Tag Archive: Interviewing

Land a Dream DBA or Developer Job: Seven Questions to Ask

Written on July 21, 2011 by in Interviewing, SQL Server

Looking back over all my years of interviewing and being interviewed, I realize that there are simple secrets to getting a great job offer.

The big secret is just this: ask great questions.

Interviewing Goes Both Ways

Asking thoughtful questions in your interview process, from screening to salary negotiations, makes you more powerful. It shows you’re engaged, informed, and in control of your career.It's easy to remember a great engineer.

A candidate who asks good questions automatically demonstrates that they’re selective, and they have choices.

But what do you ask? Here’s a checklist to go through before each interview to develop questions and remind yourself what to emphasize by your questions. By all means, write down your questions and take them with you.

1. Be the Candidate Who Loves to Learn

Ask at least one question about technology you’re unfamiliar with. Find out what technologies are in place at your potential job before an in-person interview and do an hour of research on those you don’t specialize in. When it comes up in the interview make it clear that you were inspired by the interview process to start learning.

Don’t pretend to be an expert in fields you don’t know about. Do be honest about your interests and show you have initiative. Ask questions about challenges they’ve hit and what informed their design and implementation decisions.

Before your interview, make notes on times when you faced a difficult task, learned something new, and were able to improve something. You’ll likely be asked questions about your experiences when you can tell your stories.

2. Ask At Least Two Smart Technology Questions

Most candidates just ask basic questions about what versions of software are running. This is a great chance to set yourself apart.

  • What are their pain points? This is something we care a lot about at Brent Ozar PLF, but we don’t mind sharing our mojo with you for your interview. This is the most interesting question you can ask: tell me where it hurts in your technology. You’ll want to get lots of detail on this. Make notes and follow up on different points they cover. Ask this question of different people throughout a day of interviews and compare the responses. I promise it’ll be interesting.
  • Are they leveraging their strengths? When you’re familiar with the products they’re using, think about the strengths of that product. Ask a question in a way that shows your knowledge. If you know that the JurgenPlufen can provide high availability when clustered, then ask if they’re doing that. If they aren’t, ask why– the reason will let you know a lot about their business. Keep your tone curious, not judgmental.
  • What major changes have they made? Over the history of the company, are there any revolutions in technology they can tell you about? How did they handle that change, and what would they do differently now?
  • Are they open to other technologies? This matters more to some people than others, but it’s an important thing to know. Is this a company that looks for the right tool to solve an individual problem, or do they prefer to standardize to narrow the scope of support? There are pros and cons to both ways, but you need to know which way they go in order to see how you fit in.
  • Have they tried the New Hotness? This is something you want to be a little careful with, unless you’re always about the new hotness and it’s important to work for someone who’ll support that. But if they describe a problem and you think there’s a fairly obvious newer product they could by or upgrade they could make to support that, ask about it. You want to find out why they haven’t gone there– are they slow to adopt? Short on people? Short on budget for new technologies?
Good questions show you’re not only a skilled technician. You’re an engineer who takes the initiative to find out how to improve an environment.

3. Ask A Question About Process

You want to know what processes are in place at a prospective employer. You also want to show that you’re responsible.

As a candidate for DBA positions I made it a habit to ask during phone screens, “Can you tell me a bit about your change management processes?” More often than not, IT hiring managers were thrilled that I’d asked. When I asked follow up questions it was clearly hard for them to sit still.

Focus on exploratory questions– don’t be critical. For a later interview, you should think about scenarios you might be in and create a hypothetical question. “What if we decided to change the Yak so that it had air conditioning? Can you walk me through what the process of making that change would be like here?”

Be ready in case the question is turned back around to ask what YOU would recommend— that should be a home run.

4. Ask About the Business

Before you ever talk to the company look for technical blogs, or any blogs written by employees. These are a great source for information about how things work at the company, and also a great source for questions.

It's good to ask about what's important. But not just about tuna.

This is what the competition is asking.

Always check out recent news articles for the company as well. Care about the industry. Make sure you have a few good questions about that market and where the company is going– if you make it to higher level interviews with executives, these will be particularly useful. If you don’t have much experience in that industry, it’s perfectly fine to ask questions like, “I haven’t worked for a dairy but I’ve read there are three major players. As a smaller company, how do you position yourselves in the milking industry?”

