RE: How do you conduct technical interviews ?

I'd drop the experience part too. I've worked with DBA's with 5 years, 10 years experience who learnt everything they knew in their first 3-6 months. I've worked with DBA's with less than 1 year experience who were great and knew a lot about handling problems. It all comes down to the person. In my opinion using OCP and experience as hiring criteria is just a CYA thing (it's not my fault they didn't work out, they had OCP and 10 years of experience). Experience (and even OCP) can be of benefit, but until you know more about the candidate you just can't tell.  

I like open ended questions (on going work issues???) just to see how they would approach the problem, what different options they are aware of.  

Henry

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Robertson Lee - lerobe
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:58 AM To: Oracle-L
Subject: RE: How do you conduct technical interviews ?

What about 5 years minimum experience and no OCP ? :-)

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Kerber
Sent: 14 August 2008 15:49
To: jason arneil; Oracle-L
Subject: Re: How do you conduct technical interviews ?

I agree on the OCP thing. I dont really want to start the whole OCP debate again, but a good rule of thumb (to me at least) would be OCP + 5 years experience (minimum) as a DBA=good candidate, OCP with less than 5 years experience, still a rookie DBA, but good at memorizing stuff.

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:32 AM, jason arneil <jason.arneil_at_gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Andrew Kerber <andrew.kerber_at_gmail.com> wrote:

You have to draw a line somewhere on the memorization piece. I might ask the interviewee to name a few background processes in the Oracle database on *nix, but I wouldnt necessarily expect him to go into detail about what each process does.

A general answer would be sufficient, for example pmon monitors processes running in the database. If the candidate needed highly detailed information, I would expect (and want) him to look it up. In my opinion, the ability to find an answer to something that he doesn't know the answer to, or to check on what he thinks is the answer before he does something, is vital.

Totally agree that it is better finding someone who displays the correct thought processes rather than knowing a particular fact/bit of trivia.

In fact in some ways this argument can be deployed against the whole OCP circus as well. Some of the worst candidates I have seen have come clutching an OCP.

Though, of course there are many good people with them too, but I suspect these people would shine out without it as well.

cheers,

jason.

--
http://jarneil.wordpress.com
 





-- 
Andrew W. Kerber



'If at first you dont succeed, dont take up skydiving.'







-- 
Andrew W. Kerber



'If at first you dont succeed, dont take up skydiving.'


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