Re: Job interview questions

  • From: MARK BRINSMEAD <mark.brinsmead@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Tim Gorman <tim@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 16:35:59 -0400

Yes, I think a good interviewer will do this -- as a precise technical
question as an "ice breaker", rather than in search of a precise technical
answer.

A recent example was "What parameters do you set to adjust the size of the
SGA?". In my response I mentioned -- vaguely -- several of the relevant
parameters, and explained that I stopped trying to memorize "trivia" like
parameter names years ago, because I can almost always find the *correct*
value in 5 seconds, with a google search or equivalent. (In this case, the
parameters I am interested in probably already appear in the SPFILE.)

I also mentioned that the parameters themselves and the way they interact
with one another can change subtly from version to version, so before doing
anything radical I usually consult the documentation to refresh my memory.
5 minutes invested up front can save hours of embarrassing downtime!

In some places, my answer would have been considered "wrong", or even ended
the interview. In that case, I was offered the position.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Tim Gorman <tim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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@xxxxxxxxx
To: tkiernan@xxxxxxxxxxx
CC: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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,


[image: NPS.png]


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@xxxxxxxxxxx






JPEG image

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. oracle-l
  3. Archive
  4. 06-2015