I need some good questions to ask in a job interview!
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Anybody have an idée for some good questions you can ask in a job interview?
I’m looking for some (simple looking/short) questions to ask.
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Are you the interviewer or the interviewee?
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If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this. -Friedrich August von Hayek
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I would say it depends extremely depending on the level of the candidate and the specific position they are applying for. For a development-ish position I like to let a candidate design a database for a simple scenario (students, classes, teachers and rooms). Just let them draw on a whiteboard and have them talk through the process, you want to know how they think. Randy Dyess has recently posted some interview questions of different difficulty and topics, for instance "what does column density mean". http://blog.transactsql.com/
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The position I have to interview a candidates for:
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=15&messageid=167762
The links are very helpful, I will certainly have a closer look to those!
Normally I just ask a question like: "we have a table with double records. How do I remove the doubles?". Here I would expect an answer with the words "group by" and "having", and just take it from there.
I do have a test prepared where the candidate has to write a query on the northwind DB and then pivot the result. So if I think the candidate is OK, we'll ask him to do the test.
Last time I took this approach, 15 candidates had to take the test before one found a solution (and was hired).
This time I would like to have a better idée of the candidates knowledge before I ask him to do the test.
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http://www.sqlservercentral.com/search/turbo.asp Enter "interview question", check "Search Articles" and "Search Discussions"
Lots of useful information for you to explore.
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
The best possible questions you can ask when interviewing people:
What do you not like about SQL Server (insert language/db here)? (or "name top 5 worst things about it...")
What's the worst flaw/biggest bug/severest problem you encountered using it and how did you get around it solve it?
Seriously.
Anybody can walk the line, memorize from the manual, regurgitate marketing material, but you will only learn about the true experience and capabilities of people by asking these questions. No platform/language/db/etc. is perfect. Only real experience will uncover these issues.
Anybody who says "it's great / never had a problem / best product ever /..." is an idiot and you can wrap up the interview very quickly.
The best thing about this approach is you don't have to know anything about the platform you're asking about: You can gauge the experience / competence of the person by his response.
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While there is many truth in here, it takes a technically skilled person to judge the answers, methinks. You cannot see inside a person when interviewing only for a short time. Also, how will you judge on someone who is technically the *perfect* person for the position, but lacks basic social skills (or do you also say soft skills?). It's certainly no easy task. I did some interviews in the past, and honestly, a great deal in your decision comes from th stomach (language barrier! Hope I can say so)--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url] -
@john-2: I like the idée of asking a person the flows in a language/system, you can’t get those from a course or brochure. Tnx for this one!
@frank: I agree with you on the stomach remark (or should I say “finger spitsen gefuhl” for you?). I’m not looking for the perfect “technically skilled person”; I’m looking for somebody who could be made into one. In my opinion the most important thing is that a person fits in our team, is intelligent and eager for the opportunity. Still I’m looking for a way to try his technical skills. When his résumé states he is a MS-(t)SQL expert, I want to probe this…
And yes, we use the term “soft skills”…
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I've tried using written tests but I'm not convinced of their merit.
I usually drill into a candidates cv, especially if they claim expertise in a particular area ( for a DBA ) I also have a stock set of obscure questions - the logic being there is no point asking questions people can answer - what I'm interested in is how they cope with the unknown (which has some relevence to a busy prod environment ) and how I can tease the answers I want from them. I'm very interested in the processes a candidate would use to problem solve e.g. which web sites / bol / technet etc. I've absolutely no interest in a candidates ability to know the exact syntax of every T SQL or dbcc command.
( It's very important, I think, to see if the cv is honest, for example I had a candidate who explained how they had increased the performance of a server by allocating extended memory - however under questioning they did not know about boot.ini , /PAE , /3GB , awe or max & min memory settings --- another candidate claimed to be expert in disk configs but couldn't tell me the difference in read and write performance of different raids )
I ask the usual basic questions as a pre-amble, then I change the subject areas rapidly for example q's about raid to identity columns and guids to deadlocks etc.
The most important question is do you think they would fit into the team ?
[font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/ -
(or should I say "finger spitsen gefuhl for you?).
Hehe, sounds good. I like your country and its emphasize of the social and family component. Something we can learn very much from here.
Unfortunately you're not located somewhere near the border. I might have seriously considered applying for an interview.
I also found this in my link library:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6228_11-5430425.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=tr
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Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]
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