Are the posted questions getting worse?
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Jack Corbett (8/22/2011)
I think there is definitely some BS going on, but it's also hard to know what "experience" is. There are plenty of people that manage a SQL Server instance in that they have responsibility, but they don't have a lot of problems occur, and don't act proactively. So while they gain experience in time, they don't gain experience in skill. We end up with a lot of people that get 2 weeks of experience, 26 times a year, over and over.
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
What's really shocked our team here is the extent to which candidates haven't merely exaggerated, but been downright dishonest about their skillset claims. Hence two years sitting near a guy who did some SSIS development from time to time translated as "Two years experience of SSIS".I struggle with this a bit. I think it is a little shocking, and I'm sure Chris that you feel lied to. However I'm not sure how we should rate experience here. If I worked for 1 day a month on SSIS stuff for 1 year, do I have a year's experience with SSIS or 12 days worth? I know that there a few people I think are SSIS experts that don't use it for a full time job, and across the last 3-4 years, if we added up the total time they spent, it might be less than 48 weeks x 50 hours. Does that mean they don't have a year's experience?
Not really arguing here, but not sure how to handle this. I might put 2 years of SSIS experience on my resume, but when I interview, I qualify this with that fact that it was a part of my job and I have built xxx, but not necessarily used all the features/tasks/etc.
Experience is a really soft factor we take with a grain of salt on a piece of paper, and sort out in an interview. I think part of what you should ask before you get to the in person interview, and perhaps post-resume, is how much actual time you spent working with xxx system (like SSIS), and what is the extent of your knowledge on specific things that are important to you. Perhaps a short essay ask from potential candidates on those items you need them to work on. Have they built scripting tasks? Give an example? What was your implementation of the web services task? Things like that.
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ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
... Swindon ...Really :Wow:
My neck of the woods 😀
Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
Anon. -
David Burrows (8/22/2011)
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
... Swindon ...Really :Wow:
My neck of the woods 😀
Really? I can hear a beer coming on!
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
Really? I can hear a beer coming on!Sounds good :smooooth:
Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
Anon. -
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (8/22/2011)
Jack Corbett (8/22/2011)
I think there is definitely some BS going on, but it's also hard to know what "experience" is. There are plenty of people that manage a SQL Server instance in that they have responsibility, but they don't have a lot of problems occur, and don't act proactively. So while they gain experience in time, they don't gain experience in skill. We end up with a lot of people that get 2 weeks of experience, 26 times a year, over and over.
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
What's really shocked our team here is the extent to which candidates haven't merely exaggerated, but been downright dishonest about their skillset claims. Hence two years sitting near a guy who did some SSIS development from time to time translated as "Two years experience of SSIS".I struggle with this a bit. I think it is a little shocking, and I'm sure Chris that you feel lied to. However I'm not sure how we should rate experience here. If I worked for 1 day a month on SSIS stuff for 1 year, do I have a year's experience with SSIS or 12 days worth? I know that there a few people I think are SSIS experts that don't use it for a full time job, and across the last 3-4 years, if we added up the total time they spent, it might be less than 48 weeks x 50 hours. Does that mean they don't have a year's experience?
Not really arguing here, but not sure how to handle this. I might put 2 years of SSIS experience on my resume, but when I interview, I qualify this with that fact that it was a part of my job and I have built xxx, but not necessarily used all the features/tasks/etc.
Experience is a really soft factor we take with a grain of salt on a piece of paper, and sort out in an interview. I think part of what you should ask before you get to the in person interview, and perhaps post-resume, is how much actual time you spent working with xxx system (like SSIS), and what is the extent of your knowledge on specific things that are important to you. Perhaps a short essay ask from potential candidates on those items you need them to work on. Have they built scripting tasks? Give an example? What was your implementation of the web services task? Things like that.
Steve, I agree with you that it's difficult to quantify experience - from both sides of the fence. However, in practice we were able to evaluate most of our candidates within a few minutes during a conference call. One of the key questions, as you suggest, was "how much time did you actually spend on ..."
