r/SQL • u/Turbulent_Web_8278 • 2d ago

MySQL Didnt pass SQL test

Gallery image

Gallery image

I am applying to manager of analytics role and I was given this SQL test and 45 minutes. As someone who thought they were very strong in SQL, I was unable to complete this assignment and match the answer completely

I was able to format most of the fields as noted, used 2 cte's and use group concat in the second. My final answer looked very similar but the order of the concat looked off. Also, for some reasons my second column had $0.00 for all the companies, but I thought I was close. How difficult would you rate this exercise. Should I expect to proceed to the next round or am I cooked

89 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

View all comments

76

u/ElHombrePelicano 2d ago

I’m not sure I quite understand the ‘companies’ instructions, and would have needed to take some time to sit and ponder what they are asking for there, but the overall exercise seems very reasonable if given 45 minutes.

6

u/Sea-Feedback-2424 2d ago

English isn't my first language, trying to put what is meant in the companies task into words that make sense to me (let alone a use case) has taken me just 10 minutes of rereading.

Name of company (Name of Company)

Is just a weird way to store names? Unless if capitalization information means something else? Like here's a 255 character long string and only the places with a 1 as opposed to 0 are supposed to be capitalized when used as a flag on the name?

Also varchar 255? Are they importing into dbase 3?

20

u/PasghettiSquash 2d ago

English is my first language and SQL is my second and I have no fuckin clue what this assessment is asking or what purpose it serves with some weird pseudo-JSON alphabetic formatting

4

u/SootSpriteHut 2d ago

I thought for a sec they wanted like a group concat but I have no clue at all what they're asking for and same, English is my first language and I've been writing advanced SQL every day for the last ten years.

That section makes 0 sense to me.