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RE: Hiring A DBA

John Mitchell-245523 — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:29:27 GMT

[quote][b]roger clarke (6/20/2007)[/b][hr]Well, I'm afraid I am not at all impressed with this article ... just one more example of the painting by numbers crowd who will never really get it.There is actually only one question you ever need to ask a DBA and like the saying goes, if you have to ask .....And I'm afraid that if anyone tried that AWE nonsense on me ... my starting salary just doubled [/quote]Say that again but slower? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.Actually, the point I wanted to make is about the job posting. If you advertise for a "Sequal Data Base Administrator" (sic) then I'm not going to take you seriously. Get someone with a good grasp of written English (or whatever langauage you post it in) to check it. Also, if you ask for 5 to 10 years of experience in just about everything but only specify an average salary then how am I supposed to know whether you're going to revise the quality of the candidate you're after or the salary you offer? Something will have to budge - I've seen job postings like that repeated for months on end!John

RE: Hiring A DBA

roger clarke — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:10:00 GMT

Well, I'm afraid I am not at all impressed with this article ... just one more example of the painting by numbers crowd who will never really get it.There is actually only one question you ever need to ask a DBA and like the saying goes, if you have to ask .....And I'm afraid that if anyone tried that AWE nonsense on me ... my starting salary just doubled

RE: Hiring A DBA

Loner — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:47:00 GMT

BTW, we hired a guy whose resume was wonderful and he had over 10 years experiences. When he came to interview, he talked liked he knew what he was doing. Of course I did not ask him any technical questions because he had over 10 years of experiences. (my big mistake). It turned out he was a flop.

He said he was a DBA, designing database, installing database, tuning database. The server ran out of space and he did not even know what to do.

He also said he was a developer writing all kind of procedures. His procedure was a joke. He had two cursors in one procedures which ran hours. He said there was the only way to create a table with parent/child relationship. I wrote a select statement to create a table with parent/child relationship and ran for seconds. The problem was he made all kind of excuse when his procedures failed. He kept saying he did not understand the business. The job was too stressful and he just had a new baby.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Loner — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:38:00 GMT

I left my first job after two years because I felt I was not going anywhere and there was nothing to learn. I was given all the simple task to do. For every project, the project leader would have meeting with the senior staffs and figure out what kind of tasks. They excluded me in every meeting. I was just given the task written on a piece of paper.

The average number of years I stayed in a job was two years. One job I stayed for five years, I loved the job and I thought that would stay there. Unfortunately they changed the vice president, after six months, 10% of the staffs were resigned (including me), one guy worked there for 19 years resigned, it told you how bad it was.

Another job I stayed for 8 months. It was one of a division of a fortunate 500 company. They told me the division was solid. After six months, the company announced to sell off that division, if no one bought it, they would close it down. I immediately found another job.

Things changed so fast these days. Even you want to stay in a company, maybe the company does not want you. The other company I worked for decided to outsource the IT department to India.

If you are still young and only work for IT for two years, I would think about switching career !!!

RE: Hiring A DBA

winston Smith — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 02:32:00 GMT

great article. i have a question though. you say

Length of service shows loyalty."

I am not long out of college, and have been 18 months in a SQL server Admin role with a small bit of dev. I definately dont want to spend my career in this company but i plan to have a minimium duration of 2 years. I came up with this figure by talking with recruitment agents. they say the same thing, loyalty to a company counts very well in your favour when going for a job, and here in Ireland 2 years is respectable for a young person not long out of college. But 2 years is a big step from 10 years. and i really want to stretch my legs, as after 2 years, I dont feel my current company will have much more to offer me. I will have learned most of what I can learn in this role and would like to gain more expirience while I am still young.

In your interview process, would moving from a company after 2 years due to not being challenged or wanting more expirience count against me?

RE: Hiring A DBA

David Burrows — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 02:17:00 GMT

I did not mean to offend people.

No offence here

I did met some people working for the same company for 10 years doing exactly the same thing and they refused to learn anything new.

