1/17/25, 11:44 PM Top 100+ SQL Interview Questions and Answers for 2025

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SQL Interview Questions for

Top 100+ SQL Interview Questions and
Freshers
Answers for 2025
Basic SQL Interview
Questions
By Kishore Kumar | Last updated on January 15, 2025 | 1868704 Views
SQL Interview Questions for
Experienced (3 - 5 Years)
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SQL Join Interview Questions Table of content
SQL Interview Questions for Freshers
SQL Query Interview
Questions
Basic SQL Interview Questions

SQL Interview Questions for Experienced (3 - 5 Years)

SQL Join Interview Questions

SQL Query Interview Questions

SQL is one of the most popular database programming languages that is used
for creating, modifying, retrieving, and manipulating data in databases.
Databases are widely used in all companies for its robust features & security.

We have complied the list of SQL interview questions with answers asked in the
top product MNC’s like Google, Microsoft, Meta, & others services companies to
help you crack your next SQL interview. These questions are segregated into
multiple sections for ease of learning and interview preparation.

1. What is the difference between a primary key and a unique key?

2. What is a constraint, and why use constraints?
3. What is the COALESCE function?
4. What are UNION, MINUS, and INTERSECT in SQL?
5. What is view and its type in SQL?
6. What do you understand about a temporary table? Write a query to create it.
7. How would you optimize a slow-moving SQL query? List the SQL optimization
techniques.
8. Different types of JOINS in SQL
9. Given a Supervision table with employee_id and manager_id, write a query to
detect if there is a cycle in the reporting hierarchy.
10. Write an UPDATE query to set the total_sales to the sum of individual sales
amounts for each employee in the employee table.

SQL Interview Questions for Freshers

1. What is the difference between a primary key and a unique

key?

Primary Key: The primary key is used to uniquely identify every record in a
table. It ensures that NULL values are not present in the table.

Unique Key: Unique key also identifies each record uniquely but it can accept
NULL values.

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2. What are ACID properties?

Type a message here...

ACID stands for atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability. These

properties ensure the reliable processing of database transactions.

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3. What is a constraint, and why use constraints?

SQL constraints are a set of rules applied to a column or table to maintain data
integrity. SQL consists of many constraints which are as follows:

DEFAULT: It sets a default value for a column.

UNIQUE: It ensures all values are unique.

NOT NULL: It prevents NULL values.

PRIMARY KEY: It enables to uniquely identify each record in a table. We can

say that it combines NOT NULL and UNIQUE.

FOREIGN KEY: Links records in two tables.

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4. What is the difference between WHERE clause and Having

clause?

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5. What is an alias?

An alias is a temporary name assigned to a table or column for the duration of a

query. Aliases improve readability.

SELECT col_1 AS column_name

FROM table_name;

6. What do you mean by foreign key?

A foreign key is a table column or a set of columns in a relational database

system that establishes a link between data in the two tables. It is used to
implement referential integrity by ensuring that the value in the foreign key
column matches a primary key value in another table.

7. What are tables and fields in SQL?

Tables and fields are fundamental building blocks of a database structure in

SQL.

Table: A table is a collection of related data organized in rows and columns.

Each table is used to store information about a specific entity. A table consists
of multiple fields (columns) and records (rows).

Field: A field is a specific attribute or property of the entity that the table
represents. It is also known as a column; each field holds data of a specific type,
such as text, numbers, or dates.

8. Difference between Drop vs Delete command?

The DROP and DELETE commands in SQL are used for removing data, but they
are differ significantly: DROP: Drop command is a DDL command. It completely
removes a table or database, including its structure and all data from the
database.

DELETE: Delete is a DML command. It removes specific rows of data from a

table based on a given condition.

9. What is the COALESCE function?

The COALESCE function is used to take a set of inputs values and returns the
first non-null value from the record.

Syntax:

COALESCE(val1,val2,val3,……,nth val)

10. What is a trigger?

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The trigger is used to do an automatic process when a particular event happens

in the database or table. It helps in maintaining the integrity of the table and
associated tables. The trigger can be activated when the commands like insert,
update, and delete are fired. The syntax used to generate the trigger function is
as follows:

CREATE TRIGGER trigger_name

11. What is Normalization?

Normalization is used to reduce data redundancy and improve data integrity.

Normalization, splits the big table into multiple sub tables and ensure that
database integrity constraints are intact with their relationship with each other. It
is a process of decomposing tables to eliminate data redundancy.

12. What is the difference between BETWEEN and IN operators in

SQL?