Your overall goal is to show you’re not just a technologist, you’re a potential invested employee.

5. Ask A Question that Shows You Listen

On a full day of interviews, you will be able to take information you get in one interview and use it to ask questions of other people. This is one of the great reasons to take notes in your interviews.

Be careful that your questions don’t seem to pit people against each other, or slight the previous person you talked to. You want to ask questions more like, “Harriet described the asynchronous processing she designed for the Femisphere system. Can you tell me how that works from an operational perspective?”

This shows you listened to Harriet and absorbed some of the concepts she discussed. Not everyone can do that! If you have follow up questions ready because you understand some of the operational challenges in the area, you’re in the catbird seat.

6. Ask A Question That Shows Your Strengths

Sometimes people ask what your greatest strengths are, sometimes they don’t. Figure out what your greatest strengths will be for that position, but do it so you can ask the right questions.

Let me get one thing straight: this isn’t BS. You want to pick a few real things that set you apart and make you satisfied about work.

Here’s some example questions:

“I like to identify big changes and drive them to completion in an active production environment. Is this a place where that’s encouraged? What are the barriers to large changes? What support is available?” Big changes work much better in some companies than others, and you want to know if you’ll always be holding your horses, or if you can make things happen. (If you ask this question, have two stories of how you’ve done this in the past ready.)

“I really enjoy specializing in certain areas of NERDERY and diving deep. This means I like to take four hours a week to do research. I can document what I learn and present it to the team. Would people be interested in that?”

“I am a generalist and I really enjoy reaching out to other teams and working out how components integrate. For example, would I have access to the configuration of the Gigabiggers and is their team open to having me sit with them once a week to learn about what they do?”

A question like this shows self-awareness, and it will tell you a lot about whether you’re going to sink, swim, or run for shore in that environment.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Interviewing is a bit like swimming. At first you have no idea how to do it, but you get thrown in the water and you learn it to survive. If you never practice then your technique suffers.

If you haven’t interviewed in a while or if you are changing industries and are not sure how you’ll do, ask for help. Get connected with bloggers or people in the industry on Twitter. Go to a user group. Ask people if they would be willing to do a 45 minute practice interview with you as the candidate. Listen to their feedback. When you practice, make sure you’re asking them questions as well as responding to questions.

Don’t be afraid to go on multiple job interviews. The downside is that interviewing is hard work, and it’s unpaid. The upside is that you can learn a ton, make great connections, and also find that you’re better at a lot of things than you ever realized.

Did You Land That Dream Job? What did You Ask?

I’d love to hear about your experiences as candidates and about the questions you asked. Did these make a big difference in your interviews? Do you feel that your questions set you apart from the competition?

Kendra Little

Kendra specializes in high availability and performance tuning. She is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server-- the highest technical SQL Server Certification available. Kendra loves databases and software development more than long walks on the beach. Those cartoons in her blog posts? She draws 'em all. Read more and contact Kendra.

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How To Hire Top Talent

Written on July 11, 2011 by in SQL Server

You want to hire a fantastic DBA or database developer.

You want someone who can hit the ground running, who you can trust to maintain your current system and tune it like a pro. Plus you want someone who can see key improvements, communicate effectively, and drive change in your system.

You want it all.

It’s incredibly hard to find this candidate. First of all, you’re not the only one looking.

But guess what? You’re probably looking for the wrong person. And you’re almost certainly asking the wrong questions.

Newsflash: You’re Not Looking To Hire an IT Pro Who’s Done the Same Job Before

Hiring top talent just got a bit more fashion flair

It's hard to hire people who are superstars and don't have something unique about them. Like a mask.

I’ve talked to many hiring managers about what they’re looking for and how they look for it– I’ve asked these questions both as a candidate and as someone who’s helping them find the right person. I typically hear this:

I’m looking for an IT pro who has five or more years of experience with our technology, is an expert in several of those areas, and who can communicate effectively.

This limits your field too much right from the start.

Managing and developing data environments is interesting because of the variety of work available. There are common patterns and practices, but environments are highly unique and technology varies widely.

Say you want someone who’s worked with highly available internet applications. Is the person who’s already worked with a website just like yours and happens to be looking for a job now necessarily the best person?

Instead, consider this:

I’m looking for an IT pro who adapts quickly and has five years or more of experience managing or developing data environments. Strong production change experience is absolutely necessary.

