Interviewing
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Comments posted to this topic are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones/interviewing.asp
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Easy read and to the point, nice article Steve!
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Just contemplating moving jobs, very useful, Thanks.
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Good article:
The best -when you are not from "street".
Question that you know answer:
who will be hired - top Sql server DBA or some nice person with very good connections but almost nothing as DBA?
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Good article!!
Some good tips to remember there, although in saying that, I only started this job on January and I have no intentions on leaving for a good while yet!
I do recall a couple jobs back when I was the team lead for internal application development and was looking to hire a new junior developer. We had one guy who already worked in the support department but was looking to get into development. During the interview I asked what qualities he would bring to the job and essentialy, why should we hire him over the other candidates. His answer....His cv/resume is truthfull and other people fabricate a lot of their cv/resume's in order to fool companies into employing them. I was gobsmacked! I politely stopped him mid-sentence and moved on with the interview!
Clive
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Clive:
Did you hire him?
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Steve,
Great article! one other thing you should have included: Don't lie on your resume.
I interviewed a guy last week for a database developer job who had 'performance tuning' and 'DBA' on his resume. I asked him what a clustered index was and he was clueless. he also had no idea what an execution plan was or how to backup a database. His idea of a backup was to DTS the data to an access database.
Moral is make sure you know what's on your resume. I have to wonder what people are thinking when they put stuff like that on their resume.
I'd like to see an article on how to turn down a job gracefully, that's can be a tough thing.
Mark
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No, he wasn't hired.
Although I felt strongly against his comments towards other candidates cv/resumes, I did look beyond that at the other plus/negative points I picked up on but I didn't think he was a good fit in the team in general.
I also agree with Mark. Always know whats on your resume. I can't think of a more embaressing situation than being asked about a skill set that is on my resume and yet I know nothing about it - aside from that, if it's picked up that you have fabricated your resume, then thats hardly the kind of person you would want representing your organisation!
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Great article, I have saved it thanks.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
Having just completed a round of interviewing, I would add:
Listen to the question. The first question we asked on chap was to “BRIEFLY SUMMARISE his career to date”. Half an hour later, he was still going. Not only did he describe every job, he went on to describe, in minute detail, every project from each of those jobs. Not only is this very boring for the interviewer, it shows that the candidate cannot follow a simple request/instruction.
Try to smile a few times - even if you are nervous. It really makes a difference. Remember, the interviewer is wondering if you will fir into the team. Social skills are part of the assessment.
When asked how you see your career developing, try not to talk exclusively about something that the job doesn’t bring. I interviewed someone for a DBA job, and their aspirations all focussed around c++ & c#. (Why was he at the interview at all?).
Just my two penneth.
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This was a great article that was chock full of good advice!
Another idea for an article: Best techniques for a CV/Resume. I always struggle with (1) How many pages should it be? (2) How many past jobs should I list? (3) Is it best to include names/numbers of references on the CV/resume or should I write "available upon request". Just a thought.
Have a good day,Norene Malaney
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Hello Steve,
A nice article for me at the right time. The tips are worth for a person like me and will follow them until my last job
Expecting more like this from you.
Thanks and have a nice day!!!
Lucky -
Here are my two cents:
We spent the last 4 months looking for a Business Analyst who would come with a strong SQL Server background. We came across a person who was the Vice President of the local SQL Server Group. He was very fluent in his replies and came with a tonne of experience. However, one thing which nagged me during the interview was whenever he was asked a technical question he would circumvent around the techincal details(and we realized later that he was very good at doing that ).So we called him in for a techincal interviews and it transpired that other than knowing some simple SQL he was not able to answer any question
.Needless to say, we did not hire him and were more strict in our question from that point onwards. We ended up hiring a person with a lot of Oracle experience and he is picking up really very well in our environment, which is purely SQL Server
Lesson Learned: Do not go by technical experience only; good candidates can usually use their experience on one tool to master another.
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Nice article Steve.
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The most important point you made in your entire article during an interview is to RELAX. NEVER appear DESPERATE or NERVOUS in a interview. That will end it faster than anything else and it gets most people everytime..I never hire a person that appears desperate or extremely nervous in an interview regardless of their qualifications or experience. This almost always signals they are hiding something. Honestly though, most of the other points you made were kind of no brainers...
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