Jack - I'm now a fully-qualified DBA, man! I've been looking after 4 instances for 4 weeks - backup, index defrag, everything! Not. It's all automated. When it goes t1ts-up, I'll PM you.
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
David Burrows (8/22/2011)
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
Really? I can hear a beer coming on!Sounds good :smooooth:
Four weeks ago the guy we're replacing had his leaving do in the Sir Dan, which had Bath Ales' Hopping Hare. Back at the station on the way home, the Mary's Tap (?) featured "Built for Comfort", a bl00dy marvellous blues band, playing old Fleetwood Mac material. Their lead guitarist is a shy genius. Bliss.
I can get to either for 6pm, pick your day 🙂
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
Hi folks, I've not visited here for ages, I hope you are all well.Anybody recruiting presently? We've been recruiting a DBA and a TSQL developer (with some role overlap for holiday cover) for several weeks. Around 25 cv's have passed over my desk, I've been involved in about 10 first (phone) interviews and three face to face second interviews. We have a set of fairly simple questions which were collected from suggestions here on this forum and elsewhere. The simplest of these were used to weed out the chaff at the phone interview stage.
It's been an eye-opening experience. Given that the first requirement on the job spec is three years' experience of TSQL development, only two candidates could provide a reasonable explanation of the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index. One self-proclaimed "19/20 TSQL expert" stated that a CI is a "special index which makes queries run faster than a NCI". Few knew the purpose of include columns. Only one knew how to turn a left join into a NOT EXISTS with a filter in the WHERE clause (WHERE [ID or something not-nullable of rhs is null]), and he was also the only candidate who knew what would happen if the filter was changed to a non-null value.
What's really shocked our team here is the extent to which candidates haven't merely exaggerated, but been downright dishonest about their skillset claims. Hence two years sitting near a guy who did some SSIS development from time to time translated as "Two years experience of SSIS".
The last straw was a phone interview with a chap who looked on paper at least to be an excellent fit and was "reassuringly expensive". He didn't have a clue, waffled at length BSing wildly - and loudly - to cover his ignorance, and sounded as if we were a bit cheeky asking him a few simple questions!
Some employment agencies offer a pre-testing service. I can see us reaching a point very soon when only pre-tested candidates will be worth interviewing for all bar the most junior roles. Having seen contractor rates decline steadily in real terms for several years now, I'd be delighted to see this translate into a two (or more)-tier skill/pay structure, even if it means upskilling from time to time. Okay, today then...
Yowch. Been there, done that. Which city/country are you trying to hire in, Chris?
--Jeff Moden
RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally) -
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
Hi folks, I've not visited here for ages, I hope you are all well.Anybody recruiting presently? We've been recruiting a DBA and a TSQL developer (with some role overlap for holiday cover) for several weeks. Around 25 cv's have passed over my desk, I've been involved in about 10 first (phone) interviews and three face to face second interviews. We have a set of fairly simple questions which were collected from suggestions here on this forum and elsewhere. The simplest of these were used to weed out the chaff at the phone interview stage.
It's been an eye-opening experience. Given that the first requirement on the job spec is three years' experience of TSQL development, only two candidates could provide a reasonable explanation of the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index. One self-proclaimed "19/20 TSQL expert" stated that a CI is a "special index which makes queries run faster than a NCI". Few knew the purpose of include columns. Only one knew how to turn a left join into a NOT EXISTS with a filter in the WHERE clause (WHERE [ID or something not-nullable of rhs is null]), and he was also the only candidate who knew what would happen if the filter was changed to a non-null value.
What's really shocked our team here is the extent to which candidates haven't merely exaggerated, but been downright dishonest about their skillset claims. Hence two years sitting near a guy who did some SSIS development from time to time translated as "Two years experience of SSIS".
The last straw was a phone interview with a chap who looked on paper at least to be an excellent fit and was "reassuringly expensive". He didn't have a clue, waffled at length BSing wildly - and loudly - to cover his ignorance, and sounded as if we were a bit cheeky asking him a few simple questions!