There are small changes here, but it makes a huge difference. You’re open to many more people, but you’ve specified if there are any particular types of experience that are absolutely required.

Maybe you’ll find someone who hasn’t worked on Windows in several years, but has an interest in your company. Maybe they’ve worked on related technology, but different components than the ones you use. Don’t shut them out. Instead, open your mind.

Break Out of the Recruiter Room: Ask the Right People “Who Is A Great Candidate?”

Your recruiting staff is overworked. They use common tools for hiring for different departments– they probably have one or two websites they post to regularly and some established channels for finding candidates.

You want more. You need to use smart alternatives to find great candidates. Here’s how you do that:

  • Write a good job description. The job description says a lot about your business and you as the hiring manager. Write it like you care. Think about the person you’re looking for, not just the position you’re trying to fill. Be clear if the job entails on-call duties. Mention if you have a flexible working option, and if relocation is available. Please– if you list requirements for “X years with Y product”, make sure you get the product name right and that someone can realistically have been working with it for that number of years. (I don’t have 10 years of experience with SQL Server 2003, and I never will.)
  • Throw your net wisely. Find out where your recruiters are listing, and supplement with other sites if you can. Not all recruiters post on StackOverflow.
  • Use your network. Let your network on LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter know that you’re hiring. Send emails to former colleagues who may have leads.
  • Reach out to community leaders. Drop a line to community leaders in the area you’re searching. Include the job description. Ask if they know anyone great who’s looking, and ask them for feedback on the job description. You can find these leaders on Twitter and in blogs. (We’re happy to help.)

You Won’t Hire a Great DBA or Developer By Asking Boring Interview Questions

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked about the difference between a clustered and non clustered index, I’d be blogging from a private island. Questions like this imply you’ve phoned it in and you don’t really care about your candidate.

Don’t try to find experts with nit-picky questions, either. If you have Senior SQL Server DBAs ons staff, they probably think your next Senior SQL Server DBA should be able to wax poetic on how to change collation or write a dissertation on the nuances between data types. Once you work with a product for a while and you do certain things you get this mindset– everyone should know that. But this knowledge is typically based on how your own applications are developed.

These questions also turn off great people. Your best candidate may or may not be able to answer these immediately in extreme detail– but if they couldn’t, they could find the answer and test it out in a matter of minutes. So why not find that out?

Screen candidates by asking about their experience, not about your own experience. Become good at asking probing questions, and drive through the experience questions to find out what knowledge they have about the technology they were working on.

If you don’t have a big support team and you need someone to come up to speed immediately, don’t panic. Ask questions about times when the candidate needed to learn new skills quickly. Spend time on it– find out how much they remember and what they found difficult. You want someone who can learn, and who can describe hurdles they’ve overcome in learning in the past. Your great candidate is someone who knows that not everything comes easily, and they’ll tell you about that.

Use Timed Labs in an IT Job Interview

If it’s critical that your new hire already have certain skills, don’t try to determine that with Q&A.

Set up a VM with an environment job candidates to work in. Build questions, or have someone build them for you. If you really need those skills immediately, they should be able to fix broken things in that environment, and do it under a time limit with someone sitting in the room with them.

If they’ll have the internet available to them while they work, make it available in the lab environment, along with any standard tools.

Call in an Interviewing Professional

What if you’re in a small company and you need to hire an expert in an area where you don’t already have an expert? How do you know to ask the right questions or set up the right lab?

In this case, build the parts of your interview that cover team fit and interaction with related teams on your own. For the specialty area, rent an expert.

This can be simpler and less expensive than you think. Take our team for example– we want to help people find the best candidate who’s the right fit for them. Contact us and we’ll work out how to help you.

Be Consistent Across Job Interviews

This is a trick. Because guess what? In order to be consistent, you have to be prepared.

It’s good to be consistent for HR reasons, but it’s even better to be prepared with a set of good questions. And make sure that all your interviewers across different sessions know what they’re asking about, and have a set of prepared questions to ask as well.

You won’t end up having the same conversation over and over again because good questions start conversations where you use good follow up questions, or probing questions.

Never forget: top candidates are interviewing you, too. They have choices and they’re judging on multiple criteria, including team dynamics, manager effectiveness, and whether you appear to have your SharePoint together.

