Customer Reviews

Snappy Interviews: 100 Questions To Ask Oracle Dbas

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a great interview reference for both candidates and interviewers. It provides a structured framework for assessing technical proficiency not only in asking how, but more importantly - why. The questions are without ambiguity, and give opportunity for a candidate to demonstrate their knowledge without the need to interpret the question.

For intermediate & experienced DBA's I would recommend partnering these questions with real life scenarios, along the lines of the following "describe a specific situation when insert_issue_here , what was the problem, the resolution, steps to avoid in future" etc. More often than not, a candidates assessment of an issue can be more important than their ability to resolve from memory.

Chris has taken the leg work out of the interview process - how often do interviewers (DBA's & managers!) think of questions on the spot? This book offers some great Q&A, allowing the manager and team can pick a select few, and be consistent and objective in the process.

I have been an Oracle DBA consultant since version 7 and have found that a book like this is really needed. On job interviews my clients usually ask questions that are too easy and don't assess my skills or I get arcane trick questions where the interviewer is trying to impress me with his knowledge. Neither of those approaches will tell them what I can do. Most of the material out there about how to interview Oracle DBA's is based on theory and doesn't assess a job candidates real skills. I tried answering all the questions in this book and certainly didn't know all the answers but felt it was very fair and would quickly show the difference between someone who had read a few books and someone who had real world experience. The questions are well written and the answers focus on real world solutions. I have to admit I learned quite a few new things. I plan to use the book primarily to help me create a structured plan of the areas I need to go back and study. I will also keep it handy and use it when asked to interview Oracle DBA candidates. It will provide an impartial way to compare the candidates skills and improve the quality of the recommendations I make.

I just spent some hours prepping for an interview with a "Snappy Interviews". It was a BIG help. Going through the book really helped remind me of what I know. No, it is not a book to learn Oracle from. It is a book to help you put together answers on areas of Oracle that you know. It is a book that points out the areas that you need to sharpen up your answers.
It sure felt good to feel prepared for the interview.

I think this book contains the right format and content of questions that an interviewer should build his line of questioning around. I believe Christopher Lawson is one of those evangelists who believe that questions given to the interviewee must be fair and practical.

This book clearly stands out among the many similar literature out there. Some people may criticize this book as "too simplistic" and "incomplete". To include the completeness of what this book is trying to cover will take years and millions of pages to write. There you go, what this book is all about is the coverage of the essentials. This book teaches both the interviewer and the interviewee the real essential tasks of a DBA. Most of the topics mentioned here in this book are the very things that confront the "real" DBA in the forefront.

I believe this book is a must-have not only for the entry-level or aspiring DBA but also for every level out there that either need guidance or refresher.

I gave this book a Five-Star Rating for a job well done. Kudos (again) to Christopher Lawson. Keep it coming Chris!

I'm not a DBA but a Java/PL-SQL programmer. It's strange that even though the book is titled for DBA, I found that the information this book contains is pretty valuable. I used to do PL/SQL and SQL programming without knowing or trying to know much how Oracle works behind the scene. This book is an eye opener to "the other side of the world" that makes me more aware of what I am doing. Now I know better of what are good are bad things. With this book, I can also better communicate with the real DBA for my database needs.

I could have rated this book 5 star had it been printed on better materials. But well, it's a snappy book and it's me who likes seeing good books printed on good materials so I can keep them for a long time.

This book is a great tool for aiding in the technical interview process. I used to have existing DBAs craft the questions, which I found to be biased towards our existing environment. This books provides totally non-biased questions that can quickly narrow down prospects. Well worth the price to make the overall hiring process easier.

From an upcoming announcement at the Oracle Infogram blog on the book:


Christopher Lawson, who wrote one of the better performance books of recent years, The Art and Science of Oracle Performance Tuning, has come out with a new tome (well, it's a bit small to be a tome, but that sounds so much nicer). Snappy Interviews, 100 Questions to Ask Oracle DBAs is a set of questions and answers arranged by skill level for interviewers to use when conducting technical interviews with Oracle DBAs. The questions are all on the core RDBMS, not EBS or other Oracle products.

This could be a very handy book to have in your IT shop. Often the person giving a technical interview isn't the Oracle DBA, but a sys admin, programming manager or other position. This book will let you generate some good questions and get a pretty good idea if you are hearing 'review blather' or experience.

Of course there is a certain amount of flexibility one has to use in these interviews. In working with DBAs (and as a DBA) over the years I've found there are several different basic personality types. Only some of those personality types know the names of things directly at all times. The others are really fast at looking things up that they worked with before or really good at finding out what they don't know. Most of the questions in this book, however, cover ground that every experienced core DBA is likely to know, so it's a good investment. There is also a class of DBAs who don't know, don't really care, and hope for the best. Hopefully this book will help you keep those DBAs working in other companies, preferably your competitors' shops.

Of course a lot of DBAs wanting to interview for jobs are going to buy this book to 'cram for the tech interview', so make sure you get a few questions that aren't in the book to throw at them as well, such as: 'What is the air speed velocity of an unburdened swallow?' or 'What is your favorite color?' You'd be surprised how many people get thrown by that last one.

Hopefully, since Chris works in the realm of financial applications, he will produce a companion volume to this on questions to ask an Apps DBA.

In the past when I have had the responsibility of interviewing DBAs I would come up with a few questions and ask everyone those same questions. I'm sure that my questions were bias, favoring the specific information that I know and ignoring all sorts of other questions that a qualified DBA should be able to answer. When I got this book in the mail the first thing I did was read through it curiously to see how I would do being asked these questions. I feel that this book exclusively contains questions that would be useful to ask candidates as a starting-off point in a conversation. I will start asking a bunch of these questions next time it comes time to hire DBAs.

I found this a very nice read. Chris covers a topic that can be such a bane for either interviewer or candidate. I like the approach of asking relevant questions and gauging a person's general knowledge.
Even if one does not follow this book's advice completely, it is thought provoking and will help set a well needed standard. I know it will help me be a better interviewer and could help an interviewee see some of his or her own weaknesses. I look forward to future work from this author.

An absolutely fantastic book that benefits both sides of the interview process. This is a rare gem of a book that not only prepares you for an interview, but also triggers your own knowledge and curiosity. After reading each question and answer, I found myself off on a tangent thinking about different scenarios where each case would apply, the differences in each version, and obviously this lead to a deeper understanding why I answered a question a certain way. In the end, I actually learned something from each question in the process of answering as well as justifying each of my answers. After reading the book, I felt more confident and comfortable going into an interview - knowing that I had an arsenal of 100 legitimate questions and answers prepared.
On the other side of the coin, the interviewer gains a substantial amount of knowledge by referencing this book; mainly because you have to know the answers to the questions you're asking (how dumb would you look if after each answer from a DBA candidate you had to flip through the book and say "...um, ah yes, you are correct as stated here on page 42". If you're interviewing someone, you best know what you're asking and also know if the answer is BS or accurate). This book will definitely help you become more comfortable with the questions you're asking and the answers you expect to hear. Most importantly, it'll help you ensure you ask the RIGHT questions too.
Overall, this is a great book and a must have for anyone seeking a job or giving an interview. I can't wait until the 2nd 100 questions book comes out.