The BETWEEN operator is employed to identify rows that fall within a specified
range of values, encompassing numerical, textual, or date values. It returns the
count of values that exist between the two defined boundaries.

On the other hand, the IN operator serves as a condition operator utilized for
searching values within a predetermined range. When multiple values are
available for selection, the IN operator is utilized.

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13. What are DDL, DML, DCL, TCL, and DQL in SQL?

DDL: Data Definition Language is used to create, modify, and drop the schema of
database objects. CREATE, ALTER TABLE, DROP, TRUNCATE, ADD COLUMN are
DDL commands.

DML: Data Manipulation Language allows to change or manipulate the existing

data of the tables. UPDATE, DELETE, INSERT are DML commands.

DCL: Data Control Language allows the administrator of the database to

manage the rights and permissions of the users in the database. GRANT,
REVOKE are DCL commands.

TCL: Transaction Control Language is used to maintain the SQL operations

within the database. It also allows the changes to be saved, which are made by
the DML commands. COMMIT, SET TRANSACTION, ROLLBACK, SAVEPOINT are
examples of TCL commands.

DQL: Data Query Language is used to retrieve data from databases using the
SELECT statement.

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14. What is AUTO_INCREMENT?

AUTO_INCREMENT is used in SQL to automatically generate a unique number

whenever a new record is inserted into a table. This is majorly used in the
scenario where individual columns or groups of columns cannot be used as
primary keys.

For Example,:

CREATE TABLE Employee (

Employee_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
Employee_name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
Employee_designation VARCHAR(255),
Age INT,
PRIMARY KEY (Employee_id)
);

15. What are UNION, MINUS, and INTERSECT in SQL?

UNION: Union operation combines results from two queries, and removes
duplicates.

MINUS: Minus operation returns rows from the first query that are not in the
second query.

INTERSECT: Intersect returns rows that are common to both queries.

16. What is a subquery?

A subquery is a query nested within another query, enabling more complex data
retrieval.

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17. Explain the difference between a correlated subquery and a

nested subquery.

Correlated Subquery: References data from the outer query in its WHERE
clause.
Nested Subquery: This can be placed anywhere in the outer query and does not
directly reference the outer table.

Basic SQL Interview Questions

18. What is a function in SQL, and why do we use functions?

A function is a database object that encapsulates a set of SQL statements that

perform operations and return a specific result. To increase readability and
reusability of code functions are used.

19. What is view and its type in SQL?

A view is a virtual table representing data from one or more tables without
physically storing it. It can simplify complex queries.

Simple View: It is a view based on a single table and does not have a GROUP BY
clause or other SQL features.

Complex View: It is a view built from several tables and includes a GROUP BY
clause as well as functions.

Inline View: It is a view built on a subquery in the FROM clause, which provides a
temporary table and simplifies a complicated query.

Materialized View: It is a view that saves both the definition and the details. It
builds data replicas by physically preserving them.

20. What is the difference between Union and Union All

operators?
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The UNION and UNION ALL operators both are used for combine the output of
two or more SELECT queries, but they differ in handling duplicate rows:

UNION: UNION operators combine the results of multiple SELECT queries and
remove duplicate rows. It returns only distinct values across all queries.

UNION ALL: UNION ALL operator combines the output of multiple SELECT
queries, including duplicates

21. What is a stored procedure?

A stored procedure is a set of SQL statements stored in the database that can
be reused, promoting modular programming.

22. What do you understand about a temporary table? Write a

query to create it.

Temporary table allow us to store and process the data just like a normal table;
however, the benefit of using temporary tables is that it will created on the fly
and will be deleted automatically. It is primarily used for complex data
transformation or data selection from a large number of tables. This enables
writing simple SQL queries and data manipulation activities on intermediate
datasets.

Syntax:
CREATE TABLE #table_name();
The below query will create a temporary table:
create table #book(b_id int, b_cost int)
Now, we will insert the records

insert into #book values(1,100)

insert into #book values(2,232)
select * from #book

Output:

23. How would you optimize a slow-moving SQL query? List the
SQL optimization techniques.

We can optimize a slow-moving SQL query by using indexing in the DBMS to find
the specific rows in a table very quickly.

There are several optimization techniques listed below

1. Using Indexes

2. Using Distinct Clause

3. Using Having and Where clauses

4. Avoiding correlated subqueries

5. Using Limit to restrict the rows as output

6. Using Column statistics

24. How can you secure your SQL queries against SQL injection
attacks?

Use prepared statements with parameterized queries to separate code from

data, preventing the execution of malicious code.