Yep know a few of them Even had some bleating about no opportunities to learn other things and when you offer to help them and suggest they learn in their own time I got some funny looks

Every person has his own perspective. One VP of a company said I never worked for a job more than 5 years, it meant I had no loyalty and did not hire me. Another company said I could hold on a job for 5 years, it was excellent.

Very true. One man’s chalice is another one’s poison. Loyalty can be very subjective at times and can work both ways, would you want to work for a company that would sack you after 2-3 years. May suit some people but not all.

Everyone is different. I went to many interviews and I also interviewed many people. It also depends on your own experiences.

Again, very true.

Please don't get angry. It is just my 2 cents.

Not angry at all sorry if I gave that impression Just my pennies worth.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Loner — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:56:00 GMT

I am just talking about my experience. What I said definitely applied all the people. I did not mean to offend people.

I did met some people working for the same company for 10 years doing exactly the same thing and they refused to learn anything new. As a matter of fact, my company just fired one.

Every person has his own perspective. One VP of a company said I never worked for a job more than 5 years, it meant I had no loyality and did not hire me. Another company said I could hold on a job for 5 years, it was excellent.

Everyone is different. I went to many interviews and I also interviewed many people. It also depends on your own experiences.

You have good experiences with people working for a company for a long time and have bad experiences with people working for 2 to 3 years and my experiences was just opposite.

Please don't get angry. It is just my 2 cents.

RE: Hiring A DBA

David Burrows — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 07:12:00 GMT

You spent 10 years with a company, first of all, all you had was the experience in that company, you did not expose to the outside world

Not to sound rude but... what planet you on. I have plenty of experience with many different companies in the outside world. Just because I have worked at the same company for a long time does not mean I have tunnel vision and I have found on occasion I know more about how other companies work than their own employees do!

Second, over the 10 years in the company, what had this person done?

Oh! please, plenty and varied, a job and job title does not restrict your knowledge and experience only you do.

The same thing - backup, restore, install SQL Server, implement developement to production. I met a DBA working in a company for 10 years, he could not even write a decent DTS package and stored procedure.

That is a lack of knowledge and experience, nothing to do with loyalty.

Besides these days people changes job every 2 to 3 years is a norm. Actually those people I found had more business and technical experience

My experience is the opposite.

Especially if you are a contractor, you work in a company for six months and then another one for six months, it does not mean that person is not good.

Does not mean they are good either. I have met many, many contractors who knew less about databases than me and even when I knew nothing. And even now I know of contractors who have no breadth of knowledge due to specific restrictive contracts.

I am not saying that frequent movers are better or worse than long serving employees, only that you need to know the circumstances.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Loner — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 06:49:00 GMT

"Length of service shows loyalty."

I totally disagreed with this. What year is this ? You spent 10 years with a company, first of all, all you had was the experience in that company, you did not expose to the outside world. Your company's technology may not be the most recent. Second, over the 10 years in the company, what had this person done ? The same thing - backup, restore, install SQL Server, implement developement to production. I met a DBA working in a company for 10 years, he could not even write a decent DTS package and stored procedure. That's the resume you wanted to put on the top of the pile. Besides these days people changes job every 2 to 3 years is a norm. Actually those people I found had more business and technical experience. Especially if you are a contractor, you work in a company for six months and then another one for six months, it does not mean that person is not good.

Certification - maybe you think is important. I did it once. All I did was reading the book in and out and I passed the exam and got the cert. Did it mean I knew more? I don't think so. I used to work at Xerox, all their repair engineers required to get a MCSE, all of them got it. Half of them did not even know how to turn on the computer.

The company I used to work with and the company I work right now both said it is very hard to find a good SQL server DBA and SQL Server developer.

My last company after months of search they hired a bimbo for DBA. The first day of I contacted her, I found out I knew SQL server more than she did. Nothing what, it was the impression the manager had on that person, some people can spot a good candidate, some can always find loser. I remembered years ago, my manager hired four people, none of them could do anything, six months later, they all got fired, including my manager. Ha Ha!!!

