Re: DBA interviews

From: Connor McDonald <hamcdc_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 11:21:12 +0100 (BST)
Message-ID: <20040822102112.60868.qmail@web86908.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

Yes it was me on...Based on Tom's "draw me an Oracle" concept, its a great way to "drill down" to bits and pieces of the database. Many an applicant can say

"and here is the redo...needed for recovery"

to which its easy to head down the road of:

"so when you lose one of the datafiles you just drew, how does the redo help? What do I do to get that file back?"

to see if they just "read" about redo, or actually know what's going on....etc etc

Here's a funny story for you. Last set of interviews I ran, the HR person was also present. Before we started, the HR person was telling me about his questioning process and his questions were all (in my opinion) light-weight fluff.. "Tell me about challenges in the job" ... stuff like that. We had a light-hearted banter where I was telling him that any idiot could give the "right" answer to questions like that.

Anyway, interviewee comes in, and the HR guy starts with his questions first. About his 5th question was:

"Tell us about an obstacle you faced and how you overcame it"

to which the applicant replies:

"Someone phoned the help desk and needed to get access to a database that I was not responsible for, so I didn't have SYSDBA access. So I waited until after work, and when the cleaner went into the secure room where the passwords were kept, I slipped in behind him. When the cleaner left, I grabbed the passwords, hacked into the database, created the user account and gave them access!"

HR guy and me just sat there silent, eyes wide, chins on floor for about 30 seconds. When the applicant finally left, HR guy gives me a smug smile and says:

"I told you my questions would work!"

:-)

Cheers
Connor

Rachel Carmichael <wisernet100_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> Question 2 -- intimidation. yep. that's definitely someone I want to
> work for, someone who tries to bully me on an interview. Yep.
>
> I can top your 3.5 hour interview.... I interviewed at one company
> where I was there from 9am until 4pm, saw 11 people. Even lunch was
> part of the interview, I talked with HR. We ranged from detailed DBA
> work to design to network/system administration to management theory.
>
>

Connor McDonald
Co-author: "Mastering Oracle PL/SQL - Practical Solutions" ISBN: 1590592174 web: http://www.oracledba.co.uk
web: http://www.oaktable.net
email: connor_mcdonald_at_yahoo.com

Coming Soon! "Oracle Insight - Tales of the OakTable"

"GIVE a man a fish and he will eat for a day. But TEACH him how to fish, and...he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day"

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Received on Sun Aug 22 2004 - 05:16:49 CDT