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SQL Interview Questions for Experienced (3-5 Years)

25. Explain the concept of database partitioning and its benefits.

Database partitioning divides a large table into smaller segments based on a

chosen key. This improves performance of the SQL queries by allowing queries
to run on the specific partitions and reducing I/O operations.

26. What are the third-party tools that are used in SQL Server?

The following is the list of third-party tools that are used in SQL Server:

SQL CHECK

SQL DOC 2

SQL Backup 5

SQL Prompt

Litespeed 5.0

SQL Join Interview Questions

27. What is SQL JOINS?

The SQL JOIN component joins rows from one or more tables in a relational
database. Create sets that can be stored in tabular form or used routinely. JOIN
is to combine columns from one table or multiple tables using the same value.

28. Different types of JOINS in SQL

There are different types of JOINS in SQL, which are the following:

INNER JOIN – An INNER JOIN is used to return records of the same value in
two tables.

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LEFT JOIN – LEFT JOIN is used to join all the rows in the left table with
matching rows in the right table.

RIGHT JOIN – RIGHT JOIN is used to join all the rows in the right table with
the corresponding rows in the left table.

FULL JOIN – A FULL JOIN is used to return all records from two tables if there
are matching records in each table.

SELF JOIN – A SELF JOIN is a join used to join a table to itself. SELF JOINS
treats one table as two tables.

CARTESIAN JOIN – CARTESIAN Integral is used to multiply the number of

rows in the first table by the number of rows in the second table. It is also
called CROSS JOIN.

29. What is the difference between INNER JOIN and SELF JOIN?

The most important difference between INNER and SELF JOIN is:

INNER JOIN is used to return the records which are present in both tables.
Whereas, in SELF JOIN, a table is joined to itself.

A SELF JOIN is a type of INNER JOIN.

30. What is the importance of SQL JOINS in database

management?

The various importance of SQL JOINS in database management are as follows:

SQL JOINS is a method to integrate databases so that they are easy to read
and use.

General data protection is also maintained. Data normalization helps reduce

data loss so the application has fewer data gaps when records are deleted or
updated.

The advantage of JOINS is that it is faster and therefore more efficient.

Retrieving data using summary queries is usually faster than using

subqueries.

Using JOINS can reduce data usage and storage on the database. Here you
can use one JOIN query instead of multiple queries. So you can use a large
database to search, filter, organize, and more.

31. State the difference between the RIGHT JOIN and the LEFT
JOIN.

Both RIGHT JOIN and LEFT JOIN do the same thing: they return the result of a
query that contains all the records in the table. The only difference is that the
left view shows all the records in the left table of the query, and the right view
shows all the records in the right table.

32. Is SELF JOIN an INNER JOIN or OUTER JOIN?

The SELF JOIN can be an INNER JOIN, OUTER JOIN, or can also be CROSS
JOIN. Tables are automatically linked based on columns that contain duplicate
data in multiple rows.

33. What is the difference between FULL JOIN and CARTESIAN

JOIN?

The combination of the LEFT and the RIGHT OUTER JOIN is called a FULL JOIN.

If the ON condition cannot be satisfied, it returns all rows in both tables that
match the WHERE clause with a NULL value.

Whereas, a CARTESIAN or CROSS JOIN creates a cross-product between the

two tables. For all rows, it returns a possible sequence.

34. What is NATURAL JOIN?

A NATURAL JOIN is used to create an absolute JOIN clause based on common

attribute values in two tables. Shared variables are variables that are named in
both tables. NATURAL JOINS do not need any equivalence operator like EQUI
JOIN.

35. What is an EQUI JOIN?

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An EQUI JOIN is a type of join operation in a database that combines rows from
two or more tables based on a matching condition using the equality operator
(=). It is used to retrieve data where values in specified columns are equal.

Here is an example of the syntax for an EQUI JOIN:

SELECT column_name(s)
FROM table1

JOIN table2
ON table1.column_name = table2.column_name;

36. Can you join a table to itself in SQL?

Yes, in SQL, it is possible to join a table to itself, which is known as a self-join. By

using table aliases, you can treat the same table as two separate entities and
perform a join operation on them based on specified conditions. Self-joins are
used when you need to retrieve information by comparing rows within the same
table.

37. How are JOINS different from the UNION clause?

A JOIN can be used if two tables share at least one attribute.

The length of the retrieved rows is greater than the length of the rows in the
corresponding tables.

Whereas In the case of UNION, a JOIN can be used if the query has the same
number of columns and the corresponding attributes are the same.

The number of rows returned is greater than the number of rows in each table in
the query.

