Write a query to find employees hired between two specific dates

Great! Let’s now extend the previous example to include a query that finds employees hired between two specific dates, and I’ll explain every step in detail — including creating the table, inserting dummy data, and writing the SQL query with output.

Task:

Write a query to find employees hired between two specific dates.

Step 1: Create the employees table

CREATE TABLE employees (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(100),
    department VARCHAR(50),
    salary DECIMAL(10,2),
    hire_date DATE
);

Step 2: Insert Dummy Data

INSERT INTO employees (id, name, department, salary, hire_date) VALUES
(1, 'John Smith', 'HR', 50000.00, '2020-01-15'),
(2, 'Alice Johnson', 'Engineering', 75000.00, '2019-03-22'),
(3, 'Bob Lee', 'Sales', 62000.00, '2021-07-10'),
(4, 'Mary Jane', 'Engineering', 80000.00, '2018-11-05'),
(5, 'Tom Hardy', 'Marketing', 55000.00, '2022-06-01');

Step 3: Write the Query to Filter by Date Range

Suppose we want to find all employees hired between '2019-01-01' and '2021-12-31', then we use the BETWEEN operator on the hire_date column:

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE hire_date BETWEEN '2019-01-01' AND '2021-12-31';

Explanation:

• BETWEEN is inclusive, so it includes employees hired on the start and end dates.
• This query returns employees whose hire_date is between 2019-01-01 and 2021-12-31.

Step 4: Expected Output

Bonus: Use >= and <= Instead of BETWEEN

Alternatively, you can write:

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE hire_date >= '2019-01-01' AND hire_date <= '2021-12-31';

It gives the same result as BETWEEN.

Summary