2 interviews this week

[homesick_american 1]

I'm supposed to have one today at 1pm though I haven't gotten the details of it yet, and another company wants to interview me tomorrow or Thursday. I've sent out maybe 10 resumes and the response has been MASSIVE.

I took two SQL screening exams at a recruiter's office yesterday and totally blew the curve on them; they'd never seen someone with such brief experience score so high. Early birthday present I guess; I thought I'd done really badly because there were some typos on the test that I ignored that I apparently should not have so I got a few questions wrong, but apparently everyone misses those so I did really well. I guess that's pretty good for taking the tests cold with no warning; I haven't even seen SQL in two months.

[selly 0]

Hi HA excuse my ignorance but what is SQL? I presume it might be something to do with speed typing or something? Just as an aside, I will be starting the whole looking for a job thing within a few months down in Fl. Do you have any tips on what interviewers like to see / questions that are popular etc that might be somewhat different to over here in blighty? Do you think the employment agency route is the best way forward or are employers open to 'un-solicited' approaches with resume's etc?

So many questions sorry if it sounds onorous.

Good luck on the interviews

[broma25 2]

I'm supposed to have one today at 1pm though I haven't gotten the details of it yet, and another company wants to interview me tomorrow or Thursday. I've sent out maybe 10 resumes and the response has been MASSIVE.

I took two SQL screening exams at a recruiter's office yesterday and totally blew the curve on them; they'd never seen someone with such brief experience score so high. Early birthday present I guess; I thought I'd done really badly because there were some typos on the test that I ignored that I apparently should not have so I got a few questions wrong, but apparently everyone misses those so I did really well. I guess that's pretty good for taking the tests cold with no warning; I haven't even seen SQL in two months.

Happy Birthday!!!

[Mags 112]

Hi HA excuse my ignorance but what is SQL?

It's a computer language.

Happy Birthday H_A.

Edited July 17, 2007 by mags

[featherB 1]

I'm supposed to have one today at 1pm though I haven't gotten the details of it yet, and another company wants to interview me tomorrow or Thursday. I've sent out maybe 10 resumes and the response has been MASSIVE.

I took two SQL screening exams at a recruiter's office yesterday and totally blew the curve on them; they'd never seen someone with such brief experience score so high. Early birthday present I guess; I thought I'd done really badly because there were some typos on the test that I ignored that I apparently should not have so I got a few questions wrong, but apparently everyone misses those so I did really well. I guess that's pretty good for taking the tests cold with no warning; I haven't even seen SQL in two months.

Happy Birthday!!!

So it is.... happy birthday!!

And here is my helpful explanation of what SQL is: "some computery thing". I'm sure that'll help Selly no end...

(Oh... and good luck with the interviews!)

Edited July 17, 2007 by featherB

[selly 0]

Thanks Mags and featherb that clears up my bout of ignorance slightly to the point where I now know enough to not want any further explanation lol

[~*Maria*~ 1]

Happy Birthday H_A

[homesick_american 1]

Hi HA excuse my ignorance but what is SQL? I presume it might be something to do with speed typing or something? Just as an aside, I will be starting the whole looking for a job thing within a few months down in Fl. Do you have any tips on what interviewers like to see / questions that are popular etc that might be somewhat different to over here in blighty? Do you think the employment agency route is the best way forward or are employers open to 'un-solicited' approaches with resume's etc?

So many questions sorry if it sounds onorous.

Good luck on the interviews

SQL stands for Structured Query Language; it's a database language. ANSI-SQL is the standard but all RDBMs have their own flavor. T-SQL, or Transact-SQL, is the Microsoft SQL Server flavor and that's the flavor I'm most familiar with. PL/SQL is the Oracle flavor, and there's also MySQL and PostgreSQL. In all of these dialects of SQL about 80% of the language is the same and 20% is non-ANSI-SQL.

