SQL Last Six Months Joins | Dataford Interview Questions

The Lasalle Network needs a current list of employees who joined within the six months before the query runs. Write a PostgreSQL query that uses the employee hire_date and includes department information when available.

Requirements

Return employees whose hire_date is within the previous six calendar months, including the boundary date and excluding future dates.
Include employees even when their department is missing or their department record is unmatched.
Return the employee ID, name, hire date, department name, and employment status, ordered from newest hire to oldest hire.

For the sample data, assume the query runs on 2026-08-29. In production, use PostgreSQL's CURRENT_DATE.

Schema

employees

Column	Type	Description
employee_idPK	INT	Unique employee identifier
employee_name	VARCHAR(100)	Employee's full name
hire_date	DATE	Date the employee joined The Lasalle Network
department_id	INT	Associated department identifier
employment_status	VARCHAR(20)	Current employment status

departments

Column	Type	Description
department_idPK	INT	Unique department identifier
department_name	VARCHAR(100)	Department name

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Problem