Some employment agencies offer a pre-testing service. I can see us reaching a point very soon when only pre-tested candidates will be worth interviewing for all bar the most junior roles. Having seen contractor rates decline steadily in real terms for several years now, I'd be delighted to see this translate into a two (or more)-tier skill/pay structure, even if it means upskilling from time to time. Okay, today then...
You think that is bad? Last week, I had a conversation with a friend that I shared with Gail via email. He was brought in to interview for a DBA job and they were asking non-sense questions. None of us could figure out what they really meant by the questions. But they were phrasing those questions trying to make it look like they knew what they were talking about. Alas, they were just fooling themselves.
To boot, a headhunter called me this morning asking me if I was interested in interviewing at that very same place. I had to chuckle.
sample question: "What side-effects will you see from mixing ansi and non-ansi columns in an index?" They were driving at ansi and non-ansi datatypes in those columns.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events -
SQLRNNR (8/22/2011)
ChrisM@Work (8/22/2011)
Hi folks, I've not visited here for ages, I hope you are all well.Anybody recruiting presently? We've been recruiting a DBA and a TSQL developer (with some role overlap for holiday cover) for several weeks. Around 25 cv's have passed over my desk, I've been involved in about 10 first (phone) interviews and three face to face second interviews. We have a set of fairly simple questions which were collected from suggestions here on this forum and elsewhere. The simplest of these were used to weed out the chaff at the phone interview stage.
It's been an eye-opening experience. Given that the first requirement on the job spec is three years' experience of TSQL development, only two candidates could provide a reasonable explanation of the difference between a clustered and a non-clustered index. One self-proclaimed "19/20 TSQL expert" stated that a CI is a "special index which makes queries run faster than a NCI". Few knew the purpose of include columns. Only one knew how to turn a left join into a NOT EXISTS with a filter in the WHERE clause (WHERE [ID or something not-nullable of rhs is null]), and he was also the only candidate who knew what would happen if the filter was changed to a non-null value.
What's really shocked our team here is the extent to which candidates haven't merely exaggerated, but been downright dishonest about their skillset claims. Hence two years sitting near a guy who did some SSIS development from time to time translated as "Two years experience of SSIS".
The last straw was a phone interview with a chap who looked on paper at least to be an excellent fit and was "reassuringly expensive". He didn't have a clue, waffled at length BSing wildly - and loudly - to cover his ignorance, and sounded as if we were a bit cheeky asking him a few simple questions!
Some employment agencies offer a pre-testing service. I can see us reaching a point very soon when only pre-tested candidates will be worth interviewing for all bar the most junior roles. Having seen contractor rates decline steadily in real terms for several years now, I'd be delighted to see this translate into a two (or more)-tier skill/pay structure, even if it means upskilling from time to time. Okay, today then...
You think that is bad? Last week, I had a conversation with a friend that I shared with Gail via email. He was brought in to interview for a DBA job and they were asking non-sense questions. None of us could figure out what they really meant by the questions. But they were phrasing those questions trying to make it look like they knew what they were talking about. Alas, they were just fooling themselves.
To boot, a headhunter called me this morning asking me if I was interested in interviewing at that very same place. I had to chuckle.
sample question: "What side-effects will you see from mixing ansi and non-ansi columns in an index?" They were driving at ansi and non-ansi datatypes in those columns.
This is one of the eternal problems in tech. Frequently if you're trying to hire someone, you're looking to fill a gap in your knowledge base or to hire someone technical in a department where no-one is technical. How do you assess ability, especially in the latter case. I'd suggest that in the former, tech-specific questions aren't the way to go and in the latter case open-ended questions are the best way to go. Ask people how they approach problems or how they have solved challenges in the past. Try to find some common ground and ask questions in that realm.
I've had too many interviews where people found the questions on the internet or in a book. They didn't know what the answer was beyond what the book or website told them and sometimes the answers were wrong. Heck, sometimes the questions were pointless. And if you're asking specific questions where you want a specific, technical answer that can be easily found in a book or on-line, you don't want someone with years of experience, you want an entry-level person. The person with experience will know how to find the answer even if they don't know it off the top of their head.
