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About the test:

The SQL online test evaluates a candidate's ability to design and build relational databases and tables from scratch, apply CRUD options, write efficient queries and subqueries to filter data and create efficient indexes for faster SQL queries.

Covered skills:

  • Creating databases
  • CRUD operations on tables
  • Conditional expressions and procedures
  • Indexes
  • Mathematical functions & Timestamps
  • Scale and Security
  • Creating and deleting tables
  • Joins & Subqueries
  • Views
  • String functions
  • Locks and Transactions

9 reasons why
9 reasons why

Adaface SQL Test is the most accurate way to shortlist Database Administrators



Reason #1

Tests for on-the-job skills

The SQL Online Test helps recruiters and hiring managers identify qualified candidates from a pool of resumes, and helps in taking objective hiring decisions. It reduces the administrative overhead of interviewing too many candidates and saves time by filtering out unqualified candidates at the first step of the hiring process.

The test screens for the following skills that hiring managers look for in candidates:

  • Ability to create and manage databases effectively
  • Ability to create and delete tables with proper data types and constraints
  • Ability to perform CRUD operations on tables including insert, update, and delete
  • Ability to write and understand complex queries involving joins and subqueries
  • Ability to use conditional expressions and create procedures for data manipulation
  • Ability to create and work with views for data abstraction
  • Ability to implement indexes for optimizing query performance
  • Ability to utilize string functions for data manipulation and analysis
  • Ability to work with mathematical functions and timestamps for data calculations
  • Ability to handle locks and transactions for data consistency
  • Ability to scale and secure databases for efficient and safe data storage
Reason #2

No trick questions

no trick questions

Traditional assessment tools use trick questions and puzzles for the screening, which creates a lot of frustration among candidates about having to go through irrelevant screening assessments.

View sample questions

The main reason we started Adaface is that traditional pre-employment assessment platforms are not a fair way for companies to evaluate candidates. At Adaface, our mission is to help companies find great candidates by assessing on-the-job skills required for a role.

Why we started Adaface
Reason #3

Non-googleable questions

We have a very high focus on the quality of questions that test for on-the-job skills. Every question is non-googleable and we have a very high bar for the level of subject matter experts we onboard to create these questions. We have crawlers to check if any of the questions are leaked online. If/ when a question gets leaked, we get an alert. We change the question for you & let you know.

How we design questions

These are just a small sample from our library of 10,000+ questions. The actual questions on this SQL Online Test will be non-googleable.

🧐 Question

Medium

Multi Select
JOIN
GROUP BY
Solve
Consider the following SQL table:
 image
How many rows does the following SQL query return?
 image

Medium

nth highest sales
Nested queries
User Defined Functions
Solve
Consider the following SQL table:
 image
Which of the following SQL commands will find the ‘nth highest Sales’ if it exists (returns null otherwise)?
 image

Medium

Select & IN
Nested queries
Solve
Consider the following SQL table:
 image
Which of the following SQL queries would return the year when neither a football or cricket winner was chosen?
 image

Medium

Sorting Ubers
Nested queries
Join
Comparison operators
Solve
Consider the following SQL table:
 image
What will be the first two tuples resulting from the following SQL command?
 image

Hard

With, AVG & SUM
MAX() MIN()
Aggregate functions
Solve
Consider the following SQL table:
 image
How many tuples does the following query return?
 image
🧐 Question🔧 Skill

Medium

Multi Select
JOIN
GROUP BY

2 mins

SQL
Solve

Medium

nth highest sales
Nested queries
User Defined Functions

3 mins

SQL
Solve

Medium

Select & IN
Nested queries

3 mins

SQL
Solve

Medium

Sorting Ubers
Nested queries
Join
Comparison operators

3 mins

SQL
Solve

Hard

With, AVG & SUM
MAX() MIN()
Aggregate functions

2 mins

SQL
Solve
🧐 Question🔧 Skill💪 Difficulty⌛ Time
Multi Select
JOIN
GROUP BY
SQL
Medium2 mins
Solve
nth highest sales
Nested queries
User Defined Functions
SQL
Medium3 mins
Solve
Select & IN
Nested queries
SQL
Medium3 mins
Solve
Sorting Ubers
Nested queries
Join
Comparison operators
SQL
Medium3 mins
Solve
With, AVG & SUM
MAX() MIN()
Aggregate functions
SQL
Hard2 mins
Solve
Reason #4

1200+ customers in 75 countries

customers in 75 countries
Brandon

With Adaface, we were able to optimise our initial screening process by upwards of 75%, freeing up precious time for both hiring managers and our talent acquisition team alike!