Another important thing is making sure that person can fit into the department and the company culture. Otherwise you may have to go thru the interview in a few months.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Mike C — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 08:54:00 GMT

"Length of service shows loyalty."

I agree, but it's not necessarily an indicator of the employee's loyalty to the company. A job change on my (or your) resume might very well be an indicator of our employer's loyalty (or lack of) to us, or management's inability to run a fiscally sound business. My point is that I wouldn't want to hold a job change against a candidate because of factors far out of his/her control.

"I have know some associates that gave very good plausible reasons for regular changes in employment but quietly admitted (but never to the boss) that they 'never stay in a job for more than 2-3 years'"

There are plenty of folks like that - and to them I say quit your day job and go into consulting With consulting you get to switch up jobs regularly, which keeps the nomadic DBAs, programmers and cable splicers from getting bored. Some might argue that consultants don't have as much "job security" as full-time employees, but personally I don't see a lot of companies touting job security as one of their prime benefits.

RE: Hiring A DBA

David Burrows — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 04:25:00 GMT

Great article, very informative

With the "one job in ten years" policy I'm sure my resume would at the very bottom of the pile...

OH - I do agree with Mike C about not putting the 10 year employment stint at the top of the pile...

Not to knock anyone who was lucky enough to hold onto the same job for 10 years...

I think it is easy to confuse length of employment with the number of jobs and job titles and experience, they are not the same.

Length of service shows loyalty. I have know some associates that gave very good plausible reasons for regular changes in employment but quietly admitted (but never to the boss) that they 'never stay in a job for more than 2-3 years'

The number of jobs. What is a job? Is it the actual employment, the different work or 'jobs' that you do that encompasses your employment. Which is worse, a person that sticks at one 'job', or someone who regularly changes because they can't make up their mind or find the work difficult (known these), or vice versa.

Job titles, what's in a title anyway. I've more of those that you can throw a stick at, not all were meaningful or even described my 'job'

Experience, which I consider as very important. It does not matter whether you had single or multiple employments, it is your experience (and knowledge) at doing the 'job' that matters.

A DBA, a whole DBA and nothing but a DBA, if that is what you are interviewing for then if that is all the interviewee has done, it does not matter as long as they have the experience you require for the post.

My job title is 'Software Engineer', but my 'jobs' are varied, analyst, programmer, developer, webmaster, DBA (of sorts) 'Jack of all Trades' (but never a master) and therefore consider myself to have a varied wide level of experience in a span of 23 years of employment. I wonder where would I be in that pile.

RE: Hiring A DBA

jeffrey yao — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:31:00 GMT

I am with you, Mike, for last 3 years as a contractor, I changed job 5 times, almost every 4 to 6 months, I will switch to another company's project.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Mike C — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 08:40:00 GMT

Thanks for the clarification Chris. I just find it a little annoying, based on my experience, that a candidate who has been at the same job for 10 years gets priority over a candidate who has an equivalent 10 years of experience, but with different companies. I understand that employers don't like to see "job-hopping"; however, there are a lot of factors beyond a candidate's control that can affect his/her resume:

The company he/she worked for might have gone out of business (a lot of experienced DBA's, programmers and other IT folks out here have at least one failed dot-com listed on the resume),
The company you worked for might have had to "downsize" or outsourced your position,
You might have a break in employment due to military service, which by law cannot be used as a reason for not hiring (see the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act or USERRA),
The person might have been doing short-term contract work (very common when the job market is soft and there are no full-time jobs to be had)

Personally I would probably think highly of a candidate with 10 years of employment at two companies over that period. After all, he/she has:

Worked in two different organizations with different missions and/or different plans to achieve their missions,
Dealt with two different sets of managers who probably have different management styles,
Most likely had varying duties and job responsibilities at each organization,
Probably been exposed to, and gained experience with, different technology at each job.

Not to knock anyone who was lucky enough to hold onto the same job for 10 years, but all of that (to me at least) adds up to a better "quality" of experience.

Overall, excellent article. Thanks!

