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How To Hire a Junior SQL Programmer

Complete with job descriptions, skill profiles, and interview templates. Use this Junior SQL Programmer hiring guide to help you make the right decisions, fast.

Junior SQL Programmer Recruitment Guide

What does a Junior SQL Programmer do?

A Junior SQL developer is responsible for assisting senior programmers create SQL databases and ensuring applications are interfacing with them correctly. They will be required to implement different tables in databases for storing data, and functions. Their primary responsibility is designing databases using SQL.

Day to day tasks of a Junior SQL Programmer

Skills assessment

Junior SQL Programmer definition

A Junior SQL developer is someone in their formative years who specialises in using the programming language 'Structured Query Language’ in order to implement and maintain databases that applications will use by shadowing and learning from senior resources.

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HIRING PROCESS

Junior SQL Programmer Hiring Process

Step 1: Understand the role
Step 2: Source Applicants
Step 3: Skills Assessment
Step 4: Interview
Step 5: Hire

Build the Ideal Candidate Profile​

To find the best person for the role, you need to understand what the role involves. You can complete this with the hiring manager to define the role, its contribution, and the skills needed.

Write A Job Description Based On Skills

Once you understand the requirements for the role, you’ll need to understand the skills for success. You can then write an effective job description to promote your role.

Selecting The Ideal Candidate

See which applicants have the right skills for the role. Send all your applicants a Vervoe skills assessment from the expert library, or customize one for your organization.

Interview Top Performers

Your skills assessment results will identify top performers. Focus your time on interviewing those that have met or exceeded your requirements. Assessment results will also help guide which skill areas to focus on in the interview.

Making An Offer

Once you assess your candidates against these skills, you’re ready to offer the top performer(s). You should base your offer on the value that the candidate would bring to your team and your business as a whole. It is also important to ensure your compensation and benefits packages are competitive in the industry and help you attract and retain the top talent.
Build the ideal candidate profile

Skills needed for a Junior SQL Programmer

Junior SQL Developers need to have a fundamental knowledge of SQL and how these databases work as well as how to create queries to query data. This should also be paired with an understanding of database security, such that organisational data is not tampered with by the wrong person.

Pro Tip

Ensure the candidate has knowledge of how to use applications like pgAdmin to interact with PostgreSQL databases or any other application to connect to databases.

WRITE A JOB DESCRIPTION BASED ON SKILLS

How to write a Junior SQL Programmer job description

Once you’ve determined the skills required for the role, you can write the job description to advertise for your position. Here’s what to include in your Junior SQL Programmer job description:

Job Title: What position are you hiring for?

Summary: What makes your company unique? What would it be like to work for you?

Responsibilities: An overview of the role’s day-to-day activities, and how the position contributes to the organization

Requirements: Skills a candidate must have to perform the job successfully

Benefits: Details of compensation, benefits, and any perks on offer

Pro Tip

In building your candidate profile, remember you’ve already identified what skills are needed to succeed in the role. Here’s where to list your “must-have” skills and maybe a couple of “nice-to-have” skills. For example, a Junior SQL Programmer should know how to effectively use SQL joins in their statements.

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SELECTING THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

Sample skill tests for a Junior SQL Programmer

Create a free account today to access the full assessment and more from our library

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Question 1

Communication

Question Type: Video

You’ve been working at a new company for a few months now and they require you to give a 2 minute presentation in front of your colleagues. You’re preparing a presentation on the difference between RDBMS and DBMS, and why RDBMs are superior. Please record your explanation of this concept.

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Question 2

SQL

Question Type: Text

If you had a table named ‘Airplanes’ defined by the schema in the editor below and you wanted to get all Airplanes whose callsign started with an A and origin_country was Australia, what SQL query would you create?

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Question 3

Communication

Question Type: Audio

Please explain, using your own words, what an inner join and full outer join is, and why someone might use them?

INTERVIEW TOP PERFORMERS

How to interview a Junior SQL Programmer

Once your Vervoe skills assessment has surfaced the most qualified people for your open role, you can focus on interviewing these candidates. The interview should focus on any skills that require development that were highlighted from the skills assessment.

Now you know that candidates can do the job, the interview becomes more of a relationship building exercise where you can get to know the candidate on a more personal level, understand their motivations, and how they would fit in with the team.

Making An Offer

How much does it cost to hire a Junior SQL Programmer?

In the United States the salary of a Junior SQL Programmer is reported to be $54,429 by Indeed.com, whereas Glassdoor USA reports it as $75,630. The lower end of Junior SQL Programmers are paid $31,000, whereas at the higher end they earn up to $81,000 with the median of these salaries coming in at $60,671 according to ZipRecruiter.com.

Junior SQL Programmer Salary United States

As a Junior SQL Programmer the salary within the United States comes out to a value of $50,000 USD a year. The factors which make this salary come down to a couple of main factors, location of the organisation and skill of the developer.

Junior SQL Programmer Salary United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom the median salary for a Junior SQL Programmer is £26,869. This salary will be heavily dependent on the skill of the employee and the type of work they will be working on.

Junior SQL Programmer Salary Australia

In Australia a Junior SQL Programmer can expect to have a salary around $75,000 AUD. There will be a few factors which affect this number, which include seniority, location of the organisation and the industry the organisation operates within.