Prepare your questions and be a little serious, but also be human and have some fun. Share interesting things about your business and your team. Show that you listen. Listening makes you interesting. Top talent often will pick the team that’s fun and interesting over the boring team that pays a little better.

Make sure that you do your research and read the candidate’s blog. Make a place in your interview structure where you ask the candidate about specific blog posts they’ve written. Ask why they did something a certain way, or what they might do differently now.

Are Your Change Management Styles Compatible?

There are cowgirls and there are bean counters, and there’s everything in between. Allow a little time before you start asking about the candidate’s change management process and style– because this candidate should be asking you about that.

Make sure that you cover this in the interview process at some point. You want to find out how the candidate handles change and if they can fit well with your process. If you have a really heavy process, it may drive them nuts, and cause you endless trouble. The opposite can also be true.

This is also a good place to find out how your candidate has handled errors in the past. If you’re looking with someone with experience handling critical downtimes smoothly and calmly, devote a lot of time to asking them about past situations and how they handled it. You may also include several hypothetical questions in a time limit, in either a written or verbal format.

Ask Candidates for Feedback

Let every candidate know at the end of their interview loop that you welcome feedback about the interview experience at any time. Make sure they have your card with your email address. If they send you feedback at any time, read it, keep it, and review it later. You may see patterns you want to change.

You Can Hire a Top DBA or a Superstar Database Developer

You can hire great talent. When you do, you’ll find they aren’t what you picture ahead of time.

They have a varied work history, possibly. They may be significantly older or younger than you would expect. They may not have the degree you’d assume. But they have a passion for data, an enjoyment for learning, a love of technology, and a level head on their shoulders when everything goes down— and that’s all that matters.

Kendra Little

Kendra specializes in high availability and performance tuning. She is a Microsoft Certified Master in SQL Server-- the highest technical SQL Server Certification available. Kendra loves databases and software development more than long walks on the beach. Those cartoons in her blog posts? She draws 'em all. Read more and contact Kendra.

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Recruiters are not your friends or your enemies.

Written on April 7, 2009 by in Interviewing, SQLServerPedia Syndication

Recruiters are everyday people just like you and me.  They have feelings, dreams, families and jobs.

What Recruiters Do

Their job is to fill empty positions.

Notice that I didn’t say that their job is to find YOU a job.  It’s not.

There’s a separate group of people out there who work as your agent, and their job is to find you your next gig.  You have to pay them out of your own pocket, because they’re actively working for you on your behalf.  I don’t know if you get what you pay for with those folks, because I’ve never used ‘em, but I want to draw attention to the fact that you’re not paying a recruiter anything.

Recruiters are paid by the companies to find Mr. or Mrs. Right.

Mr. Right Now

Mr. Right - excellent song.

They’re Not Looking for Mr. Right Now.

The recruiter’s compensation is usually based on a couple of factors, and one of those involves a minimum length of time that the new hire stays on board.  If the new person bails after a month or two, the recruiter loses money.

If you call your recruiter and say, “Listen, this place is a hole, and I want you to find me another job ASAP,” the recruiter’s answer is going to reflect the fact that they’re about to lose money and credibility with the client.  Furthermore, you’re asking them to place you at yet another company and risk more of their income and credibility.

The recruiter will see you as a business risk, and they may come back with something like, “Sure, Bob, I’ll find you another gig pronto.  Just sit tight and I’ll take care of everything, but don’t quit until I’ve got you another job lined up.”  After they’ve kept you on the hook long enough to get their full compensation, they might not return your phone calls.  You’re stuck in a bad job and you’ve burned the bridge with the recruiter.  (I know.  It happened to me.)

The Questions to Ask Recruiters

Recruiters are in the business of filling positions.  They’re not in the business of database administration, programming, or anything else remotely technical.  It’s not their fault if they don’t know exactly whether or not you’re qualified for a particular gig, and you can’t get mad at them for not knowing their cluster from their log.  You have to help them help you.

When a recruiter calls or emails me about a position, I ask a few basic questions to determine whether or not it’s a fit for me (or for someone I know, since I’m not looking for a job):

  • What’s the pay range?
  • What’s the job description?
  • How many other DBAs are in the shop? (or developers, or sysadmins, whatever you do)
  • How many servers are they managing? (or applications, etc)

The first time a recruiter calls me, they don’t usually want to give out the pay range.  My answer (and I’ve even got an email template for this) is:

I’m not looking for a job right now, but I’d love to help you out.  If you give me that information, I’ll pass it on to my circle of peers.  One of them might be itching to get out of their current position.  I’m not giving you their name/email/phone, but I’ll pass yours along.

