Top 40 SQL Query
Interview Questions
and Answers for
Practice
Table – Employee Details
EmpId FullName ManagerId DateOfJoining City
121 John Snow 321 01/31/2019 Toronto
321 Walter White 986 01/30/2020 California
421 Kuldeep Rana 876 27/11/2021 New Delhi
EmpId Project Salary Variable
121 P1 8000 500
321 P2 10000 1000
421 P1 12000 0
Table – Employee Salary
SQL Query Interview
Questions for Freshers
1. Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpId and FullName of all the
employees working under the Manager with id – ‘986’.
We can use the EmployeeDetails table to fetch the employee details with a
where clause for the manager-
SELECT EmpId, FullName
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE ManagerId = 986;
2. Write an SQL query to fetch the different projects available from the
EmployeeSalary table.
While referring to the EmployeeSalary table, we can see that this table
contains project values corresponding to each employee, or we can say
that we will have duplicate project values while selecting Project values
from this table.
So, we will use the distinct clause to get the unique values of the Project.
SELECT DISTINCT(Project)
FROM EmployeeSalary;
3. Write an SQL query to fetch the count of employees working in
project ‘P1’.
Here, we would be using aggregate function count() with the
SQL where clause-
SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE Project = 'P1';
4. Write an SQL query to find the maximum, minimum, and average
salary of the employees.
We can use the aggregate function of SQL to fetch the max, min, and
average values-
SELECT Max(Salary),
Min(Salary),
AVG(Salary)
FROM EmployeeSalary;
5. Write an SQL query to find the employee id whose salary lies in the
range of 9000 and 15000.
Here, we can use the ‘Between’ operator with a where clause.
SELECT EmpId, Salary
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE Salary BETWEEN 9000 AND 15000;
6. Write an SQL query to fetch those employees who live in Toronto
and work under the manager with ManagerId – 321.
Since we have to satisfy both the conditions – employees living in ‘Toronto’
and working in Project ‘P2’. So, we will use the AND operator here-
SELECT EmpId, City, ManagerId
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE City='Toronto' AND ManagerId='321';
7. Write an SQL query to fetch all the employees who either live in
California or work under a manager with ManagerId – 321.
This interview question requires us to satisfy either of the conditions –
employees living in ‘California’ and working under Manager with ManagerId
– 321. So, we will use the OR operator here-
SELECT EmpId, City, ManagerId
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE City='California' OR ManagerId='321';
8. Write an SQL query to fetch all those employees who work on
Projects other than P1.
Here, we can use the NOT operator to fetch the rows which are not
satisfying the given condition.
SELECT EmpId
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE NOT Project='P1';
Or using the ‘not equal to’ operator-
SELECT EmpId
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE Project <> 'P1';
For the difference between NOT and <> SQL operators, check this link
– Difference between the NOT and != operators.
9. Write an SQL query to display the total salary of each employee
adding the Salary with Variable value.
Here, we can simply use the ‘+’ operator in SQL.
SELECT EmpId,
Salary+Variable as TotalSalary
FROM EmployeeSalary;
10. Write an SQL query to fetch the employees whose name begins
with any two characters, followed by a text “hn” and ends with any
sequence of characters.
For this question, we can create an SQL query using like operator with ‘_’
and ‘%’ wild card characters, where ‘_’ matches a single character and ‘%’
matches ‘0 or multiple characters.
SELECT FullName
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE FullName LIKE ‘__hn%’;
11. Write an SQL query to fetch all the EmpIds which are present in
either of the tables – ‘EmployeeDetails’ and ‘EmployeeSalary’.
In order to get unique employee ids from both tables, we can use the Union
clause which can combine the results of the two SQL queries and return
unique rows.
SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeDetails
UNION
SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary;
12. Write an SQL query to fetch common records between two tables.
SQL Server – Using INTERSECT operator-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeSalary
INTERSECT
SELECT * FROM ManagerSalary;
MySQL – Since MySQL doesn’t have INTERSECT operator so we can use
the subquery-
SELECT *
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE EmpId IN
(SELECT EmpId from ManagerSalary);
13. Write an SQL query to fetch records that are present in one table
but not in another table.
SQL Server – Using MINUS- operator-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeSalary
MINUS
SELECT * FROM ManagerSalary;
MySQL – Since MySQL doesn’t have a MINUS operator so we can use
LEFT join-
SELECT EmployeeSalary.*
FROM EmployeeSalary
LEFT JOIN
ManagerSalary USING (EmpId)
WHERE ManagerSalary.EmpId IS NULL;
14. Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpIds that are present in both
the tables – ‘EmployeeDetails’ and ‘EmployeeSalary.
Using subquery-
SELECT EmpId FROM
EmployeeDetails
where EmpId IN
(SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary);
15. Write an SQL query to fetch the EmpIds that are present in
EmployeeDetails but not in EmployeeSalary.
Using subquery-a
SELECT EmpId FROM
EmployeeDetails
where EmpId Not IN
(SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary);
16. Write an SQL query to fetch the employee’s full names and replace
the space with ‘-’.
