Re: NEED ORACLE interview questions?

There does seem to be a pool of questions that are pretty similiar that many people ask. Interviews tend to vary based on what type of shop, what type of dba, and the general competence of the interviewer. I had one interview that lasted 3 hours. I think they got me on one question. It was 3 hours of the same generic questions every one asks. That company also insisted that the CBO could not trusted and still used RBO.

The biggest problem is when the interviewer is wrong. I had a phone screen a few months ago when I was asked about tuning a query and one of the things listed by the order of the table in the from clause... You have to be careful. Sometimes you have to sort of guess what the correct wrong answer is for this interview.

A more common problem is if there are multiple ways to do something. You know one way, but the interviewer only knows another. The interviewer only wants his way as a response. You know you are in trouble if they ask the same question again.

My favorite was a few years ago. I had just read the OCP Developers book. The interviewer asked me questions word for word out of that book and I gave them chapters and page numbers of where to find the answers. Now if the interview was a month later, I would have forgotten all the pages and chapters..., but he didn't realize that.

Another big problem I tend to run into is when the interview turns to data modelling. Most people consider data modelling slapping some tables together to support an application. I know enough to know that there is a big difference between an enterprise data modeller and someone who can do some data modelling. That is a specialization in and of itself. I am not an enterprise data modeller. I found that when I was honest the interviewer thought I did not know anything because they did not know the difference. Now if I am asked if I know how to do data model, I just go 'yes'. Most data modelling questions are really basic. I have only once been given a set of requirements and asked to turn that into a model and even that was basic.

• Original message -------------- From: "Jared Still" <jkstill_at_gmail.com> Funny.

When I interview for positions that require SQL knowledge, I spring a test on them.

Most do OK. One guy argued with me that an outer join was not necessary in the answer to one of the questions.

I disagreed. He argued his point, none too tactfully. Interview over. ;)

Jared

On 6/27/06, Michael Haddon < m.haddon_at_comcast.net> wrote: One I used to love to give (really tests their ability to listen)

Whats wrong with this statement

delete colA, colB, colC from TableA
where ColA = :a and ColB = :c;

you would be very surprised at the answers, I was.

I even had one guy tell me the ":" wasn't legal syntax.

Mike

>On 06/27/2006 08:30:02 AM, dba1 mcc wrote:
>
>
>>Anyone has web site for ORACLE interview questions?
>>
>>Thanks.
>>
>>

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Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
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