is a little off topic, but we now include a simple quiz with all of our job posts. Something like: "Here's a list of people, a list of tasks and who is assigned to what task. Please define a database to store this info. Write a query that lists all of the people and their tasks. Write a query that shows all unassigned tasks." REALLY basic stuff! Embarrassingly simple! It's amazing how wonderful someone's resume looks and how awful they answer the quiz. I don't even bother looking at their resume if they can't do SIMPLE quiz.
April 18, 2013 at 7:28 am
I would say it depends on the kind of questions they ask. I had a lot of "technical interviews" where the questions could have been answered by someone who just took a class or certification exam.
Another kind of question can give good insight into how someone approaches a problem or whether they have some actual experience, like "the server is slow, what do you do first? What do you do next?"
Then there are the HR questions I dreaded like "Describe a situation where you had to work with others to solve a difficult problem."
April 18, 2013 at 7:38 am
Steve
Like you said, "fewer jobs than candidates." All candidates need all the edge they can muster. I'm looking to relocate. Questions I have difficulty with are areas I don't have much to do with the past few years along with having far more non-DBA duties pushed down to me due to a reorg. Candidates need to know what they don't know about positions especially by READING the job description and learning about the requirements to understand and communicate that it is understood although not used.
I just told someone also, take every interview you can get at least for the practice so you're ready for the job you really want.
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