Brandon Lee, Head of People, Love, Bonito

Reason #5

Designed for elimination, not selection

The most important thing while implementing the pre-employment SQL Online Test in your hiring process is that it is an elimination tool, not a selection tool. In other words: you want to use the test to eliminate the candidates who do poorly on the test, not to select the candidates who come out at the top. While they are super valuable, pre-employment tests do not paint the entire picture of a candidate’s abilities, knowledge, and motivations. Multiple easy questions are more predictive of a candidate's ability than fewer hard questions. Harder questions are often "trick" based questions, which do not provide any meaningful signal about the candidate's skillset.

Science behind Adaface tests
Reason #6

1 click candidate invites

Email invites: You can send candidates an email invite to the SQL Online Test from your dashboard by entering their email address.

Public link: You can create a public link for each test that you can share with candidates.

API or integrations: You can invite candidates directly from your ATS by using our pre-built integrations with popular ATS systems or building a custom integration with your in-house ATS.

invite candidates
Reason #7

Detailed scorecards & benchmarks

Reason #8

High completion rate

Adaface tests are conversational, low-stress, and take just 25-40 mins to complete.

This is why Adaface has the highest test-completion rate (86%), which is more than 2x better than traditional assessments.

test completion rate
Reason #9

Advanced Proctoring


Learn more

About the SQL Assessment Test

Why you should use Pre-employment SQL Online Test?

The SQL Online Test makes use of scenario-based questions to test for on-the-job skills as opposed to theoretical knowledge, ensuring that candidates who do well on this screening test have the relavant skills. The questions are designed to covered following on-the-job aspects:

  • Creating databases
  • Creating and deleting tables
  • CRUD operations on tables
  • Joins & Subqueries
  • Conditional expressions and procedures
  • Views
  • Indexes
  • String functions
  • Mathematical functions & Timestamps
  • Locks and Transactions

Once the test is sent to a candidate, the candidate receives a link in email to take the test. For each candidate, you will receive a detailed report with skills breakdown and benchmarks to shortlist the top candidates from your pool.

What topics are covered in the SQL Online Test?

  • Creating databases:

    This skill involves the creation of databases, which are organized collections of data that can be accessed, managed, and manipulated. It is crucial to assess this skill as it forms the foundation of any database-related tasks and ensures that the test taker has a strong understanding of database concepts and can effectively work with data in a structured manner.

  • Creating and deleting tables:

    This skill assesses the ability to create and delete tables, which are structures used to store organized data in a database. Evaluating this skill helps determine if the test taker can design and manage the structure of a database effectively, ensuring data is stored in the appropriate format and can be retrieved efficiently.

  • CRUD operations on tables:

    CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations refer to the basic actions performed on data in a database table. Testing this skill allows recruiters to see if the test taker is proficient in managing data by creating, reading, updating, and deleting records in a database, which is vital for effectively working with data.

  • Joins & Subqueries:

    Join operations combine rows from different tables based on specified conditions, while subqueries are queries nested within another query. Measuring this skill is important to evaluate the test taker's ability to retrieve and combine data from multiple tables using joins, as well as their proficiency in utilizing subqueries for more complex queries.

  • Conditional expressions and procedures:

    This skill involves using conditional expressions and procedures to control the flow of data and perform actions based on specific conditions. It is crucial to assess this skill as it determines the test taker's ability to implement logical operations, automate tasks, and handle complex data manipulations based on conditions.

  • Views:

    Views are virtual tables derived from the result set of a query. Testing this skill ensures that the test taker can create and utilize views effectively, which provide a simplified and structured way to access and analyze data, helping to improve performance and simplify query writing.

  • Indexes:

    Indexes are data structures that improve the speed of data retrieval operations on database tables. Evaluating this skill allows recruiters to see if the test taker understands the importance of creating and managing indexes, which can significantly enhance query performance and optimize the overall efficiency of a database.

  • String functions:

    This skill involves the usage of various functions to manipulate and analyze text data within the database. Measuring this skill is important to assess the ability of the test taker to work with string data, perform string manipulations, and apply string functions for tasks such as searching, formatting, and parsing text.

  • Mathematical functions & Timestamps:

    This skill assesses the ability to use mathematical functions and work with timestamps (date and time data) within the database. Evaluating this skill is crucial as it ensures the test taker can perform calculations, aggregations, and comparisons using mathematical functions, as well as effectively handle temporal data in database operations.

  • Locks and Transactions:

    Locks and transactions are mechanisms used to manage concurrent access and ensure data consistency in multi-user database environments. Measuring this skill is important to determine if the test taker understands the concepts of locks and transactions, and can effectively utilize them to control data integrity, isolation, and concurrency within a database system.

  • Scale and Security:

    This skill involves understanding how to design and implement databases that can handle large volumes of data and ensuring the security of sensitive information. Testing this skill allows recruiters to assess the test taker's knowledge and ability to design scalable databases and implement robust security measures, which are critical for managing data in real-world scenarios.

