Getting The Job Outline for the Interview

Your Goal is

Educate the employer on the value you bring.

Identify ways you can partner with them to achieve their goals.

Common Q&A in a job interview

I recommend that you practice answering each question with a friend over and over until the answer come
smoothly and with a relaxed but confident way.

Elevator speech
I have been an Oracle professional for many years and have saved my employers many millions of dollars,
shortened their development time, and increased security on a database and enterprise level.
I have been a DBA in production, QA, and Development environments; and have also designed databases and
managed DBA teams for the White House 2 times, and several fortune 100 corporations.
I have experience leading teams and collaborating with them to document responsibility scope, team product
delivery to customers, team measurable critical success factors, and responsibility matrixes.
I am also skilled at data governance, data quality assurance, and data retention life cycle management.
I understand The University of Puget Sound needs a DBA to Support and assist the development team in design,
development, testing, tuning, and implementation of database applications.
What challenges do you think need to be overcome during the next 3 months?

See these websites for more information:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/3-steps-to-a-great-elevator-pitch-HA010074786.aspx
http://www.expressionsofexcellence.com/sample_elevator.html
http://www.producersesource.com/marketingpage/elevator-speech-examples/

Tell me about yourself

This questions is really: What skills and knowledge do you have that can help me with my needs?
Use what you have learned about the company, their customers, products, and the job description to think of ways
your skills can help solve challenges the company has.
Here are four completely different statements about myself that I used to connect with the employers needs.
I have been an Oracle professional for many years and have worked at the White House 2 times and several
fortune 100 corporations. I have been a DBA in production, QA, and Development environments; have also
designed many OLTP and OLAP databases, and managed several DBA teams.

I am a dedicated and energetic professional with extensive experience working as a development DBA, data
modeler, database architect, database QA analyst, SQL and PL/SQL programmer, and production DBA.

I have managed databases in several Unix and Windows environments and am good at both shell scripting and
batch file development.

I am a data governance professional with experience as a data steward, data owner, and data architect. I have
designed data retention life cycle, data quality dash boards, and designed data governance database
repositories.

Next time youre faced with the dreaded, Tell me about yourself question, try these:
1. Can I show you, instead of tell you? Then, pull something out of your pocket that represents who you are.
Who could resist this answer? Who could forget this answer?
2. The quotation I live my life by is Proves that personal development is an essential part of your growth
plan. Also shows your ability to motivate yourself.
3. My passion is People dont care what you do people care who you are. And what youre passionate
about is who you are. Plus, passion unearths enthusiasm.
4. When I was seven years old, I always wanted to be An answer like this shows that youve been
preparing for this job your whole life, not just the night before.
5. People who know me best say that Im This response offers insight into your own level of selfawareness.
6. I can summarize who I am in three words. Grabs their attention immediately. Demonstrates your ability
to be concise, creative and compelling.

Questions you are likely to be asked

What makes me different
(How can you fulfill my needs in a unique way):
A deep understanding of database design for OLTP & VLDB (Very Large Data Base), Real Time, and WWW
applications.

How my skills can be used for this company

(Why should I hire you):
I can assist Nordstrom with Data Governance, Data Quality, data architectures (logical and physical), supporting
development teams, providing DBA services in Dev and Production environments

What career plans do you have over the next 5 years

(Do your career goals fit with this company long term).
DBA for the next 1 or 2 years (Learn RAC, Golden Gate, Web Logic), then DBA team lead, and onward and
upward to new challenges ;)
I am tiered of contracting. I want to find a place that I can settle into and support for the long term.

Tell me "why do you want to work for this company"

(How dedicated will you be to the success of MY COMPANY)
Nordstrom's is a company that has a divers business environment that spans over 115 department stores and is one of
the leaders in the retail fashion industry. Helping a company like this in-directly helps thousands of people that rely on
it every day in many different ways. The most valuable legacy we can leave is a legacy of changing other people's lives
in a positive way.

Behavioral based interview questions.

