How to get second-highest salary employees in a table

Question

It\'s a question I got this afternoon:

There a table contains ID, Name, and Salary of Employees, get names of the second-highest salary employees, in SQL Server

Answer 1

Select * from employee where salary = (Select max(salary) from employee where salary not in(Select max(salary)from employee))

Explanation :

• Query 1 : Select max(salary) from employee where salary not in(Select max(salary) from employee) - This query will retrieve second highest salary

• Query 2 : Select * from employee where salary=(Query 1) - This query will retrieve all the records having second highest salary(Second highest salary may have multiple records)