I’ve been burned too many times by passing on information without any pay range – my friends have put time and effort into following up with the recruiter only to find out that the pay was absurdly low.  I don’t want to burn any more bridges with my friends, and I’m sure you’d understand that, but I’ll be more than happy to pass your information along if you include the pay range, job description, number of other DBAs and the number of servers involved.

Most of them don’t respond, and that’s fine – it means they’re looking for someone willing to work for peanuts.  Keep in mind that if they were really paying great wages, they wouldn’t have had to hire a recruiter.  The only times companies hire recruiters is when:

  • None of their employees would refer a friend to this company
  • They’ve run out of local contacts (probably because nobody wants to come to work for ‘em anymore)
  • They’re looking for a skillset that doesn’t exist locally (and therefore they need to cough up some dough)

If they respond and you want the job, great – but 99% of the time, you’re not going to want it.  That doesn’t mean you should delete the email and stop the process there.

Help the Recruiter and Build a Relationship

No matter how wacko the pay rate or skill requirements are (“I need ten years experience with Windows 2008″), I give the recruiter open, honest feedback.  The next time the recruiter gets a SQL Server job posting, I want to be the first person they contact, no matter how senior or junior the position is.  I want them to shoot me an email and say, “Brent, I just got this job posting.  Is it realistic?  Where should I look for people?”  That helps me get my friends the pick of the best available jobs.

In order to make that happen, I have to give the recruiter really good feedback.  Here’s some examples of the types of things I’ve emailed back to recruiters lately:

“I can see why you’re having a tough time filling that position, and why you’re having to search the net.  It’s not going to be easy to find someone with experience in replication, SSIS, and Sharepoint, because those three technologies are not usually used in combination together.  You might want to go back to the client and suggest that they prioritize those and only focus on one, maybe two max.  Otherwise, I’d be really suspicious of anybody who says they’ve done a lot of work in all three.”

“That’s a completely fair salary range for that position.  I don’t know anyone with those skills who’s in the market right now, but I’m passing it on to my network to see if anybody’s interested.”

“The salary range and job description don’t seem to match up: it’s going to be pretty difficult finding a SQL Server DBA with ten years of replication experience for $30-$40 per hour for a three month contract.  I wish you the best of luck with your search, but I’m afraid I can’t pass this on to my network right now.”

Don’t be a jerk, but give them the best possible feedback that enables them to take actions.  Tell them what to take back to the client for feedback, and it shouldn’t involve suggested bodily orifices in which to place the job description.  Remember, you want the recruiter to call you back next time, and your only incentive is your attitude.

Keep Track of Recruiters Over Time

Not keep in touch – keep track.  If you interact with a recruiter and they’re a real class act, put them in your address book.  If they’re rude and inconsiderate, make a note of that too.  (Side note – they’re doing the same thing with you.)

This is especially important if you connect your friends with recruiters.  Sadly, I’ve had cases where recruiters jerked friends of mine around or wasted their time, and I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.  I wish I’d have learned this lesson earlier in my career, and you young’uns, learn it now.  You’re going to be interacting with recruiters for the rest of your professional life: remember who the good ones are, and do ‘em favors!

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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Top 10 SQL Server DBA Interview Questions

Written on January 22, 2009 by in Interviewing, SQL Server

I’ve put together my best questions to ask during an interview when I’m hiring a senior database administrator for Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle.  I don’t expect any DBA to ace all of these – I’m not looking for easy questions, but rather for the top ten questions, tough challenges to let the really good DBAs shine during the job interview.

10. Solve the FizzBuzz problem with SQL code.

Here’s a quote of the FizzBuzz problem:

Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100. But for multiples of three print “Fizz” instead of the number and for the multiples of five print “Buzz”. For numbers which are multiples of both three and five print “FizzBuzz”.

Challenge the DBA to do this on a whiteboard with pseudocode.  The code doesn’t have to be perfect syntax, but we’re looking for the ability to solve this problem clearly and quickly.  I’d ask this of any type of DBA, production or development.

