Departments paid above the company average — interview question

Table:

SQL

CREATE TABLE employees (id int PRIMARY KEY, name text NOT NULL, dept text NOT NULL, salary int NOT NULL);

List the departments whose average salary is strictly greater than the average salary of the whole company. Return one column dept, sorted alphabetically.

Input and output

Output: One department per row.

Examples

Input 1

CREATE TABLE employees (id int PRIMARY KEY, name text NOT NULL, dept text NOT NULL, salary int NOT NULL);
INSERT INTO employees VALUES (1,'A','Eng',100),(2,'B','Eng',80),(3,'C','Sales',50),(4,'D','Sales',60),(5,'E','HR',40);

Output

Eng

Company average 66.

Input 2

CREATE TABLE employees (id int PRIMARY KEY, name text NOT NULL, dept text NOT NULL, salary int NOT NULL);
INSERT INTO employees VALUES (1,'A','Eng',70),(2,'B','Ops',90);

Output

Ops

Average 80.

Show hints

Filtering on an aggregate needs HAVING, not WHERE.

Show the explanation

Group by department and keep groups whose AVG(salary) exceeds a scalar subquery computing the company-wide AVG(salary). WHERE filters rows before grouping, so a condition on an aggregate must go in HAVING. Note the company average is over employees, not an average of department averages.

Original UniCircle question. Last reviewed 21 Oct 2026.