The employer is trying to find out:
Your problem solving process (STAR -- Situation, Task, Action, Results)
What kind of Team Player you are
Your definition of difficult
How organized and methodical you are
Your story should be one that:
Puts you in a tough position
You analyzed and discussed the problem
You reached a conclusion
You were successful
It was a win/win situation for the company
You need to:
Define the problem, the expected outcome, and possible solutions
Talk about the Culture, Structure, & Mission priorities
Talk about the people you had to work with & what was expected of them
How you tied it all together to read the goal
It does not halve to be a problem you caused and you are may not have played the leading role in real life, but
you need to cast yourself as the star in the story.

Describe a time you demonstrated initiative

Situation
I worked for Kent School District. When they were testing the fire alarm system the power was accidently cut to the
server room, the UPS'e kicked in and all of the servers did an emergency shutdown.
Task
We needed to bring the servers & databases back up and 2 of servers would not re-start.
Action
I worked with the Systems Administrators to recover the servers and re-build the databases. This required 34 hours
without sleep.
Results
The system returned to normal functionality.
We had a plastic cover and large red sign placed over the fire alarm switch in the server room.
We implemented better backup and recovery processes and standards for the servers and database.
We practiced server and database recovery every 6 months.
KSD purchased some small servers for the System administrators and database administrators to use as sand
boxes to do proof of concept work, learn new skills sets, and practice server and database recovery on.

Describe a difficult problem you helped solve to be successful

Situation
I worked for Boeing on a project to move 1,400 databases from data centers all over the US to 3 data centers in PHX,
STL, and Seattle within the next 6 months; and then another 13,200 databases within the next 4 years.
Task
The project was stalling because everyone was doing everything. This resulted in people duplicating work, changing
the kind of work they were expected to do, a lot of confusion over who was supposed do different kinds of work, and
not getting some of the most important work done in the timeframe expected.
Action
After suggesting to management we needed to define team roles and responsibilities, the manager and I collaborated
with the team to define who our customers are, what the team deliverables were, and what each person's role and level
of responsibility was in delivery of our products.
Results
The team was much happier, each person's knew exactly what was expected of them, they has a small scope of
responsibility which enabled them to become very efficient at their work, The team increased the number of database
migrated over 300% in 4 weeks time.
The team increased the number of database migrated from an average of 12 per week to over 35 per week and
expected to increase to over 50 per week within the next 30 days.
The manager asked for help with a new staffing plan to enable migration of 200 databases per week needed to achieve
migration of all 13,000 database over the next 4 years.

Describe a difficult problem you faced & how you dealt with it
Situation
I was hired as an Oracle DBA supporting a team that was developing software (called Entune) that enables a Toyota
automobile to communicate to a smart phone. http://www.toyota.com/entune/what-is-entune/
Task
2 weeks after I was hired the database designer was fired. He was also my supervisor. There were some serious design
issued with the database that prevented the development team from implementing application critical functionality.
Action
After Jeff left the company I immediately talked to the team and management to identify the design issues with the
database. I installed a free trial version of Erwin and reverse engineered the database. Created database design
proposals (ERD's) and vetted those with the development team and application manager. Then I wrote the DDL code
and implemented the changes in the database. This was a massive database change resulting from a shift in the basic
design philosophy from an application that runs in the automobile & smart phone, to a platform that supports
applications.
Results
In a few short weeks we were able to deliver the first application of its kind in the world to Toyota enabling an
automobile to communicate to a smart phone.
NOTE: Entune was the first software ever developed in the world that enables a smart phone to communicate to a car.
The database had to incorporate REAL TIME database response times. It was designed as a platform that supported
smart phone applications, not as an application in of itself. This enables new smart phone apps to be installed quickly
and in-expensively.

Give me an example of how you've contributed to your present/most recent company's success.
You've likely heard or read rsum-writing advice stressing the importance of not only sharing your qualifications but
also addressing accomplishments. In today's competitive job market, employers don't want to hire someone who can
just complete tasks. They want someone who can make an impact on the bottom line. If you can, answer this question
by sharing examples of how you increased revenue, helped a client gain market share or created efficiencies that saved
money. Use numbers or percentages, when possible. If you don't know the numbers off the top of your head, you can
provide that information in your follow-up or thank-you note.

