Jen McCown

We have hereby posted our newest DBAs at Midnight: Resumes (in three parts)

In Part 1 of DBAs@Midnight: Resumes:

• We show you MVP award. The joke Sean makes (and glosses over) about “in pieces on the floor” was a reference to me breaking Sean’s MVP trophy this year. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!! There’s a little glass clip thing with the year printed on it, and as I was moving the award off my desk, the clip flew off and chipped badly. The powers that be at the MVP program were kind enough to send a replacement, and I don’t touch the award any more. 🙂
• We gave away MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-433) on SQL Server 2008-Database Development to drawing winner Chuck Lathrope (@SQLGuyChuck on Twitter).
• We talk about promoting MidnightDBA, our “vision” for the site, and why Sean started MidnightDBA. “What element of SQL can kill you? Film at 11!”
• Sean shows off his new Blue mic, the Yeti
• We talk blogging and putting YOU in your material. Sounds like a self-help seminar…

In Part 2 of DBAs@Midnight: Resumes:

• “It doesn’t make you stupid to make the technology accessible to people….”
• We arrive at our main topic: Resumes! How long should your resume be, should you get it done by a service, etc etc.
  • Thought: “Could you imagine what it would look like if it were customary to have a dating resume?” It would be a lie fest…
  • We (Sean and I) do a coulpe of things with our resumes that aren’t necessarily standard, and ignore some standard advice.
  • Here we say bull**** a lot. Oops. And we begin to talk interviewing…

In Part 3 of DBAs@Midnight: Resumes:

• Effective interview tactics from the interviewer’s perspective.  “So if you’re an EXPERT, then tell me……”
• Shout out to Brent Ozar and the excellent interview material on his blog. Sean smiles, then scowls and shakes his fist.
• Sean talks about how hard he is on interviewees, and I reply, “Fair’s fair: If you hire the guy, he’s gonna have to work with you…”

Plus somewhere in there we do the drawing for the Lifecam, and also announce a surprise.

Happy days,

-Jen McCown

http://www.MidnightDBA.com

Hey everybody… I've just completed the drawing for the winner of the 70-433 Training Kit from MSPress.

Click here to see if you won.

 Thanks for playing, and we'll do another again soon.

–Sean and Jen.

When I get busy, I tend not to write as much on the technical side.  So to enrich your MidnightDBA blog experience, I hereby present a tip or two before the big announcement.

• First, Paul Randal (@paulrandal on twitter, blog) says, "Don't shrink data files. Don't shrink data files. Don't shrink data files. Don't shrink data files. Don't shrink data files. Clear?"  Yessir!
• Next, yesterday someone requested some tips on performance tuning.  To start, here are the blog posts I've done so far on performance, here is a blog by Greg Larson "The Dos and Don'ts of Database Indexing", and of course there's always BOL. This is a topic I'll be focusing on more in the near future.

 So…Sean finished a big piece he's been working on, and he feels celebratory.  We'll have a drawing today at 5pm CST to win….wait for it….

the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-433) on SQL Server 2008-Database Development!!

This is what we both used when we were studying for the 70-433. (And yes, we both passed!)

Entry in the drawing requires a little homework, but I bet you can handle it. Just watch the latest DBAs @ Midnight, "Companies Don't Care", and email Jen@JenniferMcCown.com with the answer to this question: Who did Jen say submitted a session to SQL Saturday?

Happy days,

Jen McCown

http://www.MidnightDBA.com