There’s countless ways to do this, but I’m almost not as concerned with their technical accuracy as I am with the way they approach the problem itself. Do they get excited? Do they scribble out a few different ideas? Are they stunned at the thought of having to actually write T-SQL? Do they make excuses?

9. I’m a manager, and you’re my Senior DBA. Explain to me why we shouldn’t switch to MySQL or Oracle.

A senior DBA should have a basic grasp of the advantages and disadvantages of the major database platforms.  They’ve probably answered this question before, too – if not from a manager, then from a developer who’s whining because they think Platform X is better than Platform Y.

I also want to see senior DBAs that can clearly explain a very political concept without taking it personally.  My ideal DBA knows when his platform isn’t the right fit, and has no problem suggesting other ideas.

8. I’m a developer. Explain why I need a unique key on my table.

And really pretend that you’re a developer.  If you’re a DBA manager, bring in one of your toughest developers to play bad cop.  Challenge them – does it really improve performance or manageability?  How do you know?  Is it just your opinion, or where’s the proof?

If they can explain it in clear, easy-to-comprehend terms, that bodes well for their ability to communicate with other teams.  Speaking of inter-team communication…

7. A project manager needs a new SQL Server. What do you ask her?

Use a brochure from any third party application (like Microsoft Project Server or Blackberry Enterprise Server) and say the project manager wants to set this up.  I want the DBA to ask questions like:

  • How big will the database be?  (Leading to questions about whether we can add the database to an existing server)
  • How critical is the database?  (Leading to questions about clustering, disaster recovery, high availability)
  • What’s the company standard on virtualization?  (Can we save money by using a virtual server)

If the senior DBA candidate comes back with a shocked look and doesn’t know where to begin, then they haven’t done a lot of deployments.  That might be fine if your shop rarely does new deployments, or if you’re hiring a development DBA, but they still should have some basic knowledge about sizing.

6. When and where does the local user group meet?

I’m not asking if they regularly attend, I’m not asking if they speak, I’m not asking if they run for office.  At the senior DBA level, I’d just be thankful if they were at least vaguely aware that user groups existed.  Huge massive bonus points if they’ve been involved with the community, and I’d skip the next question.

5. Can you give me references from other DBAs and developers who aren’t at your company?

I want to know that they’ve got at least a couple of people they can call when the going gets rough and the servers catch fire.  These other references could be mentors, or could be people they’ve mentored or just worked with along the way.

I expect to get terrified looks, and I’d answer those by saying, “I don’t want to raise any red flags by calling people at your current employer, and I’m sure you know people who’ve left your company and moved on.  I just want to talk to people who’ve worked with you on projects or on problems.  I won’t ask for your level of technical competency, because these other guys can’t judge that.  I just want to know you’ve interacted with them.”

I know, it’s creepy, but here’s the problem: there’s a lot of fakers out there with all the right answers, but no actual experience.  At the senior level, for somebody with five or more years of experience, they have to have met other people who can at least verify they’re database administrators.

4. How do you learn new things?

When new versions of database servers come out, how do you prefer to learn how to use ‘em?

Ideally, I want to hear a DBA say they build their own server under the desk when the beta comes out, and start hammering it and getting their arms around it long before it gets released.  Not everybody has that much time, though – they might be stretched to the breaking point at their current job, with barely enough time to get their work done, let alone train on new versions.  In that case, I like to level-set them by saying, “You’re coming to work here because we’re not that kind of shop.  I want you to keep your knowledge current.  How much time per month do you need to keep current, and how would you do it?”

Some DBAs learn best by going to offsite training classes, and can’t budget their time well enough or maintain a train of thought to learn inside the office.  As a manager, you want to know that before you hire the person, so you can build that training budget into their salary.  (You don’t want unqualified employees, do you? Yeah, you probably do – I’ve worked for you, ha ha ho ho.)

3. What third party database tools are your favorites?

If somebody’s been doing database administration long enough to claim the title Senior DBA, they’ve built up a little wish list of database management tools they’ve seen along the way. Tool types might include:

  • Data modeling
  • Change management
  • Backup compression
  • Performance monitoring
  • Alerting

If they had a $X tool budget for their workstation, how would they spend it?  Forget corporate standards – I want to know what tools they’d use if they could pick on their own.  I’m not asking what software they’ve had experience using, because they might work somewhere so cheap that they’re restricted to native tools only.  They have to have at least seen some ads for products that looked cool, though.

