BWAAA-HAAA!!!! My first question during an interview for Senior Level Developers (front-end or DB) and DBAs is "How do you get the current date and time using only T-SQL"? It's a really good indicator of how good or bad and how long the interview is going to be. Anyone who claims 10 years of experience with SQL Server will usually get the very rude awaking of "I'm sorry but you're not what we're looking for" on that first question if they get it wrong. The ratio across all 3 jobs is now 20:24... 20 out of 24 people, all claiming at least 5 years experience andd some with more than 10 have not answered the question correctly. Only 2 out of the 4 that got it right knew of more than one way.

I also have a pretest with 3 simple problems that require them to write some T-SQL and I don't let them use a computer to do it. Each problem should take less than 3 minutes and only because I give time for them to write. In fact, I place no time limit on the test. The way they write the code also tells me a lot in many different areas.... especially when it takes them an hour to turn the test in with mostly blank answers. Like I said, these aren't difficult questions. They're easier than a classic "Fizz-Buzz" question.