You might be looking to screen the best SQL candidate and finding best among them. Already you might be flooded with resumes or covering letters and now is a time to trim them. The recruitment process of screening through applications and interacting with candidates on phone would give you a fair understanding whether a particular candidate needs to be part of your team and whether they are worthy for an onsite interview procedure. Considering the other spectrum, you do not want to be turning a SQL developer who could be a potential valuable candidate for your company. At the same time you would want to invite a weak candidate and hear from your IT team their programming skills are not up to a desired level.

For this reason, SQL test hiring is important whereby correct procedures are followed so that hiring process becomes easy. It has to be accurate as far as possible and here are some protocols mentioned which might give you a head start.

Definition of SQL

SQL stands for structured query language that stands for a fourth generation programming language. It means that programmers are only going to illustrate what results would mean. This is miles apart on how the data would be calculated from a database. It is also integrated with other programming languages like Java so as to access data from critical points.

The reasons why an IT recruiter needs to be aware about SQL

A resume does not seem enough to gauge SQL skills of a candidate. For this reason IT recruiters need to conduct a phone or video interview of a candidate. During course of such an interview you can dig deep into experience or skill sets of a candidate. On the basis of these interviews it can be decided whether a candidate deserves an onsite interview. So, it becomes important to choose and ask the right set of questions.

Yes, of course, questions are going to vary according to the position and specific skills you intend to verify. Below are some essential questions to verify the SQL skills of a candidate.

The SQL questions that go on to illustrate experience of a developer-

As part of the technologies that are part of your CV, do you possess commercial experience in preceding years? The responsibilities you were part of and what has been your biggest achievement as of date?

The main reason of putting forth this question would be you can figure out the up to date SQL experience of a candidate, their achievements along with responsibilities. In doing so you are able to understand a candidate better.

The questions which showcase ability of a developer in taking prudent decisions based on SQL technology-

In the recent projects at which stage did you join? Are you involved in the project set up or choice of technology? If yes is the answer, which is the rational database or technology done you choose? What were the reasons for choosing the same and why you might recommend the same?

If you pose such a question, it will reveal choice of candidates regarding technology and whether they were part of any project related decisions. This would be really important if you are looking for a candidate with some proven experience.

Questions related to the behavioral traits of a candidate-

Just observe a programming decision of a project that could have been a failure. Why did it happen and what are the reasons for the mistake to occur? Could think have been done in a different manner to achieve success? What were the series of steps you did take to improve performance? What are the learning traits of such behavior?

By asking such a question, it will help you to understand whether a candidate perceives their decisions, able to analyze conclusions and how much they are able to learn from their previous experience.

To conclude, online coding tests provide to be an apt choice for screening SQL skills of a candidate. Most companies invite candidates for an interview if they are able to crack programming tests. But it is a prudent practice to invite all candidates for certain SQL programming to be part of a test

The online coding test of SQL and which is the one to choose?

To ensure screen accurate, choice of coding tests have to be proper. In the market there are some SQL online tests but the focus is more on the academic levels of a candidate. The programming abilities along with skills to tackle real life problems find limited weightage. For this reason the experienced programmers are annoyed and they have given thumbs down to such coding assessments. Normally coding tests focuses on bookish inputs where candidates cannot reveal their skills of action and face up to real life challenges

For this reason, as part of your recruitment process, you need to observe coding tests. Here are some SQL coding tests that you should keep in mind

  • In SQL coding tests there needs to be a couple of tasks. It should not only involve multiple tests, but programming tests which should match with the skill sets of an employer that a job requires. The tests need not be based on algorithm tasks which means you cannot verify whether a candidate can go on to solve real coding challenges
  • No way in denying a programmer to use external sources. The best course of action would be to create a conducive environment for the programmer and an open book exam would be a sensible decision. The candidate should use their IDE just as they do it on a day to day basis.
  • Not only from a technological point of view your SQL skills needs to be measured but knowledge for precise database engines should evolve
  • As part of coding tests tasks with code review questions can be put forth to figure out SQL skills of a candidate. Accurate details in terms of experience of a candidate are provided. Such an assessment becomes obligatory when you are looking to recruit senior SQL developers.