Employee Tenure in Years and Months
Calculate each employee’s completed tenure in years and months as of 2025-01-01.
- Subqueries
- CASE expressions
- Date analysis
- Numeric functions
- Type conversion
Interview brief
Understand the request
People analytics partner A tenure report needs completed years plus remaining completed months as of a fixed date.
A tenure report needs completed years plus remaining completed months as of a fixed date. Calculate each employee’s completed tenure in years and months as of 2025-01-01.
Constraints
- Adjust total months when the day-of-month anniversary has not occurred.
- Use the fixed reference date.
- Order by years, months, then employee_id.
Data you will use
Review the relevant tables before deciding how to join, filter, or aggregate them.
employees
employee_idINTEGERfirst_nameTEXTlast_nameTEXThire_dateDATE
Hints, when you need them
Open one clue at a time so you still do the reasoning.
Hint 1
Compute total months first: (ref_year − hire_year)*12 + (ref_month − hire_month).
Hint 2
years = total_months / 12 (integer division); months = total_months % 12.
Hint 3
Anchor to a fixed reference date so the result never drifts.
Verified SQL answer
Attempt the problem first, then compare structure and reasoning—not just syntax.
Reveal solution and explanation
WITH tenure AS (SELECT employee_id, first_name, last_name, hire_date, (CAST(strftime('%Y', '2025-01-01') AS INTEGER) - CAST(strftime('%Y', hire_date) AS INTEGER)) * 12 + (CAST(strftime('%m', '2025-01-01') AS INTEGER) - CAST(strftime('%m', hire_date) AS INTEGER)) - CASE WHEN CAST(strftime('%d', '2025-01-01') AS INTEGER) < CAST(strftime('%d', hire_date) AS INTEGER) THEN 1 ELSE 0 END AS completed_months FROM employees) SELECT employee_id, first_name, last_name, hire_date, completed_months / 12 AS years, completed_months % 12 AS months FROM tenure ORDER BY years DESC, months DESC, employee_id;Why this works
'X years Y months' is the human-friendly tenure format. The trick is to compute a single total-months figure, then split it with integer division (/12) and modulo (%12). MySQL and SQL Server can shortcut total months with TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, …) / DATEDIFF(MONTH, …); Postgres uses AGE.
Success check
The year/month decomposition is anniversary-aware and never drifts with the current date.
Expected result
Use this output to verify values, aliases, ordering, and row count.
| employee_id | first_name | last_name | hire_date | years | months |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emma | Taylor | 2020-03-15 | 4 | 9 |
| 2 | Michael | Anderson | 2021-06-20 | 3 | 6 |
| 3 | Sarah | Martinez | 2022-01-10 | 2 | 11 |
| 4 | James | Wilson | 2023-09-05 | 1 | 3 |
| 5 | Lisa | Garcia | 2024-02-28 | 0 | 10 |
Learn the concepts behind this answer
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