Oh I love the "get a cup of coffee"

in other words... THINK before you act


--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> mkb,
> 
>     Your surprised?  Over the last 6 years I've interviewed many a
> candidate
> while we added two DBA's to the group.  I've gotten a lot of answers
> like this:
> 
>     Question: How do you create a table?
>     Answer: The developer sends me a script.  I run script.
> 
>     Question: How do you shutdown a database?
>     Answer: Turn off the power to the computer.
> 
>     Question: How do you change the block size of a database.
>     Answer: Change it in init.ora, restart database.
> 
>     Question: How do you add a datafile to a tablespace?
>     Answer: You can't.
> 
>     Question: What are archived redo logs?
>     Answer: There is no such thing.
> 
> BTW: these folks had an OCP certificate.
> 
> Best answer to a question I've asked:
> 
>     Question: You have a database crash at 6AM, what do you do.
>     Answer: Get a cup of coffee first, then look in recovery manual.
> 
> We hired the guy, he's still here 2 years later and just recently got
> his OCP.
> 
> Dick Goulet
> 
> ____________________Reply Separator____________________
> Author: mkb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date:       7/22/2002 6:58 AM
> 
> Ok, I need to vent a little.
> 
> Last week, I was asked to do some tech interviews over
> the phones for a mid level DBA position.  Someone with
> about 2-3 years experience.
> 
> I don't consider myself a real smart DBA, nor do I
> think that I ask particularly tough questions.  The
> questions that I ask potential candidates are soley
> based on what is on the resume.  So I figure if
> someone has, say, hot backups or SQL tuning on their
> resumes, I'd expect them to be able to hold a fairly
> intelligent conversation about these topics.  No such
> luck!
> 
> What really frustrated me, and what I really want to
> get out of my system, is that nobody that I talked to,
> had a real good concept of hot backups.  Forget about
> recovery.  I asked each and every candidate who
> claimed to have done hot backups, just give me a high
> level overview of how you do a hot backup. Don't care
> about syntax, just give me the mechanics.  The answers
> I got were completely off base, baffling and
> frustrating.  Some of these folks claimed to have 5
> years experience!!!
> 
> 'Well, we use scripts to do these, so I'm not sure how
> these are done...'  (But it says on your resume you've
> done this???)
> 
> 'Oh, I take the tablespace offline, and copy the
> datafile to tape...'  (Unless I'm mistaken, that's not
> how a hot backup is done, right?)
> 
> 'Well, I use the export utility, and as the backup
> starts, it is written to the dump file.'  (Huh? What?)
> 
> 'During this time, everything is written to the redo
> logs and not to the tablespace...'  (You've been
> reading one of those books, haven't you?)
> 
> I also asked them how they'd put a tablespace in
> backup mode.  Simple enough, right?  Not one of them
> got it right.  Not even close.  Didn't have clue as to
> what I was talking about.  Fair enough, you don't
> know.  Well how about a simple recovery scenario.  I
> asked every candidate how they would do an online
> recover of a datafile while the database was still in
> use.  No ideas.  Not even close.
> 
> I dunno, perhaps I'm spoilt by being a member of this
> list?  Perhaps I expect every candidate to be as
> knowledgeable as you guys?  Perhaps I'm asking too
> much?
> 
> Rant over.  Thanks for listening.
> 
> mkb
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
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Author: Rachel Carmichael
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