During the interview, I ask basic database design questions. Normalization (When-Why) is one of my concerns when it comes to database design. Some scenarios I site that involves synchronized servers and what/why/how they take consideration of related issues; security issues and so on.
- Would you ask them from the context of a particular database system (e.g. Oracle) that they prefer?
- What sorta technical questions would you ask them?
- What scenarios would you site and what would you be looking for as answers to those scenarios?
- How would you find out if they are knowledgeable in handling security issues?
- Other related questions. (e.g. DB Restore/Backup)
Thank you.
Best Answer
Here's my top 10 interview questions for senior database administrators, and here's Tom LaRock's top 10 questions for junior DBAs.
I've noticed other people suggest that the candidate should troubleshoot a server. If you take that approach, use a virtual machine with a snapshot. Set up a server a specific way with certain config or performance problems, take a snapshot of it, and then after every interview you can roll back to the snapshot.
If you do that, confine the tasks to the kinds of tasks you'd actually have them do. Don't ask a production DBA about normalization, and don't ask a development DBA why one node won't join the cluster.
Production DBA tasks might be:
Development tasks might be:
Use the AdventureWorks schema. Odds are they haven't played with it recently, but at least it's easy to explain.