Using the ‘Replace’ function-
SELECT REPLACE(FullName, ' ', '-')
FROM EmployeeDetails;
17. Write an SQL query to fetch the position of a given character(s) in
a field.
Using the ‘Instr’ function-
SELECT INSTR(FullName, 'Snow')
FROM EmployeeDetails;
18. Write an SQL query to display both the EmpId and ManagerId
together.
Here we can use the CONCAT command.
SELECT CONCAT(EmpId, ManagerId) as NewId
FROM EmployeeDetails;
19. Write a query to fetch only the first name(string before space)
from the FullName column of the EmployeeDetails table.
In this question, we are required to first fetch the location of the space
character in the FullName field and then extract the first name out of the
FullName field.
For finding the location we will use the LOCATE method in MySQL and
CHARINDEX in SQL SERVER and for fetching the string before space, we
will use the SUBSTRING OR MID method.
MySQL – using MID
SELECT MID(FullName, 1, LOCATE(' ',FullName))
FROM EmployeeDetails;
SQL Server – using SUBSTRING
SELECT SUBSTRING(FullName, 1, CHARINDEX(' ',FullName))
FROM EmployeeDetails;
20. Write an SQL query to uppercase the name of the employee and
lowercase the city values.
We can use SQL Upper and Lower functions to achieve the intended
results.
SELECT UPPER(FullName), LOWER(City)
FROM EmployeeDetails;
21. Write an SQL query to find the count of the total occurrences of a
particular character – ‘n’ in the FullName field.
Here, we can use the ‘Length’ function. We can subtract the total length of
the FullName field from the length of the FullName after replacing the
character – ‘n’.
SELECT FullName,
LENGTH(FullName) - LENGTH(REPLACE(FullName, 'n', ''))
FROM EmployeeDetails;
22. Write an SQL query to update the employee names by removing
leading and trailing spaces.
Using the ‘Update’ command with the ‘LTRIM’ and ‘RTRIM’ functions.
UPDATE EmployeeDetails
SET FullName = LTRIM(RTRIM(FullName));
23. Fetch all the employees who are not working on any project.
This is one of the very basic interview questions in which the interviewer
wants to see if the person knows about the commonly used – Is NULL
operator.
SELECT EmpId
FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE Project IS NULL;
24. Write an SQL query to fetch employee names having a salary
greater than or equal to 5000 and less than or equal to 10000.
Here, we will use BETWEEN in the ‘where’ clause to return the EmpId of
the employees with salary satisfying the required criteria and then use it as
a subquery to find the fullName of the employee from the EmployeeDetails
table.
SELECT FullName
FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE EmpId IN
(SELECT EmpId FROM EmployeeSalary
WHERE Salary BETWEEN 5000 AND 10000);
25. Write an SQL query to find the current date-time.
MySQL-
SELECT NOW();
SQL Server-
SELECT getdate();
Oracle-
SELECT SYSDATE FROM DUAL;
26. Write an SQL query to fetch all the Employee details from
the EmployeeDetails table who joined in the Year 2020.
Using BETWEEN for the date range ’01-01-2020′ AND ’31-12-2020′-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE DateOfJoining BETWEEN '2020/01/01'
AND '2020/12/31';
Also, we can extract the year part from the joining date (using YEAR in
MySQL)-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE YEAR(DateOfJoining) = '2020';
27. Write an SQL query to fetch all employee records from the
EmployeeDetails table who have a salary record in the
EmployeeSalary table.
Using ‘Exists’-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeDetails E
WHERE EXISTS
(SELECT * FROM EmployeeSalary S
WHERE E.EmpId = S.EmpId);
28. Write an SQL query to fetch the project-wise count of employees
sorted by project’s count in descending order.
The query has two requirements – first to fetch the project-wise count and
then to sort the result by that count.
For project-wise count, we will be using the GROUP BY clause and for
sorting, we will use the ORDER BY clause on the alias of the project count.
SELECT Project, count(EmpId) EmpProjectCount
FROM EmployeeSalary
GROUP BY Project
ORDER BY EmpProjectCount DESC;
29. Write a query to fetch employee names and salary records.
Display the employee details even if the salary record is not present
for the employee.
This is again one of the very common interview questions in which the
interviewer just wants to check the basic knowledge of SQL JOINS.
Here, we can use the left join with the EmployeeDetail table on the left side
of the EmployeeSalary table.
SELECT E.FullName, S.Salary
FROM EmployeeDetails E
LEFT JOIN
EmployeeSalary S
ON E.EmpId = S.EmpId;
30. Write an SQL query to join 3 tables.
Considering 3 tables TableA, TableB, and TableC, we can use 2 joins
clauses like below-
SELECT column1, column2
FROM TableA
JOIN TableB ON TableA.Column3 = TableB.Column3
JOIN TableC ON TableA.Column4 = TableC.Column4;
For more questions on SQL Joins, you can also check our top SQL Joins
Interview Questions.
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SQL Query Interview
Questions for Experienced
Here is a list of some of the most frequently asked SQL query interview
questions for experienced professionals. These questions cover SQL
queries on advanced SQL JOIN concepts, fetching duplicate rows, odd and
even rows, nth highest salary, etc.