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When you encounter a problem, if the solution isn't readily evident go back to the start and check your assumptions.
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It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.
What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
You ask a glass of water. -- Douglas Adams -
Dwayne Dibley (8/22/2011)
...I look for experience of other RDBMS systems - especially Oracle. I would also throw in some Oracle questions as a way of finding out how good they really are for general db concepts. This is only a loose criteria though, it does get rid of the blaggers thoughOooh. I have to partly disagree here. I once wasted three hours of my life interviewing for a SQL Server position and only fielding Oracal questions. I barely know how to spell Oracal. 😉
If you want an expert to work on your Maserati, don't ask them questions about Lada.
Steve.
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Fal (8/22/2011)
Dwayne Dibley (8/22/2011)
...I look for experience of other RDBMS systems - especially Oracle. I would also throw in some Oracle questions as a way of finding out how good they really are for general db concepts. This is only a loose criteria though, it does get rid of the blaggers thoughOooh. I have to partly disagree here. I once wasted three hours of my life interviewing for a SQL Server position and only fielding Oracal questions. I barely know how to spell Oracal. 😉
If you want an expert to work on your Maserati, don't ask them questions about Lada.
Steve.
Well, if you put a tennis-ball as cover of the towbar of the Lada doesn't it at least starts looking like a sports car ? :hehe:
Johan
Learn to play, play to learn !Dont drive faster than your guardian angel can fly ...
but keeping both feet on the ground wont get you anywhere :w00t:- How to post Performance Problems
- How to post data/code to get the best help[/url]- How to prevent a sore throat after hours of presenting ppt
press F1 for solution, press shift+F1 for urgent solution 😀
Need a bit of Powershell? How about this
Who am I ? Sometimes this is me but most of the time this is me
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ALZDBA (8/23/2011)
Fal (8/22/2011)
Dwayne Dibley (8/22/2011)
...I look for experience of other RDBMS systems - especially Oracle. I would also throw in some Oracle questions as a way of finding out how good they really are for general db concepts. This is only a loose criteria though, it does get rid of the blaggers thoughOooh. I have to partly disagree here. I once wasted three hours of my life interviewing for a SQL Server position and only fielding Oracal questions. I barely know how to spell Oracal. 😉
If you want an expert to work on your Maserati, don't ask them questions about Lada.
Steve.
Well, if you put a tennis-ball as cover of the towbar of the Lada doesn't it at least starts looking like a sports car ? :hehe:
No, 'cos the towbar of a sports car is at the back :hehe:
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
Speaking of sports cars....
🙁
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Jeff Moden (8/22/2011)
...Yowch. Been there, done that. Which city/country are you trying to hire in, Chris?
Swindon, UK - about 90 miles east and £9,000 pa by train from London.
“Write the query the simplest way. If through testing it becomes clear that the performance is inadequate, consider alternative query forms.” - Gail ShawFor fast, accurate and documented assistance in answering your questions, please read this article.
Understanding and using APPLY, (I) and (II) Paul White
Hidden RBAR: Triangular Joins / The "Numbers" or "Tally" Table: What it is and how it replaces a loop Jeff Moden -
ALZDBA (8/23/2011)
Fal (8/22/2011)
Dwayne Dibley (8/22/2011)
...I look for experience of other RDBMS systems - especially Oracle. I would also throw in some Oracle questions as a way of finding out how good they really are for general db concepts. This is only a loose criteria though, it does get rid of the blaggers thoughOooh. I have to partly disagree here. I once wasted three hours of my life interviewing for a SQL Server position and only fielding Oracal questions. I barely know how to spell Oracal. 😉
If you want an expert to work on your Maserati, don't ask them questions about Lada.
Steve.
Well, if you put a tennis-ball as cover of the towbar of the Lada doesn't it at least starts looking like a sports car ? :hehe:
Er, do sports cars even have towbars? Been a while since I saw a Ferrari towing a caravan along a dirt track. :w00t:
Steve.
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