Professional Development

#SQLPass, Blogging

Whoa – I’ve hit the big time! I got an email inviting me to be one of a handful of SQL Server industry bloggers who’ll get reserved seating with power and internet access during the PASS Summit keynotes. Awesome! That means I’ll be able to post live updates via my Twitter feed and here on…

Being the Porsche of job candidates

October 22, 2008

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…

Cutting to the Chase

September 27, 2008

People come running into the DBA’s corner office (okay, windowless cube) with all kinds of issues and they’re not sure what’s a database problem, what’s an application problem, or what is just a general complaint. Here’s some examples of vague requests: “Man, this application is so slow.” “The profit numbers on this report don’t seem…

Recommended Books for SQL Server DBAs and Developers

August 14, 2008

Book Reviews, SQL Server

Here’s my favorite SQL Server books for 2016-2014: T-SQL Fundamentals – (updated for SQL 2016) – don’t be fooled by this “fundamentals” title, because everybody who writes T-SQL queries needs this book. It’s the manual we should have been given when we started, and everyone’s going to learn something about concurrency, performance, and updates here. T-SQL Querying…

8 DBAs talk about their jobs

July 30, 2008

OdinJobs.com interviewed eight different DBAs from completely different backgrounds and careers. The one thing we’ve got in common is that we blog, but outside of that, we’ve got wildly different points of view about the career and what we like about SQL Server. I shall now copy/paste Jason Massie’s hard work at listing each person’s…

Getting Into a Database Administrator Position

May 21, 2008

I got a question from Ron G asking how to go about changing positions from help desk to DBA. Here’s my thoughts: Build on what you already know. If you’re used to working on IBM AIX systems, for example, you’ll want to utilize some of that skillset by working with databases that run on AIX. …

DBA Candidates: Ask For A List of Servers

April 4, 2008

When interviewing for a database administrator position, ask the manager for a list of database servers, the applications that rely on them, and who to contact when the server goes down. (The manager may express concern about the secure nature of the list, and that’s fair – I would say the same thing. If they…

DBA 101: It Takes Confidence

March 28, 2008

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…

Interviewing DBAs: Check their Business Decisionmaking

March 11, 2008

When interviewing a database administrator, it’s not enough to check their knowledge of technical skills: we have to check their ability to make sound business decisions. DBAs are in a position to make a lot of architectural decisions with long-term ramifications, and in smaller shops with just one or two DBAs, these decisions won’t come…

What’s the Largest Database You’ve Worked With?

February 6, 2008

Professional Development, SQL Server

When hiring a production DBA, I start by asking them, “In terms of file size, what’s the largest database you’ve worked with?” In a perfect world, we’d only hire very experienced candidates, people who’ve worked with larger databases than we’re dealing with. In reality, though, we can’t always afford those candidates – if they’re even…

Job hunters – your web site is your brochure.

March 20, 2006

Last week I wrote a series of postings for employers, and this week I’ll touch base on things candidates should know. Candidates: you are a product, and your web site is your brochure. Managers: read the brochure just as you would a new product. These days, we buy everything online. We read the product’s web…

Hiring the Best DBAs: From a DBA Perspective

March 17, 2006

A few more collected notes from my recent interviews: Sell Them On Your Company Right Away In your company’s reception area, have a few pieces of relatively up-to-date reading material about your industry, or even better, about your company in specific. The company I ended up choosing, had a great marketing booklet describing the relationships…

Show candidates their work areas, and get their reactions

March 16, 2006

When hiring a new IT worker, take a few minutes to give them a tour of the group’s work environment. You don’t have to go so far as to point out, “Here’s the cube where you’d be sitting,” but try to give them a general idea of what the typical work area looks like. At…

When hiring a DBA, test their skills

March 16, 2006

During my recent job search, I noted a few things about the hiring process for DBA’s, and I figured I’d make a few blog entries out of them. This first one covers technical skill testing – finding out whether a candidate has the experience they claim. DBAs can be tough people to screen because the…

Blogging, privacy, and my new job

March 11, 2006

Blogging

Yesterday, one of my soon-to-be-former coworkers, Kiran, tipped me off to an NPR story on blogging and privacy. Steve Inskeep spoke with a grad student who writes a few Myspace blogs with his personal journal, political ramblings, and – whee – a blog about blogs. The student observed that he doesn’t know anyone who’s been…

Resistance to blogging

March 3, 2006

Blogging

I’ve encountered two instances this week where people dug in their heels and refused to even think about blogging as a communications medium. #1: A Michigan friend of mine has been struggling with web development for years while trying to build a site to document his sailing travels. He wants a simple site – the…

NPR and Blogging

May 6, 2003

Blogging