The most important aspects of a candidate are personality and attitude.
When I was a hiring manager, I used to have the "remote office" test; if you
hire the candidate and have to work with them all week in a remote office with
no other human contact; at the ending the day will you be happy to go for a
beer/meal with them or will you feign tiredness and go hide from them in your
hotel room? This works remarkably well as a yardstick.
The very best teams I have built have always had a good attitude and
personality.
If you like your (potential) colleagues and they exhibit competence and have a
positive collegiate attitude, hire them.
Regs
Neil.
sent from my phone
On 9 Jun 2015, at 20:33, TJ Kiernan <tkiernan@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks everybody for your insightful responses. If you have more, please
keep them coming.
I think I was overly cursory with my description of both “skills” and “Oracle
trivia.” The sort of trivia I was thinking was along the lines of, “How does
Oracle store a date?” Ideally, the candidate can answer correctly, but as
long as they don’t spout off the NLS default, we’re in decent shape and all
the better if the conversation travels down the implicit conversion is evil
rabbit hole.
Evaluating a stranger’s personality, technical knowledge, how they apply that
knowledge under duress, and their willingness and ability to learn in the
space of an hour (or however long it takes) is no small task. This thread
has helped me crystallize my thoughts as well as give me some good topics of
discussion to bring up.
Thanks,
T. J.
From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of David Fitzjarrell
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 1:01 PM
To: niall.litchfield@xxxxxxxxx; Herald.ten.Dam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Job interview questions
And, of course one from column A and two from column B ... (may be
carbon-dating myself with that one).
Some of the best interviews I've conducted have led to 'unexpected' places,
much in the way Tim describes. You CAN learn much about the candidate from
posture and delivery during the interview. I agree it's not about 'how many
you get right' but how well they 'recover' from an incorrect or incomplete
response. Those who can take the pressure show it during the interview. I
have no issue with a confident candidate, but I do take exception to an
arrogant one. I'm adding to a team, and arrogance is a sign the potential
candidate may not be a team player.
An interview isn't a trivia contest:
"In which Oracle release did the redo vector first appear?" (Version 6)
it should be a learning experience for both parties, Yes, I like to know
what ground the candidate has covered in his/her career (if only to prove
that his/her 8 years of experience is progressive experience, not the same
first year chores multiplied 8 times) but if a candidate has determination
and a desire to succeed any 'holes' in their experience can be dealt with
later (not every DBA has worked with RAC, for example). I will look at
websites that tout 'Oracle interview questions and answers' to see what
someone thinks is important and to see if the answers provided are actually
correct. I don't have a 'canned' set of questions since I rely on the
resume/CV to point me in the proper direction for a given candidate, basing
my questions on his/her experience. Of course there are candidates who have
done nothing more than use OEM/TOAD/etc to manage databases and know only
where the button lies for increasing the size of a data file, for example.
Those interviews don't last long.
I've been successful in selecting candidates when the need arose; maybe
that's the result of 26+ years of 'in the trenches' experience. I've also
had interviews go on longer than originally planned because the candidate was
engaged and willing to go down the paths that opened up from previous
questions. Such candidates have made welcome additions to the team.
Of course your mileage may vary. :)
David Fitzjarrell
Principal author, "Oracle Exadata Survival Guide"