38. Is it required that the JOIN condition be based on equality?

No, because JOINS have the conditions of NON-EQUI. Sentence combinations

can be done with common symbols such as <, <=, >, >=, !=, BETWEEN, for
example, to represent data. Odd-pair indexing and identifying duplicate data are
several cases where NON-EQUI JOINS performance can be demonstrated.

39. What is a HASH JOIN?

A HASH JOIN requires two inputs, an INNER table, and an OUTER table. HASH
JOINS involve using a HASH table to identify matching rows between two
tables. HASH JOINS are an option when other joins are not recommended.
When joining large data sets that are unsorted or non-indexed HASH JOINS are
better.

40. What is MERGE JOIN?

MERGE JOIN is the most important join in SQL Server. In MERGE JOIN, your
query plan is effective and you don’t need to make many changes to improve
query performance. Because the MERGE JOIN operator uses ordered data entry,
it can use two large data sets.

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41. Can you explain NESTED JOIN in SQL?

JOIN is one of the methods we use to join data from multiple tables into a
relational database, and NESTED JOIN is one of the simplest methods to join
two tables. Typically, one table is used as the OUTER JOIN table with NESTED
JOINS and the other is used as the INNER JOIN table. Nested loop collections
can be classified into indexed nesting and temporary Index Nested Loop Join.

42. Explain Common Table Expression SQL.

In general, a Common Table Expression (CTE) is a temporary, named result set

that can be used to refer to an UPDATE, INSERT, SELECT, or DELETE statement.
A CTE can be specified by adding WITH before an UPDATE, INSERT, DELETE,
SELECT, or MERGE statement. Multiple CTEs can be used in the WITH clause by
separating them with commas.

43. How will you structure data to perform a JOIN Operation in a

one-to-many relationship situation?

To create a one-to-many, you need to add the primary key from one side to many
sides as a column. To create many-to-many, you need a middle table that
contains the primary keys from many-to-many tables.

44. Write an SQL syntax for joining 3 tables.

select tab1.col1, tab2.col2,tab3.col3 (columns to display) from

table1

Join ///Any type of join

table2 on tab1.col1=tab2.col1 //any matching columns

Join ///Any type of join

table3 on tab 2.col1=tab 3.col1 //any matching columns

SQL Query Interview Questions

45. Write a query to select specific columns, say name and age,
from a table called Employees.

SELECT name, age

FROM Intellipaat_Emp;

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46. Write a query to get employees older than 35 and working in

the operation department.

SELECT *

FROM Intellipaat_Emp
WHERE age > 35

AND department = 'operation';

47. Write a query to find the average salary for each department.

SELECT
department,

AVG(salary) AS avg_salary

FROM
Intellipaat_Emp

GROUP BY
department;

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48. Write a query to find employees whose names start with 'Int'.

Query: SQL> SELECT *

FROM employees
WHERE employee_name LIKE 'Int%';

49. Write a query to add a new employee record.

INSERT INTO Intellipaat_Emp (name, age, department, salary)

VALUES ('John Doe', 28, 'Marketing', 50000);

50. Write a query to retrieve the last five records from the
Employees table based on the id column.

SELECT *

FROM Intellipaat_Emp
ORDER BY id DESC

LIMIT 5;

51. Write a query to label employees with salaries above 5000 as

SELECT name,

salary,
CASE

WHEN salary > 5000 THEN 'High Salary'

ELSE 'Low Salary'

END AS salary_category
FROM Intellipaat_Emp;

52. Write a query to get all employees and their project names,
showing NULL if an employee is not assigned a project.

SELECT Employees.name,
Projects.project_name

FROM Intellipaat_Emp AS Employees

LEFT JOIN Projects

ON Employees.project_id = Projects.id;

53. Write an SQL query to display each department along with

the name of any employee who works in that department. If a
department has no employees, show the department with NULL
for the employee’s name.

SELECT dept.DepartmentName,
int_emp.Name

FROM Employees AS int_emp

RIGHT JOIN Departments AS dept

ON int_emp.DepartmentID = dept.DepartmentID;

54. Write a query to increase the salary of all employees in the

'HR' department by 10%.

UPDATE Intellipaat_Emp
SET salary = salary * 1.1

WHERE department = 'HR';

55. Write a query to fetch unique employee names where

duplicate names exist in the Employees table.

SELECT name

FROM Intellipaat_Emp
GROUP BY name

HAVING COUNT(*) = 1;

56. Find all duplicate rows in a table Employees, considering all

columns.

SELECT *
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

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GROUP BY name, age, department, salary

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

57. How will you calculate the total sales in each category of a
product sales table?

To calculate the total sales in each category of a product sales table, we can
use the aggregate function (SUM) with the sales amount column and group it by
the category column.

