RE: How do you conduct technical interviews ?
- From: <Joel.Patterson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <andrew.kerber@xxxxxxxxx>, <oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:33:13 -0400
Yeah if memorization was the answer I would be out of a job a decade
ago. Indeed that is one of my problems learning foreign languages.
I'm waiting to live there and I know it is easier then. I have looked
up and read about Checkpoints every year or two for 15 years, and yet
I'm thinking - done forgot although the simple one liner is in the back
of my mind... so for the interview, yes I would look up the frigid
response so I don't look so stupid to people expecting answers to
'simple basics'.
Being the only DBA, now for two companies for four years, (no I've only
been a DBA for four companies), I find it mind boggling how much there
is to know. I have so many scripts that I know my library, and
practically everything I do is documented and categorized so I can
'find' it again. Rotating logs for the OEM Application Server,
Learning Grid, Rman, materialized views, streams, data pump, AWR,
upgrading all types of databases ... like peoplesoft (geez, I meant
peoplesoft where the tools version has been frozen back in time).
On and on and on. For #@$ sake, why would you memorize everything...
It just changes in a year or two anyway.
Take Einstein's MO when asked his phone number (that he didn't know).
Why memorize something I can just look up? Touche. Interviewers
have a hard time, and I've been there, but interviewees have a hard time
also because of pre-conceived notions. Heck I do the job, by
myself, ... you give my my library and your database and I'll give you
the answers or the solutions (eventually depending on how hard the
issue). .... I can look inside my script for the answer - oh yeh! (I
put it there), but I don't necessarily type everything every time and so
don't remember. Like was it DBA_USAGES_STATISTICS, or
DBA_FEATURES_USAGE_something.... Use it once a year, don't need to
remember it. Know where it is, and in fact I would run or automate a
script that uses it for years until I needed to know it again.... After
which time I would promptly forget it again....
Like that checkpoint thingy.... Flush it, log switch, io get it
together, database restore .. ... Face it, I can look it up and get
the pat answer in no time right from Tom's Expert Oracle database
architecture book (which is another I would review).
So... yes some of these questions that are meant to 'filter' out the
candiates can server to 'filter' them out a bit to fast.
________________________________
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Kerber
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:24 AM
To: oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: How do you conduct technical interviews ?
You have to draw a line somewhere on the memorization piece. I might
ask the interviewee to name a few background processes in the Oracle
database on *nix, but I wouldnt necessarily expect him to go into detail
about what each process does.
A general answer would be sufficient, for example pmon monitors
processes running in the database. If the candidate needed highly
detailed information, I would expect (and want) him to look it up. In
my opinion, the ability to find an answer to something that he doesn't
know the answer to, or to check on what he thinks is the answer before
he does something, is vital.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:10 AM, Dba DBA <oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I never said they need those skills. What I want is the right type of
personality where they will try to solve a problem in stead of surfing
the internet and waiting for someone else to do it.
On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 1:47 AM, Pedro Espinoza <raindoctor@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
It is kinda hard to get candidates who have networking, sysadmin, db
skills. There is no one to blame for such state of affairs except for
the industry. Nowadays, employing a person is like buying a commodity,
so that companies can easily replace(buy) commodities (an oracle dba
with another; a db2 dba with another; solaris admin with another solaris
admin).
On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 9:01 AM, Dba DBA <oracledbaquestions@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
.
The kind of people I don't like are the cancer type. One thing goes
wrong. They completely stop working. They send one email and then surf
the internet. Make little to no effort to follow up. Someone gets back
to them, its not perfect. One more email and back to surfing the
internet.
There are alot of people like that. How do you find pro-active, smart
people, with positive attitudes ?
--
Andrew W. Kerber
'If at first you dont succeed, dont take up skydiving.'
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