My First Microsoft Interview

For the Great Recruiting Blogswap Week 4, we welcome guestblogger Tod Hilton of the blog Dirty Dog Stink.  Thanks for dropping in, Tod!

A quick little intro for those of you tuning in to the Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap … My name is Tod Hilton  and I will be your host for this post. What I am: a software developer at Microsoft and a bunch of other things [father, husband, gamer, snowboarder, etc.]. What I’m not: a recruiter or hiring manager, although I do interview candidates and give the infamous ‘hire’ or ‘no-hire’ recommendation.

I was reading through Claudia's First Impressions category and it brought back memories of my first interview at Microsoft [yes, there was more than one before I was hired :-)].  I figured why not contribute to this group of interesting, anecdotal stories with my own experience.

I have worked at Microsoft since October 1999, but the first couple of years was as a vendor (with Compaq) doing system engineering work in their internet and corporate data center environments.  In March 2001 Microsoft decided to discontinue some of their contracts with Compaq and brought several of the functions in-house as full-time positions. I decided to stay with Compaq at the time and moved to a different position, still as a vendor with Microsoft. In November 2001 we found out that the remaining Compaq vendor positions would also be brought in-house by Microsoft.  Reality kicked in and I decided to jump off the Compaq ship and interview for a position at Microsoft.

To be fair, this was an unusual situation and not the normal Microsoft interview process.  Because they were in-sourcing more than 30 positions the hiring group knew they had to be efficient in the screening process.  Obviously they would be interested in people already doing the job (experience and historical knowledge can count for a lot), but that also wasn’t a guaranty that the candidate would be offered a position.  They were on a schedule with a deadline and needed to be efficient, so they set up a weekend of marathon interviewing for those of us working with Compaq and interested in the Microsoft positions.  You were scheduled for all day Saturday or Sunday and would meet with 4-6 interviewers during the day.  Here’s how the day went…

I showed up at the Microsoft office building about the same time as 3 or 4 of my fellow Compaq-ites. There wasn’t anyone waiting for us in the lobby so we just went in [we had access due to our vendor badges], sat down and waited.  I don’t think it was very long before someone came along and asked us to follow them.  They then led us through a winding path of empty offices, kitchenettes and lounges to an area with a dozen or more vacant offices.  Each one of us was asked to sit in an office [alone] and wait for a recruiter to come speak with us. 

I must have waited a good 20-30 minutes before the recruiter came by and told me how things would work for the day.  I would stay in this office and the interviewers would rotate every hour, which meant that I would have a new interviewer coming in each hour until the day was over.  They would provide a box lunch and I would be given some time to eat in my assigned office.  I could go to the bathroom, but I was not supposed to talk with anyone else I saw in the halls [yeah, right].  Sounds a bit militaristic doesn’t it?  Well, it was.  The day was pretty long and boring with lots of time spent waiting alone in my office for the interviewers.  After my 4th [I believe] interview I waited for at least another 30-45 minutes before the recruiter came in and said I could leave.

What did I take away from this process?  I was none too impressed and from my viewpoint [that of a candidate] it was insensitive, boring, impersonal, overbearing, militaristic, elitist and altogether unimpressive.  Although it was organized and they accomplished their goal of interviewing several candidates at once it made the whole process seem impersonal.  I felt like a piece of meat being pushed through a system of beltways and machines with the sole intent of making it out the other side whole.

So why did I come back for more and continue interviewing at Microsoft?  Well, from speaking with friends inside I knew this was not a true representation of the company’s attitude towards candidates.  It was truly a one-off situation that they were just trying to get through.  My subsequent interviews for specific positions were handled much more professionally and I am very happy to be where I am today.

~tod 

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Comments

[Lee]

Thanks for this post. Many questions and answers that help in technical interview preparation can be found at http://www.technical-interview.com