RE: Hiring A DBA

Chris Shaw — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:10:00 GMT

First off I would like to thank everyone for reading my article on SQLServerCentral.com. With printed articles you may not always get an idea on how many people read it. I was overwhelmed by the number of reads. I even more appreciated the comments to the article. What makes this topic what it is, is the fact that everyone has a different experience. I would like to however like to address a couple issues that people mentioned. I think the blog that Jon added had some great notes. There was a post or two that mentioned that this is relevant to many positions. I do agree with this. When I sat down and started to write this article and speak on this topic it was because of the large number of candidates that I saw that did not have these skills that I talked about. I would love to mention some of the horror stories that I have had, but there are just too many.Someone commented on my mention of keeping eye contact during the interview. I would like to clear up that if this was the only thing that I did not like about that interview then I am sure I could overlook it. In the article I made some statements that will have its exceptions.Another exception or maybe a miscommunication in the article was the reference of 10 years of employment. So I would like to clarify, if a candidate had 10 years of employment I may float them to the top of the pile. Maybe I overstated this a little. The reason that I float those resumes to the top of the list is because I like to see the dedication to an employer. As an employer I can assure you that it is very costly and time consuming to get people up to speed. This however, does not mean that this is the only candidate that I would consider for an interview.If I were to list the order of importance of what I look for in a good candidate it would all depend on the current workload and staff. If I can afford it I would always prefer to hire someone with a can do attitude over a senior skilled person. Sometimes the workload would need someone who can jump right in. In short, you can’t teach people the desire to succeeded and push forward. SQL Skills can be learned.The most commented on statement was the clothing issue. I have to admit that I do want to see someone that takes this serious. It may not have to be a suit and tie. But I would not want to see jeans and a T-Shirt. Alone this would not disqualify a candidate, but I take it seriously.I have copied this set of comments on my blog http://cssql.blogspot.com/ this is where I do most of my on-line reviewing and posting. If you have any questions please let me know. I would be more then happy to answer them or discuss them. Thanks again for reading and commenting.Chris Shaw

RE: Hiring A DBA

Joan DuNard — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:38:00 GMT

Chris, Very good article. Thank you. I am a veteran Headhunter in IT and I agree with some other's comments that much of your advise is relevant to any interview. I especially liked your coach to grade the interviews. You will forget by Interview #4 in the day what Interview #1 said and you'll have a tendancy to choose the last great impression - which ever that was and it may not be your best candidate. I would add that using assessments across the board in a company can assist in hiring success. The company measures 3-4 of their stars of the last 1-2 years employees and uses them as a measuring stick - then assesses new candidates. This take the hunch or gut feel out of those final cut decisions. Statistically they have proven that only 14% of hires are successful using traditional methods, whereas, 85% of hires are successful using a plan and assessments. Thanks for the excellent article. I hope some folks use your advise. OH - I do agree with Mike C about not putting the 10 year employment stint at the top of the pile. I have one client who has 25 years of the same experience!

RE: Hiring A DBA

Mike C — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:47:00 GMT

Good article, although I do disagree with one point you made:

"If the candidate has had one position in the last ten years and the employment was continuous, than that resume may float to the top of my pile."

Presumably the opposite is also true; those who have had more than one position over the past ten years sink to the bottom of your pile. You can lose some well-qualified candidates with a policy like that. In my personal situation, I was called up for active duty military service a couple of times in the past which caused disruptions in my civilian employment history. Additionally I spent quite a bit of time doing short-term contract work. You're going to increasingly find people with breaks in their employment history and job changes as military personnel are released from active duty over the next few years to return to the work force.

With the "one job in ten years" policy I'm sure my resume would at the very bottom of the pile and I'd probably never get an opportunity to pass your interview with flying colors. I suppose if I were doing the hiring, I would not immediately discard a resume just because the candidate has held more than one position within the last ten years... Personally I would ask why the person has held more than one position before I made a rush to judgment...

RE: Hiring A DBA

Tom Holden-248075 — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 11:55:00 GMT

I enjoyed the part about listing the tasks for the next 30 days and the tasks for the next 180 days. What a great way to focus. That might have seemed obvious but I won't quickly forget it. If I'm on the other side of the table I might ask them the same question - what's on the plate?

