I feel that so many people put too much emphasis on knowing syntax than the people themselves. For DBA's, it becomes a knowledge capacity assessment from the start. Do you know X, Y and Z? If not, hit the road. You are of no value to the elite who work with us.

I often find myself getting pretty upset about both not knowing X, Y and Z, and people thinking that working with databases is rocket science. I'm sorry, hate to break it to you, it's not. There is opportunity to be amazing at working at databases, but the path is not solving time travel either.

While facing my own dilemma with similar questions, I have thought long and hard about the screening process. I feel confident the best approach is not just what is on paper and knowing X, Y and Z. It's a combination of passion, being trainable, a good fundamental understanding of the technology and characteristics that align with the values/organization.

Everyone is going to have different levels of passion, knowledge of technology and so forth. At the end of the day, it's whether or not I feel if they can improve in those areas or not. If so, when they run into challenge, the business won't need a master of their profession because I think feel with those characteristics, they will be smart enough to figure it out anyways. It's not rocket science.