I might follow up with questions about tools we were using in-house already by saying things like, “We’re currently using Product X for monitoring.  Have you seen it?  What’d you think of it?”

This does two things: it gives me an outside opinion about other tools out there that my DBAs could be using to do a better job, and it tells me how much the job candidate has seen.

2. Ask stressful questions.

In one of the earlier questions, you probably found an area of weakness for the DBA’s knowledge – heck, nobody’s perfect.  Go after that weakness.  Challenge it, make them uncomfortable, and really push their buttons.

This is your one chance to see how they handle stress before the brown stuff actually hits the fan.  Ideally, a senior DBA is someone who’s had their cage rattled more than once, and they’re comfortable under the gun.

No, don’t use an actual gun during the interview – but that reminds me of a plastic slot machine I used to keep on my desk at the office.  When you pulled the lever, it shot water straight at you like a squirt gun.  Always fun to see how somebody handled that one, but I wouldn’t let job candidates pull the lever.  That’s a little overboard!

1. Why are you here?

Zoom out to the big picture.  Tell me why you’re in this chair right now.

Is this some sort of career plan? Have they heard good things about the environment from another employee? Are they looking for an employee discount on products?  (It doesn’t work at wine & spirits companies, just for the record.)  Or are they just desperate?  Nothing wrong with desperation, but remember that desperate employees are desperate for something, and you’d better find out what it is.  If they’re desperate for money, it’s going to color the judgements they make.  I’m not worried about someone stealing data and selling it as much as I’m worried about someone taking the job and then bailing out shortly thereafter for just a little more money from somebody else.

Top DBA Interview Questions That You Don’t See Here

I’ve seen DBA managers asking questions about tough challenges that had come up recently in the shop, such as, “Pretend you have horrible TempDB contention, really seriously bad load, and you have to fix it.  What do you do?”  The candidate would then name off all kinds of answers while the DBA manager sat back and said, “Nope.  Didn’t work.  Tried that too.  Nope.”  The DBA manager feels more and more smug while the candidate feels more and more frustrated, and the end result is a DBA manager that thinks the candidate isn’t good enough for the job.

The problem with that scenario is that the DBA manager expects the candidate to be able to answer a question that had already stumped their own staff.  I always want to grab that manager and say, “Look, if I was interviewing YOU with this question, you’d have failed, because you couldn’t figure it out in sixty seconds either!”

If you’re going to ask a candidate a technical question, my rule of thumb is that it should take your existing staff the same length of time to answer the question.  If a technical challenge took your staff three days to figure out, then you should expect the job candidate to take that same length of time to answer the question!

Want help interviewing your DBA candidates?  Check out our services.

Brent Ozar PLF Team

Brent Ozar PLF is a boutique consulting firm focused on understanding your environment and strategy. We partner with you to objectively identify pain points and develop solutions that align to your business goals. Your experience comes first; we share our knowledge and expertise to help you.

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Being the Porsche of job candidates

Written on October 22, 2008 by in Interviewing

Stephen Wynkoop blogged about social networking as a part of the hiring process.  I’ll sum it up in a line: like it or not, you are being Googled when you submit your resume.  Get over it.

Would you buy a car without searching for an online review?  Sure, some people do – otherwise the dismal Chrysler Sebring would never sell a copy.  If you haven’t read Jeremy Clarkson’s review of the Chrysler Sebring, go do it, because it’ll brighten your day with gems like this:

Wanda is not your typical Sebring driver.

The Chrysler Sebring Convertible of job candidates, but I like her already.

“A Sebring can do nothing well. It was hopeless in crosswinds and the only option you need on a twisty road are sick bags. Interestingly, however, while the ride is very soft, the suspension still manages to crash about like a drawer full of cutlery when it is asked to deal with a small pothole.”

Pretty funny, eh?  Well, it still sells, and I know it does because I get it sometimes as a rental car.  And yes, the car really does suck that bad – the driver’s side armrest on my last Sebring had already worn through the colored part of the plastic, and it had less than 6,000 miles.  I’d never be caught at a Chrysler dealer buying one of those.

No, not me – I want a Porsche 911 Targa.  I’ve never driven one, but I’m quite positive that it’s the car for me.  I know because I’ve read all about it on the internet.  I can tell you how much it costs, how fast it goes, what kind of leather I want, you name it.  I’m all over that thing and I read about it every chance I get.

