Brandie Tarvin (5/31/2012)
EDIT: I should note that a lot of us who are involved in the hiring process are okay with the prospective employee saying the words "I don't know, but I can find out" or "I don't know, but I can learn that." No one knows everything and we expect there to be gaps, especially if it is a junior DBA position. It's someone coming in and acting like their skill level is a 9 (on a 1 to 10 scale) and only having a 1 or a 2 level ability that bothers us.
I'm currently interviewing for several positions. The first thing I'm looking for is if someone is trying to inflate their skill set. I would *much* rather have someone tell me what their honest experience is - and, if they don't know, respond with "I don't know, but here's the way I'd go about handling that situation to get the information I'd need" than try to pretend they know. The person with less experience but who is honest about their answers is going to go a lot further than someone who thinks that the questions I'm asking are 100% about technical skills.
More often than not, I'm interested in how they handle questions that involve working in team environments, collaborating with others on the team, researching new issues, where they draw the line between "figure it out myself" and "ask for help", and how they're going to keep me informed about what's going on.
I'm also interested in the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with me and our user community.
Technical skills can be learned far more easily than those last two.
-Ki