If you want to be a DBA for a living, Get Certified! Or at least try to, so you sound intelligent in interviews..
I will help you with the key takeaways from the Microsoft Training Kits for SQL Server. Starting with this one: Querying 2012, why this one you ask, it’s so old isn’t it? Actually this exam covers 2012 & 2014 and it is a great foundation for the fundamentals. Many production environments still run 2008 which is 10 years old at the time of this blog, and reports are there is slow adoption for the latest SQL 2016.

If you don’t know this stuff, it’s best to go get the book and study all the details, but I can give you the hi-lights to help you understand the ‘why’. But even if you are like me, a 15 year vet, I can say I truly learned many things that helped me round out my skillset and apply in my environment.

So many DBAs think they can do this job without ever having to learn the language that interacts with all that data they manage. How will you ever be able to troubleshoot performance if you can’t read or write the database code?? It’s beyond the scope of this article to attempt to answer that one..

Interviewing for DBA Position? A Senior DBA Position?

I’ve been in many interviews (hiring side) where it becomes uncomfortably obvious someone interviewing for a Senior DBA position does not know the basics about T-SQL. If you can’t talk this stuff, you don’t know this stuff, so tell me again… why are you interviewing for a Senior DBA position, for Senior money which is well North of $100K? My tip for you, go buy the training kit books, and prepare for the exam like you are going to take it. This is a career you are choosing here, why wouldn’t you want to know everything possible.
So here goes – the important takeaways, I learned so much by doing this exact thing, Reading Chapter by Chapter, cover to cover, even after 15 years of experience, I still had polishing to be done, and learning to do. Find my next blog in this series I will cover all Chapters from this Training Kit with Key Take-aways! Word of warning – this is not meant to be a substitute for buying the kit and doing yourself, I’m simply pointing out the things I find interesting after so many years in-the-trenches..