It's because they have a database on the back end and you need to be able to write "SELECT * FROM [foo]" to get data. I'd actually be really pissed if a compan

It's because they have a database on the back end and you need to be able to write "SELECT * FROM [foo]" to get data. I'd actually be really pissed if a company asked me to write a query like "count these orders by month in a single row" not because I couldn't do it but because I'm confident I'd screw up the syntax a couple of times. I think they should ask more conceptual questions around set theory or storage structure, epsecially since they all want "SQL, SQL Server, Oracle, Postgres, etc". Nobody can stay on top of all the platform specifics, but someone who knows their stuff can answer the udnerlying problems.