Nitya CloudTech Pvt Ltd.
SQL Scenario-Based Interview
Questions & Answers
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1. Retrieve Data with Conditions
Q: How would you find employees with salaries greater than the average
salary in the employees table?
A:
SELECT *
FROM employees
WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary) FROM employees);
2. Using JOINS
Q: Retrieve a list of employees who have made sales. Include their names,
employee ID, and sale amount from employees and sales tables.
A:
SELECT e.employee_id, e.name, s.sale_amount
FROM employees e
INNER JOIN sales s ON e.employee_id = s.employee_id;
3. Aggregate Functions
Q: Write a query to find the maximum and minimum salary in each
department from the employees table.
A:
SELECT department_id, MAX(salary) AS max_salary, MIN(salary) AS
min_salary
FROM employees
GROUP BY department_id;
4. Handling NULL Values
Q: How would you count the number of orders where the shipping date is
NULL in the orders table?
A:
SELECT COUNT(*) AS orders_with_no_shipping_date
FROM orders
WHERE shipping_date IS NULL;
5. Using CASE Statements
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Q: Create a query to categorize employees into 'High', 'Medium', and 'Low'
salary ranges in the employees table.
A:
SELECT employee_id, name,
CASE
WHEN salary > 100000 THEN 'High'
WHEN salary BETWEEN 50000 AND 100000 THEN 'Medium'
ELSE 'Low'
END AS salary_category
FROM employees;
6. Date Filtering
Q: Write a query to fetch orders placed in the last 30 days from the orders
table.
A:
SELECT *
FROM orders
WHERE order_date >= DATEADD(day, -30, GETDATE());
7. Subqueries
Q: Retrieve all customers who have made more than 5 orders from the
customers and orders tables.
A:
SELECT customer_id, name
FROM customers
WHERE customer_id IN (
SELECT customer_id
FROM orders
GROUP BY customer_id
HAVING COUNT(order_id) > 5
);
8. Using DISTINCT
Q: How would you find unique product names from the products table?
A:
SELECT DISTINCT product_name
FROM products;
9. Updating Records
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Q: Update the salary of all employees in the 'Sales' department by 10% in the
employees table.
A:
UPDATE employees
SET salary = salary * 1.1
WHERE department = 'Sales';
10. DELETE Operation
Q: Delete records of employees who have not made any sales in the past year.
A:
DELETE FROM employees
WHERE employee_id NOT IN (
SELECT employee_id
FROM sales
WHERE sale_date >= DATEADD(year, -1, GETDATE())
);
11. Using GROUP BY with HAVING
Q: Write a query to find departments where the average salary is greater than
$60,000.
A:
SELECT department_id, AVG(salary) AS avg_salary
FROM employees
GROUP BY department_id
HAVING AVG(salary) > 60000;
12. Self JOIN
Q: Find pairs of employees who have the same salary.
A:
SELECT e1.employee_id, e2.employee_id, e1.salary
FROM employees e1
JOIN employees e2 ON e1.salary = e2.salary AND e1.employee_id !=
e2.employee_id;
13. Window Functions
Q: Write a query to find each employee's rank based on salary within their
department.
Nitya CloudTech Pvt Ltd.
A:
SELECT employee_id, department_id, salary,
RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY department_id ORDER BY salary DESC)
AS salary_rank
FROM employees;
14. Row Numbering
Q: Select the top 3 highest-paid employees in each department.
A:
SELECT employee_id, department_id, salary
FROM (
SELECT employee_id, department_id, salary,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY department_id ORDER BY
salary DESC) AS row_num
FROM employees
) AS ranked
WHERE row_num <= 3;
15. Pivot Table
Q: Write a query to show total sales amount by month in columns for a
specific year.
A:
customer_id,
SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(order_date) = 1 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS
Jan,
SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(order_date) = 2 THEN amount ELSE 0 END) AS
Feb,
...
SUM(CASE WHEN MONTH(order_date) = 12 THEN amount ELSE 0 END)
AS Dec
FROM sales
WHERE YEAR(order_date) = 2024
GROUP BY customer_id;
16. Data Formatting
Q: Format a date field in the orders table as 'YYYY-MM-DD'.
A:
SELECT order_id, FORMAT(order_date, 'yyyy-MM-dd') AS formatted_date
FROM orders;
Nitya CloudTech Pvt Ltd.
17. Finding Duplicates
Q: Identify duplicate entries in the products table based on product name and
price.
A:
SELECT product_name, price, COUNT(*)
FROM products
GROUP BY product_name, price
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
18. Using UNION
Q: Combine results from the products table and the inventory table to show a
complete list of products.
A:
SELECT product_id, product_name FROM products
UNION
SELECT item_id, item_name FROM inventory;
19. Recursive Query (CTE)
Q: Create a query to calculate a hierarchy level for employees based on a
manager_id field.
A:
WITH EmployeeHierarchy AS (
SELECT employee_id, manager_id, 1 AS level
FROM employees
WHERE manager_id IS NULL
UNION ALL
SELECT e.employee_id, e.manager_id, eh.level + 1
FROM employees e
JOIN EmployeeHierarchy eh ON e.manager_id = eh.employee_id
)
SELECT * FROM EmployeeHierarchy;
20. Finding Gaps in Sequences
Q: Identify gaps in a sequential list of invoice numbers.
A:
SELECT (invoice_number + 1) AS start_gap,
(LEAD(invoice_number, 1) OVER (ORDER BY invoice_number) - 1)
AS end_gap
Nitya CloudTech Pvt Ltd.
FROM invoices
WHERE (invoice_number + 1) <> LEAD(invoice_number, 1) OVER (ORDER BY
invoice_number);
