Me, too.

But, sadly, OP is right.

When doing a technical screen I'll sometimes pick a skill the person claims to have, and ask them the simplest possible non-trivial question I can ask.

For example, let's say you list 'SQL' as one of the skills on your CV. I might show you a SQL statement like:

  SELECT id, start_date FROM employees;

(EDIT: I meant SELECT id, start_date FROM employees ORDER BY id;)

I'll tell you id is an auto-increment field, and ask whether the result would show the newest employee at the top or the bottom.

You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right. If you get it wrong, I'll tell you the answer. Getting it wrong wouldn't disqualify you.

Then I'll ask you how to get it in the opposite order.

I am expecting you to immediately say 'add DESC'. If you can't answer that question in under 2 seconds, you probably haven't written enough SQL to justify listing it as a skill on your CV.

You would be surprised at how many people fail simple tests just like this one.

(I won't use this particular one again.)

> You have a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

What is the right answer? Doesn't it depend on the DB? Postgres at least shows rows ordered by last updated time (simplified, I know).

I would be fine if it was "... near the top or bottom" though.

(Or maybe this comment is the correct answer?)

Sorry, I wrote this in a hurry. Of course I would have included an ORDER BY clause.

The one without that clause was still fun to think about, so no harm done!

Yes me too, zero, and I'm pretty sure it's closer to zero than to 100% among others also, here where I live

I'm together with sethammons in that "rounding error". I actually go further and explicitly list things which I'm not good at on my resumé.

If you’re really good at what you do, there’s no need to embellish. Company is looking for five years of experience in something that’s only been available for four years? Screw ‘em, you don’t want to work at such a stupid place anyway. Good employers know how to find good employees.