SELECT category,

SUM(sales_amt) AS Total_Sales
FROM sales

GROUP BY category;

58. How can you copy data from one table to another table?

we can use the INSERT INTO SELECT operator.

INSERT INTO employee_duplicate

SELECT *

FROM employees;

59. Write a query to fetch employees who earn more than the
average salary.

SELECT *
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

WHERE salary > (SELECT AVG(salary)

FROM Intellipaat_Emp);

60. How would you find the 2nd highest salary from a table
called Employees?

SELECT MAX(salary)
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

WHERE salary < (SELECT MAX(salary)

FROM Intellipaat_Emp);

For the Nth highest salary, replace MAX with LIMIT:

SELECT DISTINCT salary

FROM Intellipaat_Emp

ORDER BY salary DESC

LIMIT N-1, 1;

61. Write a query to select only even or odd rows from a table
based on an id field.

— Even rows

SELECT *

FROM Intellipaat_Emp
WHERE id % 2 = 0;

— Odd rows

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SELECT *
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

WHERE id % 2 = 1;

62. Write a query to select the top 2 salaries from each

department in the Employees table.

SELECT *

FROM (
SELECT name, department, salary,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) AS

rank
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

) AS ranked
WHERE rank <= 2;

63. If you have an id column with sequential numbers but some

values are missing, write a query to find the missing numbers.

SELECT id + 1 AS missing_id
FROM Intellipaat_Emp

WHERE (id + 1) NOT IN (SELECT id FROM Intellipaat_Emp);

64. Write a query to swap the values in a column, for example,

changing all 'Male' to 'Female' and vice versa in a column gender.

UPDATE Intellipaat_Emp
SET gender = CASE

WHEN gender = 'Male' THEN 'Female'

ELSE 'Male'

END;

65. Write a query to find pairs of employees who have the same
salary.

SELECT A.name AS employee1, B.name AS employee2, A.salary

FROM Intellipaat_Emp A
JOIN Employees B ON A.salary = B.salary

AND A.name < B.name;

66. Write a query to find the number of days an employee has

been with the company.

SELECT name, DATEDIFF(CURDATE(), joining_date) AS days_with_company

FROM Intellipaat_Emp;

67. Find pairs of employees who were hired on the same day.

SELECT A.name AS employee1, B.name AS employee2, A.joining_date

FROM Intellipaat_Emp A, Employees B

WHERE A.joining_date = B.joining_date

AND A.name < B.name;

68. Write a query to find the median salary in each department

from an Employee table.

Hint: You may use ROW_NUMBER() or PERCENT_RANK() to determine median

values.

WITH RankedSalaries AS (

SELECT department, salary,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary) AS

rn_asc,

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY salary DESC) AS

rn_desc

FROM Intellipaat_Emp
)

SELECT department, AVG(salary) AS median_salary

FROM RankedSalaries

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WHERE rn_asc = rn_desc OR rn_asc + 1 = rn_desc

GROUP BY department;

69. Write a query to get the top 10% of employees by salary.

Hint: Use PERCENT_RANK() to filter out top percentages.

SELECT *

FROM (
SELECT name, salary,

PERCENT_RANK() OVER (ORDER BY salary DESC) AS pct_rank

FROM Intellipaat_Emp

) AS Ranked
WHERE pct_rank <= 0.1;

70. Write a query to calculate the cumulative salary (running

total) within each department.

SELECT department, name, salary,

SUM(salary) OVER (PARTITION BY department ORDER BY name) AS

cumulative_salary

FROM Intellipaat_Emp;

71. Write a query to calculate the time gap (in hours) between
consecutive logins for each user.

SELECT user_id, login_time,

TIMESTAMPDIFF(HOUR,
LAG(login_time) OVER (PARTITION BY user_id ORDER BY login_time),

login_time) AS hours_since_last_login

FROM Logins;

72. Write a query to get a full list of products, including products

that have no sales, by performing a full outer join between
product_dim and sales_fact.

SELECT p.product_id, p.product_name, SUM(s.sale_amount) AS

total_sales
FROM product_dim p

LEFT JOIN sales_fact s ON p.product_id = s.product_id

GROUP BY p.product_id, p.product_name

UNION

SELECT p.product_id, p.product_name, 0 AS total_sales

FROM product_dim p

WHERE NOT EXISTS (

SELECT 1

FROM sales_fact s
WHERE p.product_id = s.product_id

);

73. Write a query to calculate the year-to-date (YTD) sales for

each product up to the current date in the sales_fact table.

