Turning ChatGPT into a SQL Interview Trainer

A few days back, I was deep into interview prep mode looking for advanced SQL problems that felt relevant to real-world applications. But no matter how much I searched, most of the problems I found were either too basic or lacked industry flavor.

So, I thought: Why not flip the game? Why not make ChatGPT my personal SQL trainer?

The Prompt That Changed Everything

After multiple trial-and-error attempts, I finally crafted a simple yet powerful prompt:

Hi GPT, consider yourself an SQL interview trainer! Ask me 500 queries one by one. I will try to answer. If not, give me the answer. Make sure all queries are advanced and reflect industry use cases. Also, give me the schema (tables) for each query. Format:

1. Table 1
2. Table 2 ...

Query?

Tag: (Concepts neededto Solve the Query.)

Sounds simple, right?

But what blew my mind was how GPT responded!

Query 1: A Real Interview-Worthy Question

Take a look at the very first query it threw at me:

Retrieve the second highest salary in each department, along with the employee name and department name.

And here’s the schema GPT gave:

Tag:

Window Functions, DENSE_RANK, JOIN

Why I Loved This Format

1. Structured - Schema + Query + Tags made it feel like a real interview round.
2. Progressive Difficulty - The questions got more nuanced over time.
3. No Googling Needed - I could solve, verify, and learn all in one flow.
4. Industry Relevance - The problems weren’t just textbook; they mirrored real data scenarios.

Try It Yourself

If you're prepping for SQL-heavy roles or just want to sharpen your chops:

Use the same prompt, and let GPT turn into your mentor.

You don’t need a fancy platform. You just need a powerful prompt and the curiosity to keep going.

Let me know if you want me to share more queries from this challenge! I’m just getting started.

🗝️Pro tip:

Tweak your prompt to make GPT generate the table creation and data insert queries for you — saves a ton of time during practice!

If you enjoyed this one, feel free to check out my deep dives on HyperLogLog, Change Data Capture, or Bloom Filters. More to come soon!

See you in the next one. byee...!!

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