Jamie, Microsoft Recruiter

Everyone who comes to Microsoft has a story.  How did the conversation with Microsoft start?  How did the process go?  How do they feel now?

 

Here's my story:

Several years ago I had a dream that I got in a great big line of people for the opportunity to meet Bill Gates.  I stood in line for hours and when I went to shake his hand, he offered me a job.  The dream seemed obscure at the time, but to this day I can remember every detail.  So imagine my surprise when a friend of mine sent me an email in March of 2005 and asked me if I had ever considered working for Microsoft.  The dream instantly flashed into my head.  I explained to her that I thought it would be a tremendous honor to work for Microsoft, but based on where I live (three hours from Silicon Valley), I never thought it was a possibility.  She explained that they were looking for contract recruiters and would consider a telecommute position for the right person.  I eagerly accpeted the opportunity to learn more.

 

While I was excited, I was also nervous- this was MICROSOFT.  I have worked at big companies- Cisco, Intel and others, but I felt like Microsoft would be the gold ring.  I prepped harder for my first phone screen than I ever had for any interview.  Yes, recruiters get nervous just like any other candidate.  In fact, maybe more so.  When you interview people for a living, there's an added element of anxiety when you're ability to interview and find talent is being evaulated.  However, the process ran very smoothly.  Everyone I talked to was open and positive.  At the end of every meeting, I got more excited and more scared.  With every interview, my heart was more invested and I would have been more dissappointed not to be selected.  Although I love a suspenseful story- you all can guess the outcome, I was offered the contract position.

 

On my first trip in Redmond, I asked my manager, Jenna Adorno (learn more about her under my friends) what she thought the odds were of me being converted to full time. She said, if you work hard and are successful, you will always find opportunities at Microsoft.  So I did just that- I worked hard, although secretly it never felt like work, because I truly love what I do.  My hard work paid off and I became a full time employee in March of 2006.

 

I can honestly say joining Microsoft was the best decision I ever made.  I have never been happier in a job.  Companies provide candidates with a lot of soundbites to make them join, we've all heard them - work-life balance, great benefits, huge career development potential.  I have personally experienced all of this at Microsoft.  I will be at Microsoft for a very long time, I can't imagine being happier anywhere else.

 

What will your Microsoft story be?

The goals of the Microsoft interview process are for us to get to know you and for you to get to know us. We pride ourselves on an in-depth experience that allows that to happen.

To prepare for the interviews, you’ll want to brush up on your programming skills, including algorithms and data structures. You can expect that you’ll be asked to write code on a white board during your interview.  Be sure to test it before you say you’re done!  Beyond practical questions, we want to learn more about how you think. When questions are ambiguous, you should ask for clarification. And for any situation, you should be able to put yourself in the position of the customer—how would you expect this product to work?  The best advice anyone can give you is to answer a question or solve a problem as you would at work; Make sure you understand it, ponder possible solutions, select a course and see it through to conclusion.

During your interview day, you can expect to meet with three-six people for one hour apiece, so be sure to get a good night’s sleep—it’s an exhausting day!  Bring your questions as well—what do you want to learn about the position, development at Microsoft and the company in general.  Your interviews will be with other SDEs and Managers, so you’ll have the chance to have those issues addressed by the people doing the job. By the end of the day, we want to make sure that you’ve had a chance to learn what you need to know.

Our utmost hope is to see your best possible interview day and the following sheet will attempt to put some context around the way Microsoft interviews and what factors are most important to our decision.

Interview will usually be divided into three parts;

1. 1)      An exploration of your past experience
2. 2)      Problem solving exercises
3. 3)      Your chance to ask questions

The single most critical thing to remember is that Microsoft prides itself on its ability to ‘behaviorally interview’ as opposed to ‘functionally interview’. Questions will seem arbitrary or unclear and the expectation for you is not to recall the answer from memory, but rather to clarify it, discuss various ways to solve it, select a solution and then implement it with an eye for quality.  We believe strongly that the behaviors you display while attempting to work your way through a problem in an interview is the truest indicator of how you handle problem solving on the job.

 

Tips for success

1. 1)      Do not make assumptions about constraints of a problem.  The interviewer nearly always has additional information for a candidate but the candidate needs to ask for it.  Which clarifying questions a candidate chooses to ask can be very enlightening to their level of expertise in a given are
2. 2)      Be sure to discuss the design phase.  Candidates are encouraged to “think out loud” when contemplating design choices. Even if you think you are 100% on what is the best route to solve a problem it is very enlightening for an interviewer to see that a candidate knows a number of ways to solve a problem and can hold a discussion about the pros and cons of each.  Often time a candidate internalizes their design thoughts and then settles on one they share with the interviewer… in this case the interviewer can be left thinking this is the only way a candidate knows how to do something.  Design discussions should be open and fairly far reaching and utilize the information gained from clarifying the problem.
3. 3)      Avoid overly complex solutions. Simplest working solution and then test for edge cases should be your guiding principle. Candidates tend to want to ‘show what they can do’ on a fairly straightforward problem and end up building in unnecessary complexity.  The ideal first pass gets 90% of the problem and then the last 10% is found in testing/feedback and appropriate changes are made in a componentized manner.
4. 4)      Demonstrate your passion for quality. This counts for both coding and operational problems.  Some candidates choose the right design and then do a bare bones implementation with minimal testing/feedback.  We acknowledge that choosing a design and solving the big problem is difficult and testing can be monotonous; but we feel strongly people who are passionate about the quality of their work will demonstrate that passion in an interview setting.   Being creative about test cases and truly caring if your solution will work are extremely important.