SELECT product_id,

SUM(sale_amount) OVER (PARTITION BY product_id

ORDER BY sale_date
ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW) AS ytd_sales

FROM sales_fact

WHERE sale_date <= CURRENT_DATE

ORDER BY product_id;

74. How would you find the second-highest salary from a table?

Code:

SELECT * FROM employee;

SELECT MAX(e_salary)
FROM employee

WHERE e_salary NOT IN (SELECT MAX(e_salary) FROM employee);

75. How will you fetch the most recent entries in a database?
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We can fetch the most recent entries in a database by using the ORDER BY
clause along with the timestamp column in descending order.

SELECT *

FROM table_name

ORDER BY timestamp_column DESC;

76. How will you find the IDs or details where there have been no
entries in terms of sales?

To find the IDs or details where there have been no entries in terms of sales, we
can use the LEFT JOIN or NOT EXISTS clause.

Assume we have two tables: ‘product’ with product details and ‘sales’ with sales
data.

Left Joins:

SELECT p.product_id, p.product_name

FROM product p

LEFT JOIN sales s ON p.product_id = s.product_id

WHERE s.product_id IS NULL;

Here, the WHERE s.product_id is NULL condition helps us filter out the rows
where a match in the sales table is not found.

Not Exists:

SELECT p.product_id, p.product_name

FROM products p

WHERE NOT EXISTS (

SELECT 1

FROM sales s

WHERE s.product_id = p.product_id

);

77. Suppose there is a database where information about the

employees in various verticals is stored. Your task is to find the
average salary of each vertical and the highest salary among the
lot.

To find the average salary of each vertical and the highest salary among the
employees, we can use the group by clause along with the aggregate functions
(AVG and MAX).

SELECT vertical,

AVG(salary) AS average_salary,
MAX(salary) AS highest_salary

FROM employees

GROUP BY vertical;

Where,

vertical: column that you want to group

salary: column in the table
employees: table name

78. Given data where store inventory is stored, your task is to find
the top 3 products in each category in terms of prices.

To find the top 3 products in each category in terms of price, we can group by
clause along with the aggregate function (MAX) with the price column and set
the limit as 3 in descending order.

SELECT category,

product_name,

MAX(price) AS max_price

FROM inventory
GROUP BY category, product_name

ORDER BY category, max_price DESC

LIMIT 3;

79. Write an SQL query to find the month-on-month sales of a

specific product in a store.

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To calculate the month-on-month sales of a specific product in a store, we can

use a combination of date functions and aggregate functions.

SELECT EXTRACT(YEAR_MONTH FROM sale_date) AS year_month,

SUM(quantity_sold) AS total_sales

FROM sales
WHERE product_id = 'your_product_id'

GROUP BY year_month

ORDER BY year_month;

80. Suppose in an organization, employees are mapped under

managers. Write a SQL query that will fetch you the managers
and employees working under them.

To fetch the managers and employees working under them, we can use a self-
join to fetch the managers and the employees working under them.

SELECT M.manager_id AS manager_id,

M.manager_name AS manager_name,

E.employee_id AS employee_id,

E.employee_name AS employee_name

FROM employees E
JOIN employees M ON E.manager_id = M.employee_id

ORDER BY M.manager_id, E.employee_id;

81. In a store inventory, your task is to fetch the total quantity of

the top product purchased by the customers.

To fetch the total quantity of the top product purchased by the customers, we
can use a group by clause along with the limit in descending order.

SELECT product_id,

SUM(quantity_purchased) AS total_quantity_purchased
FROM purchases

GROUP BY product_id

ORDER BY total_quantity_purchased DESC

LIMIT 1;

82. Given a Supervision table with employee_id and manager_id,

write a query to detect if there is a cycle in the reporting
hierarchy.

WITH RECURSIVE Hierarchy

WITH RECURSIVE Hierarchy AS (

SELECT employee_id, manager_id, employee_id AS root

FROM Supervision
UNION ALL

SELECT H.employee_id, S.manager_id, H.root

FROM Hierarchy H

JOIN Supervision S ON H.manager_id = S.employee_id

WHERE H.root <> S.manager_id

SELECT root

FROM Hierarchy

GROUP BY root
HAVING COUNT(DISTINCT manager_id) <> COUNT(manager_id);

83. You need to create a materialized view to store the monthly

total sales by product for faster reporting. Write the SQL to
create this view.

CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW mv_monthly_sales AS

SELECT
product_id,

YEAR(sale_date) AS year,

MONTH(sale_date) AS month,

SUM(sale_amount) AS total_sales

FROM sales_fact
GROUP BY product_id, YEAR(sale_date), MONTH(sale_date);

84. Write a query that detects missing dates in a sequence from

a sales table. The sales table contains sale_date and
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sale_amount, and you need to find any missing dates between

the earliest and latest sales dates.

WITH DateSeries AS (

SELECT MIN(sale_date) AS start_date, MAX(sale_date) AS end_date

FROM sales

)
SELECT DATE_ADD(start_date, INTERVAL seq DAY) AS missing_date

FROM DateSeries,

(SELECT @rownum := @rownum + 1 AS seq

FROM sales,
(SELECT @rownum := 0) AS r) AS seq_numbers

WHERE DATE_ADD(start_date, INTERVAL seq DAY) <= end_date

AND DATE_ADD(start_date, INTERVAL seq DAY) NOT IN (SELECT sale_date

FROM sales)
ORDER BY missing_date;

85. You have an order table with millions of rows and you
frequently run a query that filters it by customer_id, order_date,
and status. What indexes would you create to optimize this
query, and why?

We need to create a composite index on columns that are frequently used for
filtering

CREATE INDEX idx_orders_customer_date_status

ON orders (customer_id, order_date, status);

86. Write a query using a Common Table Expression (CTE) to

rank customers by total purchase amount and return the top 10
customers.

WITH RankedCustomers AS (

SELECT customer_id, SUM(purchase_amount) AS total_spent,

RANK() OVER (ORDER BY SUM(purchase_amount) DESC) AS rank

FROM orders
GROUP BY customer_id

SELECT customer_id, total_spent

FROM RankedCustomers
WHERE rank <= 10;

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87. Write an UPDATE query to set the total_sales to the sum of

individual sales amounts for each employee in the employee
table.

UPDATE Intellipaat_Emp e

SET total_sales = (

SELECT SUM(sale_amount)

FROM sales s
WHERE s.employee_id = e.employee_id

WHERE EXISTS (

SELECT 1
FROM sales s

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WHERE s.employee_id = e.employee_id

);

88. Can you identify the employee who has the third-highest
salary from the given employee table (with salary-related data)?

Consider the following employee table. In the table, Sabid has the third-highest
salary (60,000).

Name Salary

Tarun 70,000

Sabid 60,000

Adarsh 30,000

Vaibhav 80,000

Below is a simple query to find out which employee has the third-highest salary.
The functions RANK, DENSE RANK, and ROW NUMBER are used to obtain the
increasing integer value by imposing the ORDER BY clause in the SELECT
statement, based on the ordering of the rows. The ORDER BY clause is
necessary when the RANK, DENSE RANK, or ROW NUMBER functions are used.
On the other hand, the PARTITION BY clause is optional.

WITH CTE AS

SELECT Name, Salary, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY Salary DESC) AS RN

FROM EMPLOYEE
)

SELECT Name, Salary

FROM CTE

WHERE RN = 3;

89. Create tables- Customer details and Product details.

Fig. 1.1

Fig. 1.2

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So, based on these two tables, let’s look into some of the questions related to
SQL JOINS and queries.

90. Get customer name and product name order by first name
from

SELECT a.first_name,b.Product_name

FROM [customer] A

INNER JOIN [product] B

ON A.customer_id = B.customer_id

ORDER BY a.first_name

91. Get the customer name, and product name order by first
name from

SELECT a.first_name, b.Product_name FROM [customer] A

LEFT OUTER JOIN [Product] B

ON A.customer_id = B.customer_id

ORDER BY a.first_name

92. Get the Customer name and product name order by firstname
from

SELECT a.First_Name, ISNULL(b.Product_name,'-No Project Assigned')

FROM customer A LEFT OUTER JOIN product B

ON A.customer_id = B.customer_id ORDER BY a.first_name

93. Get all product names even if they have not matched any
customer ID, in the left table, order by first name from

SELECT a.first_name,b.Product_name

FROM [customer] A RIGHT OUTER JOIN [product] B

ON a.customer_id = b.customer_id ORDER BY a.first_name

94. Get the complete record(Customer name, product name)

from both tables([CustomerDetail],[ProductDetail]), if no match is
found in any table then show NULL.

SELECT a.first_name,b.Product_name FROM [customer] A

FULL OUTER JOIN [product] B

ON a.customer_id = b.customer_id
ORDER BY a.first_name

95. Write a query to find out the Customer name who has not
been assigned any product, and display

SELECT a.first_name, ISNULL(b.Product_name,'-No Project Assigned')

AS [Product]

FROM [customer] A
LEFT OUTER JOIN [product] B

ON a.customer_id = b.customer_id

WHERE b.Product_name IS NULL

96. Write a query to find out the product name that is not
assigned to any employee( tables:- [CustomerDetail],
[ProductDetail]).

