I'm fortunate in as much as I usually only get to pose the technical questions - senior managers do the rest. As I usually work within production environments I have two methods of asking questions and one technique!

My first area is what is contained within the cv or what the interviewee has claimed to have achieved .. I will drill into specific areas to see if they really know ..  failures include claims to have configured extra memory when the subject didn't understand awe or the switches in boot.ini

I think it's important to make sure the cv has some truth within it, I look for statements which start with I.

My other area is to ask questions I hope the subject can't answer and the technique I employ is to jump from one aspect to another - no progression - this in an attempt to understand the processes the subject will follow to reach the answer ( with prompting ) and is intended to get a feel for how they might react in a pressured situation. It's very unkind I guess, but it is intended to be so, as a DBA I don't know all the answers and often have to react or think on my feet ( or however you wish to describe it ) in adverse situations. This approach often brings out other characteristics, for example one candidate became very aggressive - not likely to be good in a pressured situation!!!

For a development DBA then factors are obviously different. I'd like to consider I'm totally oblivious to race, gender, age etc. but it can be difficult at times and sometimes langauge difficulties can be of concern.

It's a difficult area - good article Steve.