RE: Job interview questions
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 13:37:39 -0700
Message-ID: <BLU179-W62690EB190C92AA532F876EBBF0_at_phx.gbl>
A quick check of dice.com shows 46 listings for senior Oracle DBAs (https://www.dice.com/jobs?q=title%3A%28sr+oracle+dba%29&l=) but only one for junior candidates (https://www.dice.com/jobs?q=title%3A%28jr+oracle+dba%29&l=). We complain about the lack of senior candidates but we won't give junior candidates a break. If we don't give them a break, the pool of candidates can only shrink. Iggy
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 12:34:35 -0600
From: tim_at_evdbt.com
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Re: Job interview questions
I'll take a whack here too...
I think the intent behind asking obscure technical questions is to initiate a conversation on a very specific technical topic. With luck, the seemingly trivial question can reveal not only that the candidate is fluent on the whole topic, but also something about how they relate to other people and how they might fit in.
For example, asking a question such as "What is the common nickname for an 'inconsistent' backup?" (answer: "hot" or "online" backup) can lead to several great follow-up questions about how backups are captured and why they're recoverable. For example, if they get that right, you can then ask if simply restoring an "inconsistent" backup is sufficient to open a database successfully, or whether additional steps are necessary (i.e. "no" and "recovery rollforward with redo logs" are good follow-up answers). If you have a suspicion that the candidate is snowing you, then you can ask whether datafiles are "locked" against writes while they're being backed up or not, and find out if they have some whopping misconceptions about how Oracle works.
Getting these answers correct or incorrect is not really the point; lots of good people get them wrong. In real life, people can google for these answers.
But how they interact with you during this conversation is very revealing. Whether they know this stuff or not. Whether they freeze up when faced with a complex problem, or whether they grow more engaged and animated at the challenge. Whether they actually get angry when confronted with their failure.
If they know their stuff and answer correctly, again it is illuminating. Some get cocky and rattle off the answer in an almost arrogant fashion. Some are undoubtedly arrogant about it. Some are just matter of fact and cool and collected. Maybe you want arrogant. Maybe you don't.
Of course, the follow-up questions can go another way, into personal experience and war stories. "What is the scariest situation you've ever encountered?" Every infrastructure person has been scared stiff at one point or another, and if they haven't, then they haven't done anything. It's not fair to ask someone about their failures during an interview, but I think it is quite kosher to ask someone about when they were most frightened.
So, an interview isn't merely a series of trivia questions to be scored, summarized, and averaged. No doubt scoring correct answers is useful, but there's much more. Good questions encourage the candidate to reveal something about their own characters.
On 6/4/15 12:02, Iggy Fernandez wrote:
Dear
TJ,
I
absolutely loved the blog post recommended by June and read
every word of it.
I
remember the interview at which I could not answer the
question "how do you enable block change tracking in a
database?" (The answer is "alter database enable block
change tracking,") I don't want to work for Yahoo any more.
I remember the time when I could not get hired at Google
because I could not solve a riddle. https://iggyfernandez.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/how-not-to-interview-a-database-administrator-part-i-the-google-way/.
I don't want to work for Google any more.
I remember the worst interview of my life when the hiring
manager walked me to the door when I correctly answered a
simple question about redo logs (he was wrong). https://iggyfernandez.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/the-worst-interview-of-my-life/.
I don't want to work for [let me protect the guilty] any more.
Personally, I don't think the absence of particular
technical skills matters that much. They can always be learned
by a motivated learner. I would prefer a motivated learner
rather than a really knowledgeable person with a bad attitude
or who never got anything done.
The person's work history and the opinions of his/her
previous co-workers and managers is the information we need
but we don't have it. Only some LinkedIn accolades like "his
unique skill taking on abstract blue-sky corporate objectives
and converts them into specific actionable goals".
The company takes a big risk
by hiring me (how can anybody really evaluate me in a few
hours?) but the bigger risk is the one I take in joining a
company. The question I want to ask (but never do) is "Who
am I replacing? Why did they leave? What did they not like
about the job? Can I call them?" Also, "Do you believe in
work/life separation?" Also, "Do you ruthlessly lay of
employees like [let me protect the guilty] in order to
achieve the quarterly earnings target?" Also, "how crazy is
database administration in your company; is it as
wonderfully wonderfully (wonderfully) smooth as eBay and
Intel or as crazy and terrible as [let me protect the
guilty]." Also, "Do your team members go to NoCOUG
conferences and, if not, why not?" Excuse my NoCOUG plug.
I would hire a young person
or experienced person and teach them all I know but
companies don't like to do that. They do like to complain
about the shortage of good DBAs though. I once hired a
person with very little Oracle or DBA experience and asked
him to work on certification. He completed certification
(8i) in nine months and, 15 years later, is still with the
same company as a glorified Oracle architect.
For every technical hard-to-answer question somebody asks
me that I cannot answer (e.g. how do you fix wait event "X" on
Exadata 12c Release 2), there is a technical harder-to-answer
question that I can ask them that they can't answer. My
favorite is "What is serializability of transactions. Does
Oracle provide it?" (the answer is "No"). https://iggyfernandez.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/dba-101-what-does-serializable-really-mean/ with
two additional links at the bottom.
I have never met a DBA who could answer the question "what
are the deliverables of the DBA role?" to my satisfaction. How likely is it that I will work
on the deliverables if I cannot articulate them? Installing
security patches is not a deliverable, but a task. I would
hire a SQL Server DBA who could give me even a partial
answer and was a quick learner. https://iggyfernandez.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/favorite-quotes-just-a-mess-without-a-clue/.
I have often been rejected for jobs because I was not
competent enough at that time. I have achieved all
those competencies by this time but, strangely enough, I no
longer want those jobs any more. There are jobs out there that
I want but they won't hire me because I am not competent
enough at this time. C'est la vie.
Just some random thoughts of
course. Kindest regards and best of luck finding and
retaining great people.
Iggy.
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 18:29:19 +0200
Subject: Re: Job interview questions
From: jure.bratina_at_gmail.com
To: tkiernan_at_pti-nps.com
CC: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Hi,
an interesting post I recently read: https://amitzil.wordpress.com/2015/04/26/interviewing-a-dba-2/
Regards
On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 5:50
PM, TJ Kiernan <tkiernan_at_pti-nps.com>
wrote:
For those of you who have
conducted job interviews, what sort of questions
have you found to be effective in evaluating a
candidate’s skill level? I’ve started a list
that consists of some Oracle trivia and some
open-ended work habit/personality type
questions.
Incidentally, I know of a
Oracle DBA job opening in Omaha, NE. Please
contact me off-list if you’re interested in
knowing more.
Thanks,
T. J. Kiernan
Lead Database
Administrator
National
Pharmaceutical Services
P.O. Box
407 Boys Town, NE 68010
Direct: (402) 965-8800 extn.
1039
Toll Free: (800) 546-5677 extn.
1039
E-Mail:
tkiernan_at_pti-nps.com
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Mon Jun 08 2015 - 22:37:39 CEST