RE: Hiring A DBA

Jon Baker — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:50:00 GMT

I really enjoyed the article, especially having just been part of a hiring process. I blogged a response here

http://www.sqljunkies.com/WebLog/outerjoin/archive/2006/06/19/21960.aspx

Jon Baker

RE: Hiring A DBA

Stephen J Cunningham — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:13:00 GMT

Great article with insightful points to be borne in mind for both employer *and* potential employee.

I have to strongly disagree with the sentiment that clothes being pressed and clean is irrelevant in IT. Consider a situation where you are down to the last two potential candidates: both have equal technical knowledge and ability. One is smart and presentable with good business savvy. The other looks like they ironed their clothes with next door’s cat. Who would you choose? You never know when the new recruit will need to represent your company (external client meetings, seminars etc).

All things being equal, presentation may clinch you the deal – well worth the cost of a new shirt and tie and getting your suit dry cleaned. Present yourself the way you want to be seen whenever it’s going to count.

RE: Hiring A DBA

Loner — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:37:00 GMT

This is a good article. I was an Oracle Developer 10 years ago and then a company hired me as a SQL Server developer. The manager and I both thought SQL was SQL, what's the difference? Of course we were both wrong. I also interviewed with the DBA of that company at that time, he seemed to be a nice guy. After I started the job, I found out SQL Server developer was totally different. The DBA was a very knowlegable guy but he was rude, unprofessional and yelled at you liked you were a garbage. Since I was new at SQL server, I asked a question. His answer was ' Look at BOL, I don't have time to answer all the stupid questions'. Whatever you did , you had to do his way or no way. You were not allowed to create, you had to follow his instructions. The manager was totally on his side because she had no clue about database, she was totally relied on him. They hired another DBA who argued with him, the result the new DBA was fired.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bknight/dbaroles.asp

This was an article about DBA job. Basically I had to do all of them except installing SQL Server and disaster recovering. I had to say I learnt a lot but after two years of mentally abusing, I had to quit because I was at the edge of a nervous break down.

After I found another job as SQL Server programmer, I found out I did a lot of the DBA work. I even knew more than the DBA of that company (it was a little pathetic.) This was due to two years of SQL Server boot camp.

But my point is the DBA's attitude is very important too. That company’s developer turnover rate was very high probably because of the DBA’s abuse. Knowledge is important, you have to hire someone knowing how to do the job but at the same time you have to find someone that can fit into your company and can work with other people.

RE: Hiring A DBA

John Scarborough — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:33:00 GMT

>> Watch to see if they make or keep eye contact. Are they more interested in the map on the wall behind you? I specifically interview in a room in our office that has a really neat picture of Earth. I want to see what they are more interested in, the interview or the photo.

Many IT people won't make eye contact. You can lose a really good candidate because they wouldn't make eye contact, and they focused on the "neat picture". This emphasis on socialization trivia (eye contact), in a technical field involving a heck of a lot of asocial "geeks", if you will, is not only a waste of time, but a good way to lose proficient candidates.

>> Look to see if their clothes are pressed and clean

Completely irrelevant (in IT). Some of the most brilliant, productive IT staff I've worked with wouldn't know a clothes iron if it hit them in the head.

RE: Hiring A DBA

R Martin Ladner — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:13:00 GMT

Thanks for your article; it's applicable to hiring for any position. I especially liked your advice to list things you need done in the next month and in the next six months. As you pointed out, it helps you know what you need and helps a new worker set priorities. It also helps you make your case to higher management to get the job funded properly. Yours, =Marty=

RE: Hiring A DBA

sheepoo — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 07:00:00 GMT

Chris,A very informative article indeed!We once interviewed a guy who was the Vice President of the local SQL Server Users Group. The resume was a perfect match for the position we had posted. Unfortunately, the person turned out to be a 'dud' when we interveiwed him on a more technical level.Overall, I would say that hiring is a definitely more art than science

Hiring A DBA

Chris Shaw — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 18:38:00 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/cshaw/hiringadba.asp