  • Full list of covered topics

    The actual topics of the questions in the final test will depend on your job description and requirements. However, here's a list of topics you can expect the questions for SQL Online Test to be based on.

    Creating databases
    Managing databases
    Creating tables
    Deleting tables
    Data types
    Table constraints
    Inserting data
    Updating data
    Deleting data
    Joins
    Subqueries
    Conditional expressions
    Procedures
    Views
    Data abstraction
    Indexes
    Query performance
    String functions
    Mathematical functions
    Timestamps
    Locks
    Transactions
    Scaling databases
    Securing databases
    Data storage
    Data manipulation
    Data analysis
    Data calculations
    Data consistency
    Efficiency
    Safety

What roles can I use the SQL Online Test for?

  • Database Administrator
  • SQL Developer
  • Data Analyst
  • Business Intelligence Developer
  • Software Engineer
  • Data Engineer
  • Data Scientist
  • Data Architect
  • System Analyst
  • Senior SQL Developer
  • Business Analyst (SQL)

How is the SQL Online Test customized for senior candidates?

For intermediate/ experienced candidates, we customize the assessment questions to include advanced topics and increase the difficulty level of the questions. This might include adding questions on topics like

  • Scale and Security
  • Query optimization
  • Database normalization
  • Stored procedures
  • Database triggers
  • Database backup and restoration
  • Data integrity
  • Database indexing techniques
  • Database performance tuning
  • Database replication
Singapore government logo

The hiring managers felt that through the technical questions that they asked during the panel interviews, they were able to tell which candidates had better scores, and differentiated with those who did not score as well. They are highly satisfied with the quality of candidates shortlisted with the Adaface screening.


85%
reduction in screening time

SQL Hiring Test FAQs

Can I evaluate relational database management systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL instead of SQL?

Yes. We provide focused tests that can help you assess database management systems instead of query language SQL. You can review our standalone MySQL test, PostgreSQL test and MS SQL test for in-depth details on what kind of questions are used to evaluate those skills.

Can I evaluate SQL and coding skills in the same test?

Yes. We support testing multiple skills in the same test. You can get a customized test where MCQ questions are used to evaluate SQL knowledge and coding questions are used to evaluate hands-on programming skills. We can also restrict the coding questions to be solved only using a particular programming language if you job description expects a specific language.

Can I evaluate SQL and NoSQL (like MongoDB) in the same test?

Yes. You can review our standard MongoDB test to get a sense of what questions are asked to evaluate MongoDB skills. In the final assessment you will have questions to evaluate SQL and MongoDB in the same test.

Can I evaluate other relevant skills like Python in the same test?

Yes. We support screening multiple skills in a single test. You can review our standard Python test to understand what type of questions we use to evaluate Python skills. Once you sign up for any plan, you can request a custom assessment that will be customized to your job description. The customized assessment will include questions for all the must-have skills required for your SQL role.

Can I combine multiple skills into one custom assessment?

Yes, absolutely. Custom assessments are set up based on your job description, and will include questions on all must-have skills you specify. Here's a quick guide on how you can request a custom test.

Do you have any anti-cheating or proctoring features in place?

We have the following anti-cheating features in place:

  • Non-googleable questions
  • IP proctoring
  • Screen proctoring
  • Web proctoring
  • Webcam proctoring
  • Plagiarism detection
  • Secure browser
  • Copy paste protection

Read more about the proctoring features.

How do I interpret test scores?

The primary thing to keep in mind is that an assessment is an elimination tool, not a selection tool. A skills assessment is optimized to help you eliminate candidates who are not technically qualified for the role, it is not optimized to help you find the best candidate for the role. So the ideal way to use an assessment is to decide a threshold score (typically 55%, we help you benchmark) and invite all candidates who score above the threshold for the next rounds of interview.

What experience level can I use this test for?

Each Adaface assessment is customized to your job description/ ideal candidate persona (our subject matter experts will pick the right questions for your assessment from our library of 10000+ questions). This assessment can be customized for any experience level.

Does every candidate get the same questions?

Yes, it makes it much easier for you to compare candidates. Options for MCQ questions and the order of questions are randomized. We have anti-cheating/ proctoring features in place. In our enterprise plan, we also have the option to create multiple versions of the same assessment with questions of similar difficulty levels.

I'm a candidate. Can I try a practice test?

No. Unfortunately, we do not support practice tests at the moment. However, you can use our sample questions for practice.

What is the cost of using this test?

You can check out our pricing plans.

Can I get a free trial?

Yes, you can sign up for free and preview this test.

I just moved to a paid plan. How can I request a custom assessment?

Here is a quick guide on how to request a custom assessment on Adaface.

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