This is what it looks like (these are objects I wrote):

Query:

SELECT a.Pol_no

, f.RunDate

, a.OM_Available

, a.OM_Complete

, b.Started AS 'PROPNTU_Started'

, a.NTU_Date

, c.Ended AS 'Policy_Issue_Ended'

, a.Plcy_Type_Cd

, a.PLCY_NAPI

, a.SumAssured

, a.EDI

, a.Channel

, a.Section

, a.Agency

, d.Ended AS 'Registration_Ended'

, DATEDIFF(d, a.OM_Available, f.RunDate) AS 'DaysElapsed'

, e.Status AS 'FullStatus'

, CriticalIllness = CASE WHEN a.CI_Ind IS NOT NULL THEN 'Critical Illness' ELSE 'Life Only' END

, QuartersOld = CAST(DATEDIFF(m, a.OM_Available, f.RunDate)/3 AS Int)

FROM dbo.DateRanges f, dbo.PPEKBaseData a

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.vwPROPNTU b ON a.Pol_no = b.Pol_no

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.vwPIE c ON a.Pol_no = c.Pol_no

LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.vwReg d ON a.Pol_no = d.Pol_no

INNER JOIN dbo.vwfnStatus e ON a.Pol_no = e.Pol_no

WHERE e.Status IN('Accepted','Registered','Pending Registration')

AND a.OM_Complete IS NULL

This is a user-defined function that returns someone's age:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnAgeClient] (@DOB AS smalldatetime, @OM_Available AS smalldatetime)

RETURNS smallint AS

BEGIN

RETURN (CASE WHEN MONTH(@DOB) < MONTH(@OM_Available) THEN

DATEDIFF(yy, @DOB, @OM_Available)

WHEN MONTH(@DOB) > MONTH(@OM_Available) THEN

DATEDIFF(yy, @DOB, @OM_Available) - 1

WHEN MONTH(@DOB) = MONTH(@OM_Available) AND DAY(@DOB) < DAY(@OM_Available) THEN

DATEDIFF(yy, @DOB, @OM_Available)

WHEN MONTH(@DOB) = MONTH(@OM_Available) AND DAY(@DOB) > DAY(@OM_Available) THEN

DATEDIFF(yy, @DOB, @OM_Available) - 1

WHEN MONTH(@DOB) = MONTH(@OM_Available) AND DAY(@DOB) = DAY(@OM_Available) THEN

DATEDIFF(yy, @DOB, @OM_Available)

ELSE NULL END)

END

This is a stored procedure; it sets the value of 'Rundate' to last Friday's date no matter what day of the week it is run:

CREATE PROC [dbo].[spUpdateRunDate] AS

DECLARE @today INT

SELECT @today = (SELECT DATEPART(dw, GETDATE()))

IF @today = 1 -- Sunday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -2, GETDATE())

IF @today = 2 -- Monday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -3, GETDATE())

IF @today = 3 -- Tuesday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -4, GETDATE())

IF @today = 4 -- Wednesday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -5, GETDATE())

IF @today =5 -- Thursday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -6, GETDATE())

IF @today = 6 -- Friday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -7, GETDATE())

IF @today = 7 -- Saturday

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET RunDate = DATEADD(day, -1, GETDATE())

UPDATE dbo.DateRanges

SET Rundate = CONVERT(datetime, (CONVERT(varchar, RunDate, 112)))

[Mags 112]

I prefer my own language - bibble bibble plop plop wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Much more fun. I know - I'm not right. Three days with no choc will do that to a girl.

[homesick_american 1]

I aced the first one; I think they'll offer me the job.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Congrats H_A! Awesome news!

[homesick_american 1]

Congrats H_A! Awesome news!

Thanks to whoever moved this BTW.

I talked to the recruiter right after I got home and apparently the feedback is VERY positive; they've interviewed six people for this position including me and apparently I blew them all out of the water. Hard to believe anything positive about myself right now, but I guess I'm good for something.

[Mary Lou 681]

Best of luck with the interviews!!

Happy Birthday

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

You'll get it

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

LS is right, if you're half as good as you say you are, there's no way you'll be without work much longer. Good IT people are in extremely short supply. Good luck!