Now, replace cars with job candidates.

Imagine yourself as an IT manager or DBA manager getting ready to hire a new person.  You have a few candidates:

  • Candidate A – you’ve never heard of them, and they don’t show up in Google.
  • Candidate B – you’ve never heard of them, and they show up in Google.  Looks like they contribute answers on online forums, and their questions line up with the experience they say they’ve had.
  • Candidate C – oh yeah, this guy!  You’ve been to his web site and you’ve subscribed to his blog.
  • Candidate D – he says he’s a DBA, but last week he posted a rudimentary forum question on how to back up a database.

Guess which resume goes to the top of the stack?

And even better, guess which resume automatically demands a salary premium?  Which one is the Porsche of job candidates?

If you’re a good DBA – and I’m guessing you’re good, because by reading this, you’re actively seeking out DBA web sites to further your eduction – then you want to go to the top of the stack.  You do that by being an active member of the community.  It doesn’t directly pay off in cash, but boy does it pay off when it comes time to sift through the resume stack.

Hiring managers, IT managers and DBAs are going to search the web for you.  It can either be an advantage, or a disadvantage.  Make it work in your favor, and think of this situation every time you post under your public name on the web.

More DBA Career Articles

  • Moving from Help Desk to DBA – a reader asked how to do it, and I gave a few ways to get started.
  • Development DBA or Production DBA? – job duties are different for these two DBA roles.  Developers become one kind of DBA, and network administrators or sysadmins become a different kind.  I explain why.
  • Recommended Books for DBAs – the books that should be on your shopping list.
  • Ask for a List of Servers – DBA candidates need to ask as many questions as they answer during the interview.
  • Are you a Junior or Senior DBA? – Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but I explain how to gauge DBA experience by the size of databases you’ve worked with.
  • So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star – Part 1 and Part 2 – wanna know what it takes to have “SQL Server Expert” on your business card?  I explain.
  • Becoming a DBA – my list of articles about database administration as a career.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

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DBA 101: It Takes Confidence

Written on March 28, 2008 by in Interviewing, SQL Server

A good database administrator projects confidence – without being a jerk.

This positive yet firm attitude helps the DBA accomplish their job in tough situations:

  • A programmer insists their code is fine, and it’s a database problem that the DBA needs to fix
  • A manager asks the DBA how much to budget for server hardware next year
  • A project team says they want to run a mission-critical app on dilapidated hardware with no plan B

A wishy-washy DBA surrenders in those discussions and the database infrastructure suffers for it.

Managers – when you’re hiring a DBA, take a note of their attitude.  Are they selling you on their ideas, their background and their skills?  Is it a successful sale?  Remember that after they’re hired, they will have similarly small blocks of time in which to sell you on other ideas like database outage windows, purchasing strategies, and T-SQL problems.  A DBA has to be positive yet firm in their business relationships.

Candidates – do a shot of Jager before the interview.  Okay, maybe not, but act like you did.  And yes, I’m posting this because I recently conducted a phone interview with a candidate who was a total yes-man: he had the skills, but he lost his chance because both me and the manager saw that he’d get walked all over.

More DBA Career Articles

  • Gaining Experience for a DBA Job – a reader asked how to do it, and I gave a few ways to get started.
  • Development DBA or Production DBA? – job duties are different for these two DBA roles.  Developers become one kind of DBA, and network administrators or sysadmins become a different kind.  I explain why.
  • Recommended Books for DBAs – the books that should be on your shopping list.
  • Ask for a List of Servers – DBA candidates need to ask as many questions as they answer during the interview.
  • Are you a Junior or Senior DBA? – Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but I explain how to gauge DBA experience by the size of databases you’ve worked with.
  • So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star – Part 1 and Part 2 – wanna know what it takes to have “SQL Server Expert” on your business card?  I explain.
  • Becoming a DBA – my list of articles about database administration as a career.

Brent Ozar

Brent specializes in performance tuning for SQL Server, VMware, and storage. He's one of the very few Microsoft Certified Masters of SQL Server, a published author, and a Microsoft MVP. He likes travel, Jeeps, Apple gear, jokes, and writing about himself in the third person. Read more and contact Brent.

Website - Twitter - Facebook - More Posts

7 Comments - Leave a comment!