Your question is Translate VLOOKUP to SQL Joins. Take a moment with it on the right.
Talk me through your thinking if you like. When you're confident, submit your answer and I'll grade it like a real screen (7/10 or better passes).
Financial analysts at Relias often move from Excel-based lookup workflows into SQL-based reporting. A strong answer should show that you understand both what VLOOKUP does and how to reproduce that logic in PostgreSQL.
Walk through a VLOOKUP function and explain how you would translate it into SQL. In your answer, cover:
Keep the explanation practical rather than academic. The interviewer is looking for a clear mapping from spreadsheet logic to SQL joins, plus awareness of common issues like unmatched keys, duplicate matches, and returning a default value when no match exists.