The top 3 points you want to make sure you get across.
Production DBA
1. Attitude: Pro-active vigilance, data protection, and database availability defense and fortification.
1. Have authored Vendor standards that include database architectural evaluations, support, upgrading
applications to current Oracle releases, vendor access to systems etc.
2. Backing up and recovering very large database
3. Migration of databases to new servers
4. Maintenance of archive redo log destinations
5. Growth of data in the database
6. Disk backup staging areas
7. Archiving old or stale data
Quality Assurance DBA
2. Attitude: Insure Accuracy, functionality, and corporate initiative goals are met.
1. Have performed database health check auditing and database quality evaluations:
2. Detect unauthorized database intruders
3. Prevent unauthorized data access
4. Satisfy application functionality
Interface with other application databases
Scale
Can be enhanced easily and inexpensively
Can be maintained easily and inexpensively
Fault root cause identification
Achieve acceptable performance
Data integrity
DEV DBA
3. Attitude: Customer service oriented and data governance.
4. Providing reports on database changes
5. Producing ERD diagrams
6. Tuning SQL and PL/SQL
7. Advising on database architecture issues
8. Participating in code reviews
9. Maintaining database standards
10. Technical evaluation and code reviews

My Strengths:
Combination of:
1. Production, development, and QA DBA
2. Data Modeler
3. Database Designer
Hardworking
I am extremely dedicated to my employers success and to my career. I am always ready, able, and willing to work long
hours to achieve success.
Self Motivated and Determined
I don't need to be pushed to work. Instead I am attempt to predict what my manager needs and be ready to provide it in
advance of being asked.
Success Oriented and Natural Leader
You must be able to lead yourself before you can lead others. Be committed to your commitments! Leading
oneself requires and demands that you hold yourself accountable and be prepared to stretch beyond your
"perceived" limits!
I believe in Leading from where I am. A person does not require a "title" or permission to be a leader. Take
initiative with pro-active intent. Be a fanatic about detail and quality. Do such a GREAT job that you inspire
others to emulate you and ask for your help or advice.
Team Player
No man is an island. And in todays world, like never before, a person requires a group of people with whom to
succeed.
Volunteer to help others in every way you can think of. Take pride in the success of others that you have
helped. The most valuable legacy you can leave is a legacy of changing other people's lives in a positive way.
Connect people, teams, projects, and companies; with other people, teams, projects, and companies. Help
people provide help to other people, teams, projects, and companies. Be a facilitator of teamwork and
collaboration.
Always look for a way that you can contribute to a group or a person more than you receive from that entity.
Intelligence and Self Confidence
Being intelligent does not mean being the only person in the room who can drive a plane, but a person who has the
simple logic and practical knowledge that goes with running a proper team.

My Weaknesses:
1. RAC, Streams
1. Sometimes I pay too much attention to detail when it may not be needed.
2.

Sometimes I spend too much time working and neglect my family. I need to balance dedication to the job with dedication
to my family and try not to spend more than 50 hours a week at work.

Gap in work
I used the time to:
Recruited a team of 6 IT professionals to build a computer lab at home.
We:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Installed a physical Linux CENTOS server with 6 Virtual servers using Oracle enterprise Linux.
Increased skill sets in Data Guard and Enterprise manager.
Installed and used Enterprise Manager Grid repository with Agents on 2 virtual servers hosting Oracle databases.
Installed Windows XP professional 64 bit with Oracle databases on 2 servers.
Installed Data Guarded databases on windows and Linux servers.

I am at YOUR service!
Ken Hughes
Expect Excellence -- Oracle Certified Professional
Phone:
H:253-859-7771
C:206-310-8547
Hugheskc@yahoo.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hugheskc

Document Copyright (C) 2009 Ken Hughes hugheskc@yahoo.com, www.kennethchughes.com, 206-310-8547