SELECT b.Product_name FROM [customer] A

RIGHT OUTER JOIN [product] B

ON a.customer_id = b.customer_id

WHERE a.first_name IS NULL

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97. Write down the query to fetch CustomerName & Product who
has assigned more than one project.

Select c.customer_id, c.first_name, p.Product_name from [customer]

c INNER JOIN [product] P

ON c.customer_id = p.customer_id

WHERE c.customer_id IN
(SELECT customer_id FROM [product] GROUP BY customer_id HAVING

COUNT(*)

>1 )

*The output will not come as there is no duplicate record in the product table.

98. Write down the query to fetch ProductName on which more

than one customer is working along with CustomerName.

Select P.Product_name, c.first_name from product P INNER JOIN

customer c

on p.customer_id = c.customer_id

where P.Product_name in(select Product_name from product group by

Product_name having COUNT(1)>1)

*The output will not come as there is no duplicate record in the product table.

99. What is DESC in SQL?

In SQL DESC stands for descending. It is used to sort records in descending

order i.e highest to lowest. It is usually clubbed with the ORDER BY clause to
sort records. Here is an example for the same:

SELECT * FROM employees ORDER BY salary DESC;

100. What is schema in SQL?

In SQL, schema can be termed as a structure that group tables, views,

databases, stored procedures altogether. Using schema prevents conflict and
allows two same names to exist parallely divided by schema. Here is an
example for the same:

CREATE SCHEMA sales;

CREATE TABLE sales.orders (

order_id INT,

order_date DATE

);

101. Can we rollback DELETE?

Yes, after using the DELETE command you can rollback if you are using the
TRANSACTION command. DELETE is a DML command, so when you rollback all
the transactions are undone and the records are restored. Here is an example
for the same:

BEGIN TRANSACTION;

DELETE FROM employees

WHERE employee_id = 101;

ROLLBACK;

102. How to find duplicate records in SQL?

To find duplicate records, we can use a combination of GROUP BY and HAVING

clause to check the count of records. Whenever the COUNT is greater than 1, it
is a duplicate record. Here is an example for the same:

SELECT name, email, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY name, email

HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

103. What is pivot in SQL?

The PIVOT command is used to summarise the data. It basically converts rows
into columns that helps in better analysis. Lets understand this using an
example:

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1/17/25, 11:44 PM Top 100+ SQL Interview Questions and Answers for 2025

Input Data:

Product Year Sales

A 2022 100

B 2022 150

A 2023 200

B 2023 250

Question: FInd the sales of Product A and B in 2022 and 2023

Output Data:

Product sales_2022 sales_2023

A 100 200

B 150 250

Query Used:

SELECT product, [2022] AS sales_2022, [2023] AS sales_2023

FROM (

SELECT product, year, sales

FROM sales
) AS SourceTable

PIVOT (

SUM(sales)

FOR year IN ([2022], [2023])

) AS PivotTable;

104. What is a dynamic SQL query?

A Dynamic SQL query is a technique in SQL wherein the query is built during
runtime giving dynamic inputs in the query. This makes the query flexible
enough to create multiple use cases using the same query. Here is an example
of the same:

DECLARE @tableName NVARCHAR(50) = 'employees';

DECLARE @query NVARCHAR(MAX);

SET @query = 'SELECT * FROM ' + @tableName + ' WHERE department =

''HR''';

EXEC(@query);

Conclusion:

In conclusion, we covered the top 100+ SQL interview questions and answers in
this article that help you prepare and crack SQL jobs. We focused on covering
essential concepts of SQL, like the basics of SQL queries, joins, subqueries,
indexing, and performance optimization. Whether you are a beginner or an
expert, understanding these topics will help you confidently handle SQL
interviews.

If you want to know how data analysis helps in real-world applications and
advance your skills further, consider exploring a data analytics course to gain
comprehensive knowledge and hands-on experience.

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Download the PDF of SQL Grouping, inbuilt, subquery, views, and temp table
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Download the PDF for SQL Exception Handling Index, Pivot, Transactions
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About the Author

Kishore Kumar
Vice President

With an MBA in Finance and over 17 years in financial services, Kishore

Kumar has expertise in corporate finance, mergers, acquisitions, and capital
markets. Notable roles include tenure at JPMorgan, Nomura, and BNP
Paribas. He is recognised for his commitment, professionalism, and
leadership in work.

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