I'm thinking of applying for a job with Oracle out in CA in product development. I always thought it would be cool to actually develop some of that stuff like RAC and ASM. We'll see anyway, I'm still thinking about it.

I'm thinking of applying for a job with Oracle out in CA in product development. I always thought it would be cool to actually develop some of that stuff like RAC and ASM. We'll see anyway, I'm still thinking about it.

Then again, I was making observations about OCP not testing the right thing when it was originally being discussed in the last century. For a while after I finally got it, I wasn't sure if I should advertise the fact or not. I finally decided those who don't know much about it deserved to be impressed.

But it all eventually boils down to how well interviews, resumes, school transcripts, handwriting analysis or what-all predicts a fit for a job, and personally, for me, I've concluded that it doesn't work any better than just coming in and starting work, and in general in the HR industry suffers from the same sort of silver bullet handwaving as the wrong side of the ball. Plus, they spam.

On the other hand… http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=san+franci...

As for switching hats quickly, I do that in the interview. I ask a detailed question about performance tuning, then jump to a personality-related question, then ask about archive logging, then about RAC installation, then how to create a status report, etc. It isn't perfect, but it's the best I can do.

All in all, I agree that people just need to be in the job for a little while before you'll know. It's absurd to think that you will guarantee a perfect hire based on a few 1-hour interviews with different people.

Being called a guru by Burleson isn't something I'd openly volunteer. Guess you know which side of that ball I'm on . If I could figure out how, I'd remove the link to dba-oracle.com as I try never to visit or link there. I use the plugin from http://ora-safe-search.sourceforge.net/ daily.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

The real problem with DBA hiring is that the position itself requires contradictory skils – you say “determining whether this person has a high capacity to learn new things quickly and apply/adapt them,” and yet, so much of what we do requires a mindset of carving things in stone. DBA's have to be able to switch hats quickly – how do you interview for that? A couple of the oracle-l posts really pissed me off because they said things like “the first thing the person does is surf the net.” Well, what are they really doing? Checking their stocks and running another business? Or checking oracle docs, oracle-l archives, etc., looking to not reinvent the wheel?

Which leads into another common hiring goof, which is that the hiring person is looking for someone like themselves, when what they really need is as broad a set of skills and world-views as they can get – they should be looking for people as different as possible! Even more dumbass-green-MBA, is trying to fit people into pigeonholes.

Well, by now you've googled me. Am I good or bad? Huh, I only just noticed Burleson called me a guru! http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_funny_job_interview...