31. Write an SQL query to fetch all the Employees who are also
managers from the EmployeeDetails table.
Here, we have to use Self-Join as the requirement wants us to analyze the
EmployeeDetails table as two tables. We will use different aliases ‘E’ and
‘M’ for the same EmployeeDetails table.
SELECT DISTINCT E.FullName
FROM EmployeeDetails E
INNER JOIN EmployeeDetails M
ON E.EmpID = M.ManagerID;
32. Write an SQL query to fetch duplicate records from
EmployeeDetails (without considering the primary key – EmpId).
In order to find duplicate records from the table, we can use GROUP BY on
all the fields and then use the HAVING clause to return only those fields
whose count is greater than 1 i.e. the rows having duplicate records.
SELECT FullName, ManagerId, DateOfJoining, City, COUNT(*)
FROM EmployeeDetails
GROUP BY FullName, ManagerId, DateOfJoining, City
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;
33. Write an SQL query to remove duplicates from a table without
using a temporary table.
Here, we can use delete with alias and inner join. We will check for the
equality of all the matching records and then remove the row with a higher
EmpId.
DELETE E1 FROM EmployeeDetails E1
INNER JOIN EmployeeDetails E2
WHERE E1.EmpId > E2.EmpId
AND E1.FullName = E2.FullName
AND E1.ManagerId = E2.ManagerId
AND E1.DateOfJoining = E2.DateOfJoining
AND E1.City = E2.City;
34. Write an SQL query to fetch only odd rows from the table.
In case we have an auto-increment field e.g. EmpId then we can simply
use the below query-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE MOD (EmpId, 2) <> 0;
In case we don’t have such a field then we can use the below queries.
Using Row_number in SQL server and checking that the remainder when
divided by 2 is 1-
SELECT E.EmpId, E.Project, E.Salary
FROM (
SELECT *, Row_Number() OVER(ORDER BY EmpId) AS RowNumber
FROM EmployeeSalary
)E
WHERE E.RowNumber % 2 = 1;
Using a user-defined variable in MySQL-
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT *, @rowNumber := @rowNumber+ 1 rn
FROM EmployeeSalary
JOIN (SELECT @rowNumber:= 0) r
)t
WHERE rn % 2 = 1;
35. Write an SQL query to fetch only even rows from the table.
In case we have an auto-increment field e.g. EmpId then we can simply
use the below query-
SELECT * FROM EmployeeDetails
WHERE MOD (EmpId, 2) = 0;
In case we don’t have such a field then we can use the below queries.
Using Row_number in SQL server and checking that the remainder, when
divided by 2, is 1-
SELECT E.EmpId, E.Project, E.Salary
FROM (
SELECT *, Row_Number() OVER(ORDER BY EmpId) AS RowNumber
FROM EmployeeSalary
)E
WHERE E.RowNumber % 2 = 0;
Using a user-defined variable in MySQL-
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT *, @rowNumber := @rowNumber+ 1 rn
FROM EmployeeSalary
JOIN (SELECT @rowNumber:= 0) r
)t
WHERE rn % 2 = 0;
36. Write an SQL query to create a new table with data and structure
copied from another table.
CREATE TABLE NewTable
SELECT * FROM EmployeeSalary;
37. Write an SQL query to create an empty table with the same
structure as some other table.
Here, we can use the same query as above with the False ‘WHERE’
condition-
CREATE TABLE NewTable
SELECT * FROM EmployeeSalary where 1=0;
38. Write an SQL query to fetch top n records.
In MySQL using LIMIT-
SELECT *
FROM EmployeeSalary
ORDER BY Salary DESC LIMIT N;
In SQL server using TOP command-
SELECT TOP N *
FROM EmployeeSalary
ORDER BY Salary DESC;
39. Write an SQL query to find the nth highest salary from a table.
Using Top keyword (SQL Server)-
SELECT TOP 1 Salary
FROM (
SELECT DISTINCT TOP N Salary
FROM Employee
ORDER BY Salary DESC
ORDER BY Salary ASC;
Using limit clause(MySQL)-
SELECT Salary
FROM Employee
ORDER BY Salary DESC LIMIT N-1,1;
40. Write SQL query to find the 3rd highest salary from a table without
using the TOP/limit keyword.
This is one of the most commonly asked interview questions. For this, we
will use a correlated subquery.
In order to find the 3rd highest salary, we will find the salary value until the
inner query returns a count of 2 rows having a salary greater than other
distinct salaries.
SELECT Salary
FROM EmployeeSalary Emp1
WHERE 2 = (
SELECT COUNT( DISTINCT ( Emp2.Salary ) )
FROM EmployeeSalary Emp2
WHERE Emp2.Salary > Emp1.Salary
For the nth highest salary-
SELECT Salary
FROM EmployeeSalary Emp1
WHERE N-1 = (
SELECT COUNT( DISTINCT ( Emp2.Salary ) )
FROM EmployeeSalary Emp2
WHERE Emp2.Salary > Emp1.Salary
