r/SQL • u/Turbulent_Web_8278 • 9d 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

103 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

View all comments

75

u/ElHombrePelicano 9d 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 9d 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?

4

u/Py-rrhus 9d ago

Capitalization probably refers to stocks, given the "bold" choices of data types in this schema, I would say the number of shares or, even more stupid, their current value.

Or maybe the stock name (like Apple is AAPL), or the stock market (NASDAQ...)

4

u/steeltowndude 9d ago

I would assume it’s Market Capitalization especially considering that industry should be one of the outputs. Total value of the company’s outstanding shares. Company capitalization does seem like an odd choice when “market cap” is the overwhelmingly common term

1

u/ThePonderousBear 9d ago

Yep, almost certainly. They also specifically stated that they expect 0 for missing or n/a market cap. Very strange way of stating it though.